"(Equiano 43) This is a very simple tool available to the slaveholders in helping them to make their slaves believe that the reason they are slaves is their complexion. .
Slave codes proved another effective tool in the management of slaves .
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).
Here it was clearly stated to the white slaveholding population that the Negro slave was a "Barbarous, wild, savage" creature and that it was in the owner's best interest to keep them obedient so that slave could continue to labor on the plantations and thus continue to keep the early American economy thriving. These slave codes made it all but impossible for the slaves to prepare uprisings. .
When you factor in the treatment of slaves, left nearly naked and starving, worked to the point of exhaustion, you understand that no amount of furry over their situation could enable them to rebel in vast numbers since the mere issue of survival was such a colossal task. As Olaudah Equiano states, "slaves are sometimes, by half-feeding, half-clothing, over-working, and stripes, reduced so low, that they are turned out as unfit for service.
