Violence In Slavery Research Paper

Slavery was an institution that lasted in the America for over 200 years. To keep people in slavery the slave owners and slave trades used many methods to keep people in slavery and some of those methods were the use of violence and religion. The use of violence and religion and violence were important methods that were sometimes used together or separately to keep people in slavery. Slave masters and traders used religion to keep the slaves thinking that their situation was ordained, that slavery was something that not only God approved of but if they work hard and were obedient that they would be reward in heaven. And they used violence to punish and scare the slave into submission. 12 Years a Slave is book for the perspective for someone,
Solomon Northup, who was a slave. The book gives us an insight of his journey of how he became a slave, why he stayed in slaves, and how talked about the slaves he meets and what they went through. In the book 12 Years a Slave we see how religion and violence worked together to keep slaves in chains. In the beginning of the book Solomon tries to find work so that he can provide for his family. Even though he is a free man living in the north, he still had trouble being accepted and finding work. He even stated in the book “I came not to the conclusion, even once, that the southern slave, fed, clothed, whipped and protected by his master, is happier than the free colored citizen of the North” (Northup pg 121). When two white men who were acquaintance of his acquaintance came to offer, him work he accepted. However, these men tricked him and sold into slavery. This where we start to see how violence is used to keep people in slavery for challenging the slave master or the slave trader. Solomon (Platt) who was a freed, educated man, when he first found out that he was going to sold into slavery he protested, he tried to tell the slave trader Burch that he was a free man, and that he did not belong to anyone. However, his claim was meet with violence. This begins his journey though slavery and the violence he would witness and go through himself.
Throughout the history of slavery in the west, they have used some sort of violence to keep people in slavery.
Slaves masters would use violence to not only keep the slaves in line but to motive them to work harder. Violence did not only effect the slaves physically it affected them psychologically. Slave masters would use all sort of methods to break slaves to make them more submissive. Slaves would have to witness others slaves get beaten to frighten other slaves for committing the same offence as the slave being beaten. Slaves would have watched as their family member and/or other slaves’ family member be separated like in the book where Eliza was torn away from her children. In the book Solomon mentions that after Eliza’s children were taken away from her how she became “shell of a woman she once was”. Some slaves if they were female had to live in fear of being raped by the slave master. We see this in the beginning of the book with Eliza’s daughter who was not sold with her mother because Theophilus Freeman want to keep her until she was presumably of child bearing age and to sell her to the highest bidder where she would likely be raped. In the book, we also see where Patsy is repeatedly raped by Master Epps and not only did she suffer from the rapes. Not only did Patsy had to endure though Master Ford raping her she also had to deal with the jealousy of the Epps’s wife. Having living in that sort of environment, would have the slaves too terrified to disobey. Even though violence kept slaves to afraid to go against their slave master, slave masters us religion as well to keep slaves in
chains.
The use of religion to keep slaves in chains. It kept them from defying the slave master and the slave intuition. Slave were taught and were brought up to believing that the bible supported slavery. And in some parts in the bible it does support slavery. Slave owners would use passages in the bible like Ephesians 6:5 which say “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ,”, and passages like Titus 2:9-10 that says “Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” to keep slavery docile. Religion did not only help the slave owners to have control over the slave, it also helped the slaves deal with slavery and the harshness of it. In the book 12 Years a Slaves we see how Master Ford, who was a Baptist preacher, would gather his slaves on the Sabbath and quote scriptures, where it supported slavery.
Though religion kept people who were in slave submissive it was the violence that ultimately kept a large majority for rebelling, and to obey their masters. We see violence used since the being of slavery to keep people who were going to be sold into slavery or who were already in slavery in line. In history, we can see that whenever there was a slave rebellion, man slave would lose their lives. The slaves master did this to scare and show the other slaves what would happen to them if they also rebelled. We also see in history how slaves were punished for not being able to harvest as many crops as that their planation was growing. Even if the slaves wanted to escape slavery they would risked being caught by slave catchers, and if they did make it to freedom their families and other slaves would be punished for those slaves that escaped. In the book Solomon (Platt) tried to escaped but when he was in the woods he came a slave being hanged. With this level of violence many slaves used religion to deal with the harshness of slavery, and the cruelty of the slave master. Solomon, who was a free man, stayed in slavery because of the violence he witnessed and experienced himself. He