Slavery, above all, has always been a means to propel industry forward and increase economic stability and prosperity but to me, it seems that slavery has another, equally important function: to create a class system of social hierarchy. The success or failure of the United States was dependant on both of these things. Without producing goods, the young US would have suffered and without the creation of and justification of slavery our entire economic system would have failed. The secret is that American society, both now and in the past, is entirely based on one powerful group dominating a weaker one. Capitalism is all about opportunity and economic prosperity, but opportunity and wealth are both somewhat relative. For example, if everyone owns a television set, its worth is diminished. If everyone has the same amount money, no one can be exorbitantly wealthy. I think it is not unreasonable to say that slavery (in one form or another) will always exist in the US so long as Capitalism is king.
I found the chapter from “In the Shadow of Slavery” to be very interesting, especially the bits that had been neglected in the history books I was exposed to in high school and college. For example, I had ever heard of Jan Rodrigues (apparently neither has spell check on Microsoft word) and was taken back by the statistic that “in the eighteenth century, only Charleston and New Orleans exceeded NY in the number of slaves.” Taken back though I was, I have to say I wasn’t really surprised. Logically, it makes complete sense that New York City, the current capital of economic prosperity in the United States, would have been dependant on slaves from the beginning.
As Ashley says in this weeks spark, the amazing thing about New York is how little it has changed. Not only is it still extremely diverse, but also it is still extremely polarized. What I mean is that, there is still a white, wealthy group that dominates the city’s government and has the most money and there is still an African American minority who is taken advantage of by and kept down by the white, wealthy group. Business and factory owners are still looking to exploit cheap/free labor and our society is as greed-based as ever. The truth is that America and New York City are both founded on a system of inequality. Though this system has been molded and changed – it remains fundamentally the same. Abolitionists and freedom fighters should not have sought an end to slavery, but instead fought for an entirely new economic system.
