Slavery And Race Essay

After the readings from this chapter, I certainly believe that the film Amistad is definitely a more Disney-esque portrayal of the actual events that happened at this time. Just from what I have read, I believe that these events were more brutal and gruesome than we could ever imagine, and there is no film in the world that could ever be allowed to show these events as true as they happened for fear of censorship laws as well as ratings and offending certain populations.
In Zinn’s chapter, five interesting points stood out to me. Firstly, I find it interesting that the colony in Virginia struggled to force the Indians to work for them as slaves considering the earlier explorers had been able to do so. This is ironic to me because of the way that people had viewed the natives at the time. They could have learned a lesson about forcing others to do labor, but they certainly missed the opportunity. This leads into the second interesting point, that the Virginians were frustrated with the Indians and their ability to care for their own, and their frustration inevitably led to the development of slavery. They were very mad they could not force their superiority on anyone else. It is interesting also to note that by 1619 there were already one million black people in the colonies working as slaves. It is interesting because when we think about slavery we instantly think about the times of Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War. We do not realize that slavery goes back this far into the past. A fourth point to note is how supportive the Church was of the slave trade in general. This seems very hypocritical because of the torturous nature of the slave trade and the Catholic messages of love and purity. This goes to show how different the connection between religion and control was at this time. Lastly, I find it interesting that there were so many different slave revolts and much resistance to capture by the slaves. I was unaware of this because my knowledge of slavery and previous education on the subject led me to believe that all slaves that were captured were weak creatures who had no chance against Western dominance.