Summary: Cugoano

Cierra Keith
18 January 2016

HIST 1103-523 ONLINE Spring 2016 Homework Assignment 1
Reading 1, Question 3: After about eight or nine months in the West-Indies Cugoano found himself picked to be a servant for an Englishman. Cugoano was very fortunate for this- most of his peers also taken into slavery would be sent to farms and plantations in the Americas. It was also fortunate that his master allowed him to and even supported him in his endeavor to literacy. In the Americas if slaves were found reading or even learning at all they were generally whipped and sometimes even killed. Most captors knew that literacy was a step to freedom and in their slaves’ ignorance they had some kind of protection from rebellion. Cugoano was in a different
In Africa he states that there was slavery present but it was humane in nature. Generally the African slaves were prisoners of war- well fed, treated well, and clothed. Conversely slaves in the West Indies were treated almost as though they were not humans- rarely fed, overworked, and often killed for minor infractions. Cugoano states that enslavement in Africa is essentially nothing compared to West-Indies where there is no regard to the laws of man or to that of their
By no means did this mean that they thought they deserved equal treatment- they just became more aware of the slaves ability to eventually rebel and find freedom. Upon this realization along with the evolving colonial economy- the colonists knew they must tighten their fists on slavery. This is why a newborn’s state of freedom was based on the mother- the slave-owners could create new slaves with or without the consent of the enslaved women. Slaves were not allowed to read or write as literacy was a step closer to freedom and arguably a tool for it. Finally, even conversion to Christianity would not free a slave. The colonists became more aware of the ability of the slaves to find freedom if not for these laws and with addition of pressure from the ever-changing climate