Slavery Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Slavery - Essay Example The story of Equiano demonstrates the inhumane situation of the slaves and the acceptance by slaves the white racial theories. In the middle of the XVII England has been shaken by the political crisis because of Oliver Cromwell revolution. The Putney Debates of 1647 revealed the English Revolution as an abolishment movement, a 1659 Parliamentary debate on slavery and the â€Å"free-born Englishman†, held on the eve of the restoration of Charles II and the Stuart monarchy, marked a counterrevolutionary reversal (Linebaugh, 132). The Putney Debates between Thomas Rainborough and Henry Ireton raised the questions of the struggle for the commons and struggle against slavery. Domestic wars and conflicts led to appearance of the new slavery forms in England: white slaves in Barbados, slavery in West Africa, Jamaica. Irish radicals and foes were sent by Oliver Cromwell to the Barbados, in the 1649 British merchants ordered the construction of a trading fort on the Gold Coast. The ski n color wasn’t decisive for the slavery - it was a matter of the profit for the merchants and elites. And Equiano in his autobiography gave us great example when even in the mid of the XVIII century there was an incident during the way through the ocean, when â€Å"one white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that he died in consequence of it: and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute† (Equiano, 423). The interracial co-operations were not solitary: for example, Africans and Irish conspired together in plots of 1675, 1686, 1692 and alliance between slaves and servants was what planters feared most of all (Linebaugh, 126). The slavery began to acquire the racial shade in the 1670s. The resistance of plantation workers exploded in 1675-1676 in Virginia. There were two uprisings. The first one began in 1675 and was a war for land by freedmen and small farmers a gainst Indians and a portion of the colonial ruling class in Virginia. The second one was a war against slavery, waged by servants and slaves. After rebellion the planters charged the governor with restraining â€Å"any inhumane severity which by ill masters or overseers may be used toward Christian servants† (Linebaugh, 137). And the result of this rebellion was legislation in 1682 that provided â€Å"all servants not being Christians, being imported into this country by shipping† should be servants for twelve years, instead European servants – for five years. Of course, this legislation was directed toward the Africans. The defeats of the servants and slaves that was detailed represented in the â€Å"The Many-Headed Hydra†, became the reason why the elites, nobles, â€Å"whites† began to establishing new rules that had aim to discriminate the rebels and to justify himself. From the 1670s legislation was enacted to protect and Christians, â€Å"w hite† people (Linebaugh, 139). Rulers from the England, merchants and planters dispossessed tens of thousands more in Ireland, Barbados, West Africa and Virginia and made the slavery of Atlantic capitalism (Linebaugh, 141). Indeed, the masses of cheep labour in the America and Europe created the possibility to very fast enrichments. Slaves were very good investments. The people from the lowest classes had no wealth, they had no property. The capitalists wanted to control them,