Module 3

Module 3
When the Africans started to be imported to the Americas they had to be looked down upon. They were not seen as humans, but as commodities. They had certain values for their skills, just like everything in Americas beginning. Because it is hard to put a price on the human life and easier to put a price on the unknown.
In America during this time he masters took all the rights away from the slaves. To do this they had to put in laws so all the common people would agree that slavery is normal and just. As in the South Carolina Slave Code; “Be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That no master, mistress, overseer, or other person whatsoever, that hath the care and charge of any negro or slave, shall give their negroes and other slaves leave, on Sundays, holidays, or any other time, to go out of their plantations.... Every slave hereafter out of his master's plantation, without a ticket, or leave in writing, from his master or mistress, or .... some white person in the company of such slave, to give an account of his business, shall be whipped” (Cooper). So what they are doing is taking all the rights away so the slave can be controlled. Also in the code is the master justifying his cruelty by making the slave as coming from “barbarous, wild, and savage natures“(Cooper).
Once the slaves started to outnumber the whites, they had to do something more than laws to keep the slaves in check. They had to make the American people truly believe that whites had better blood, and that the darker the skin, the more savage the person. This is racism and how it started in the U.S. The white people would soon begin to say and do things, even to free blacks that made them seem like they were worse just because of their color.
So the question that we have to ask is why. Why did they have to make these people seem like they weren’t fully human, even the ones that were free and had no impact on them? This is a question with many answers. One reason I think this happened is because it was easy to be mean. When a group of people can’t own guns, which is a symbol of power, then they are easy targets. Its just like nerds and bullys. When your muscles are bigger then the other guys, you beat him up and make him do your homework.
Thomas Cooper and David J. McCord, ed., Statutes at Large of South Carolina, (10 Vols., Columbia, 1836-1841) VII, pp. 352-356.