“But now that an indigenous race of men has grown up, speaking our own language and instructed in our religion, all the more harsh right of the owner, and the blind submission of the slave, will inevitable at some period ,more or less remote, come to an end” (page 19)
The speaker of this quote tries to reason with the government that slaves will soon become equals with their masters. Since the slaves are brought to the master’s country, the slaves will learn how to speak their language and will follow the master’s religion. The fact that the slaves share similar values and practices as the masters, this will make the slaves seem less inferior to the whites.
In the past the whites have thought of the blacks as the lower class and therefore the whites can take advantage of the blacks, which is why they made them into slaves in the first place. The whites need free labor and the only way they can do that is to dominate a lower class.
But now that slaves are improving their knowledge and values, they are no longer seen as a lower class. The slaves are on the same level as the whites, which makes it inhumane for the whites to continue enslaving Africans. Even if they do, the slaves will soon revolt because the slaves are aware of what they are capable of doing. The slaves are no longer afraid of their masters and are demanding their freedom.
So what the speaker is reasoning is that slaves are becoming similar or equals to whites. Since they are equals, no one race can have control over another. It is natural as humans to have their independence.
Discussion Questions
- Was the Amelioration Act an actual solution in keeping the rebellion from rising up?
- ” …the issue was no longer whether the salves were fit for freedom but the dangerous fact that they were now unfit for slavery” (p21) Based on this quote what do you think made the narrator think this way?
