Causes Of Abolition Of Roma And African Americans

Abolition
There were many aspects that contributed to the abolition for both the Roma and African Americans. While each group was enslaved for hundreds of years, the Roma were enslaved much longer than the African Americans before the idea of abolition arose. The difference in time was affected by the motives for enslavement, the identities of the abolitionists, and the outside influences of society on abolition. Roma and African Americans were freed for similar reasons, such as morality, economics, and politics, and experienced impoverished lifestyles as outcasts in society when freed; however, unlike the Roma, African Americans participated in their abolition with more support from society and received more reparation from the government
According to Dr. Ian Hancock, “centuries of powerlessness and abuse are probably the cause of this destruction of the spirit; many Gypsies, having been born to it, probably saw their enslavement as part of the natural order of things” (Hancock, 1987; 39). Since the Roma born into slavery never experienced freedom or even witnessed another Romani person living freely, other than the Netoţi, their standards of living extended as far as their limited knowledge on the subject of freedom.6 The Netoţi are supposedly Roma who escaped slavery and lived in the Carpathian Mountains according to gadže accounts; however, there have been no actual Roma who claim to be descendants of the Netoţi. Because the Netoţi received bad reputations by stealing from travelers to survive, the Netoţi intimidated both the gadže, non- Romani people, and Romani people. With only Netoţi to serve as an example of what living freely was, the image of freedom probably did not seem as appealing to the
Morality was simply a factor that brought awareness of the problem to both societies. Instead, the deciding factors that led to freedom were economic and political. For the Roma, the Industrial Revolution was crucial to their freedom. When the “care and feeding of slaves [became] a liability rather than an asset” (Hancock, 2002; 23), there was no logical reason to own a slave as opposed to a better investing in a piece of machinery.1 Similarly, as the North became more industrialized in the United States, a large labor class was not as necessary as it was to the agricultural South. Therefore, the North, having no pecuniary benefit for slavery, was more open minded to accepting its immorality. Freed African Americans were then able to develop a voice of their own. In hindsight, the Industrial Revolution in the South included the invention of the cotton gin, which separated cotton from its seed quicker; since the processing for cotton grew more efficient, there was a greater demand for its production, thus a greater demand for slaves. 8 Despite this increased need for African American slaves, the Industrial Revolution positively impacted the progression toward abolition for both ethnicities. It was especially important for the Roma since it was solely a positive step toward their freedom unlike the African American society.
Both emancipations,