Slavery Was Considered Acceptable And Licit - 984 Words

Enslaving a person is an action that is essentially deemed unethical and criminal in many countries, including the United States. However, at one point in American history, the exploitation of slavery was considered acceptable and licit. The existence of slavery was justified by the massive positive benefits reaped by the American economy, particularly in the South from 1619 to 1851 (Horton 7). In an economy so excessively dependent on the use of slaves, the abolition of slavery created fear of severe turmoil in the South, but did not actually cause this turmoil or occur. Slaves were brought to North America antecedent to the emergence of the United States, as well as a substantial period of time prior to the delineation of authorized regulation of slavery. In 1513, Spaniards traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and arrived on the mainland of North America. Creating settlements in the new-found continent, their pursuit of finding free labor became indispensable. Throughout the decades after their discovery of North America, the Spanish shipped over thousands of both black and white people to make them profitable and productive (Winch 1). The black and whites could be considered as slaves, however, there is a prodigious divergence between the categories of these slaves, especially with the blacks. During this time period, blacks who had lived in Spain or in the Spanish Caribbean, spoke fluent Spanish, and were free were placed with more profound professions, such as soldiers,Show MoreRelatedTheology of the Body32011 Words   |  129 Pagesof creation, w hich in addition to revealing to man his freedom, allowed him to become aware of his difference from the rest of creation. He was also not God. Man is conscious that he belongs to the visible world as a body among different bodies, but he was self-consciously in search of his identity and felt alone (another sign of self-knowledge), because he was different from the rest of creation and from God. This indicates man’s original subjectivity. 3) God’s command concerning the tree of the