One thing cannot be forgotten in this analysis; slavery was the trade in human life in which the “goods” were essentially stolen. This means that children were kidnapped for their parents, adults from their homes, souls from their bodies. The enslavement of people effectively dehumanized both the slave and the owner. By bringing the slave owner down to the level of “savage” in which the owner showed a total disregard for the physical and emotional welfare of the person whom they stripped of their freedom. And

With the knowledge of such merciless treatment we have to wonder why slave merchants and owners were able to do that with no drag to their conscience as Christians. Olaudah Equiano very effectively demonstrates this wonder in his question to a shipmate, “I asked him, if their tooth-ache made his easy. He said, ‘No’. Then I told him if he and these people went to hell together, their pains would not make his any lighter.”(Equiano 156)

by making the slave an unfortunate victim of a cruel oppressor that has stripped them of their dignity. While the slave is clearly being victimized the slave owner is also a victim of his or her own hate, ignorance and stupidity.

Whereas, the plantations and estates of this Province [of South Carolina] cannot be well and sufficiently managed and brought into use, without the labor and service of Negroes and other slaves; and forasmuch as the said Negroes and other slaves brought unto the people of the Province for that purpose are of barbarous, wild, savage natures, and such as renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the law’s customs, and practices of this Province;…it is absolutely necessary, that such other constitutions, laws and orders, should in this Province be made and enacted, for the good regulating and ordering of them, as may restrain the disorderly rapines and inhumanity, to which they are naturally prone and induced; and may also tend to the safety and security of the people of this province. (From the introduction to the original South Carolina Slave Code of 1696, as quoted by Hine 47)

Some topics in this essay:
Olaudah Equiano, Vassa African, America America, Islamic Christian, Slave Code, South Carolina, olaudah equiano, Africa African, human life, slave owner, slave trade, , slave codes, people province, skinned people, african society, 18th century, institution slavery,