Slaves and Masters
Masters attempted to gain absolute control over slaves' lives but were often frustrated in this by the tactics of resistance the slaves employed.I. Motives of Masters in controlling slaves: The paternalistic idea masters held was that they wanted absolute control over their slaves lives as well as the "fruits of their labor." Out of this derived the shape paternalism took for a long timeout became "system class rule" it was a way of life. The masters lived off the work of their slaves. The system class rule made the slave master relationships ambiguous and complex. Masters had many advantages over slaves one was that they got paid off the their slaves work. By definition and
Wherever paternalism exists, it weakens solidarity among the oppressed by linking them as individuals to their oppressors. "The racial distinction between master and slave heightened the tension inherent in an unjust social order. Tactics of control employed by masters: the paternalism encouraged by the close living of masters and slaves was enormously reinforced by the closing of the African slave trade, which compelled masters to pay greater attention to the reproduction of their labor force. To insist upon the centrality of class relations as manifested in paternalism is not to slight the inherent racism or to deny the intolerable contradictions. Black leaders won the loyalty and respect of slaves and free blacks because they fought heroically to defend their people. Slaves, drawing on a religion that was supposed to assure their compliance and docility, rejected the essence of slavery by projecting their own rights and value as human beings. successes- failures: results of slaves resistance: their action tended to become defensive and to aim at protecting the individuals against aggresion and abuse. " The slaves of the old south displayed impressive solidarity and collective resistance to their masters, but in a web of paternalistic relationships their actions tended to become defensive and to aim at protecting the individuals against aggression and abuse. Methods of slave resistance: Slaves had some power over their masters because they had the choice not to reproduce and the slaves found a way to interpret paternalism into a doctrine different from the one that the masters understood and to forge it into a weapon of resistance to assertions that slavery was a natural condition for blacks, that blacks were racially inferior , and that black slaves have not any rights or legitimate claims of their own. "American slavery subordinated one race to another and there by rendered its fundamental class relationships more complex; but remained class relationships. in essence it was a system class rule, in which some people lived off the labor of others.
Common topics in this essay:
II Tactics,
Motives Masters,
III Methods,
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system class,
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class rule,
tended defensive aim,
aim protecting individuals,
defensive aim protecting,
defensive aim,
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tended defensive,
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class relationships,
resistance slaves,
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