Distraction in the Slave Industry

Throughout the history of America, the slave industry used the tactic of distraction to diminish the immorality of the slave trade. For example, in Robert Hayden’s The Middle Passage he describes the captains of slave ships to use “bright ironical names” (51) such as “Jesus, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy” (48). These slave captains used these cheery and completely false names to distract citizens of America from the horrors that occurred on these slave ships and on the southern plantations the slave ships were traveling to. Another tactic of distraction was included in a book titled The Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson. In this document on the economy of the south Jefferson describes slaves, or rather all colored people in general, to be “inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind” (3). He writes further to say that colored people are to be regarded as “different species of the same genus” (Jefferson 3). These opinions written by Thomas Jefferson created a notion in the minds of many that slaves were mentally and physically below blacks and not even in the same branch of humanity as whites were. This belief distracted people from the reality of the inhumane treatment of the enslaved because they were no longer considered people and were not given the same level of human rights as the rest of the American community, and the violence against them was pushed to the side. Therefore, leaders of the slave industry distracted the public with false information to hide the immorality of slavery.   

The European Code of Possession

At the time the New World was discovered, Europe was the most powerful region in the entire world. They had weapons, resources, writing, and most importantly, an established government for each region (country) within Europe. Naturally, powerful and rich countries such as these would want to expand their borders elsewhere in order to gain more money and resources for the fast-growing nations. Between these European countries, a code of possession was established. The leaders of these nations decided that whoever claimed the land first, gained control of the resources and people that were included in that plot of land. As Chief Justice John Marshall says in a court case on March 10, 1823 that European discovery of land in the New World gave “title to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments, which title may be consummated by possession” (Marshall 1).  This is a complete degradation of human rights and liberty because the European conquerors simply waged war upon these indigenous people and forced their way onto their land. This code of possession justified immorality by giving a right to Europeans to wage war upon people they had no fight with. If this code of possession had been different, the world may not be divided in the way it is now. If the European nations had honored the moral code of possession and taken into account that the land belonged to its original inhabitants and instead decided to seek out the few pieces of land that were not inhabited at all, they would never have gained control of the land in the first place and the organization of today’s world may be very different.

Religion and Political Power

Throughout history, religion has been used to support peoples’ pursuit of power. Leaders would use religious beliefs and the “views” of God or another deity to manufacture support for an action, no matter how moral or immoral. For example, John Edwards uses religious beliefs and The Bible to justify the conversion of the Israelites.  This is an immoral action because it is taking away their religious freedom, and yet he receives support from the Puritan community because of his connections to the will of God. In John Winthrop’s Speech to the General Court in 1645 he used religion to corrupt the idea of democracy in the minds of American people. This is not necessarily an immoral action, but people who may have considered being democratic now will not because Winthrop convinced them that it was against their religion. Thomas Jefferson takes a similar approach when trying to convince the public to abolish the slaves despite their so-called racial inferiority. Jefferson claims that his conclusion of the Africans’ inferiority would “degrade a whole race of men from the rank in the scale of beings which their Creator may perhaps have given them.” (Jefferson 3). He connected his claims to religion and God, which would cause people to support his motion of abolishing slavery and having the slaves be integrated into society (but also segregating them). Therefore, these three power-seeking leaders used religious meaning to coax support out of the general public to their get the political position that they wanted.