Human Dignity

In the 18th and 19th centuries Slavery was a huge part of american Society. Both sides that were against and for slavery had strong arguments supporting their position on the topic. Much controversy and many arguments were caused because of slavery because while some didn't see it, it took away a slave's freedom, but also their dignity, and individuality. While slavery clearly wasn't moral it was a huge part of the American economy, and was responsible for 2.28 billion pounds of cotton, 57% of the nations export revenue by 1860. Because of this slavery quickly became entrenched in America. While covering this topic in class we looked at articles of the constitution, and maps of the growth of slavery in america, as well as researching important figures of this time period and watching a movie about the life of a slave, to help us answer our essential questions for this lesson.

Slavery was constantly increasing and become more and more necessary to the Country's economy during the 19th century. By looking at maps of this increase of both slave population and cotton production on a website called Mapping history, it is clear that the number of slaves in america directly correlated with the amount of cotton being produced. While cotton was insignificant in 1790 and only 1.5 million pounds were produced, and the slave population was only around 690,000, the amount of cotton produced increased greatly to an astonishing 2.28 billion with a slave population of 3.95 million. A main reason for this increase was because of Eli Whitney's invention of the Cotton Gin, a machine that separated the seeds from the raw cotton, and made the cotton production process significantly quicker. This invention caused the price and number of slaves to increase. While it is clear that slavery was a huge part of the country's economy it was also part of the American Government. Many parts of the constitution regarded slaves and their rights. In Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3  of the Constitution it states,  "No person held to service in on estate, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party whom such service or labour may be due." this article is saying that if a slave escapes from a slave state to a state that prohibits slavery, they are not free of their owner, but they must return to them.

Not only did this slavery based system effect both the Economy and the government, but also human dignity, and it ignores human characteristics such as individualism, pride, and freedom. The system of slavery destroyed human dignity and many other  human characteristics by treated the slaves as though they were property and not people. While some noticed that this was wrong and did what they could to stop slavery, some people, like George Fitzhugh believed that slavery was necessary for society. Fitzhugh states in his book Canniblas All, "The negro slaves of the south are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessities of life provided for them." What Fitzhugh is saying proves how slavery ruins human dignity because the slaves aren't allowed to live on their own and they have everything handed to them as though they wouldn't be capable of doing it themselves. As well as loosing their dignity slaves also lost their humans characteristics, because by entry this system of slavery one completely lost their individuality, and were no longer treated like humans. one specific example of this is in the movie, prince among Slaves, which we watched in class, when prince Abdul Rhaman was captured into slavery and had it long hair cut short, so that he would be like all the other slaves, destroying his symbol of his high rank in his country, and therefor ruining his pride, and individual identity. Slavery completely took away a person dignity because they were forced into a system  that they had no individual identity.