Week Three Homework Question

I think the economic benefits of slavery were what inspired the slave trade. Racism was the result. Free labor allowed slave owners to be as efficient as they could be. Soon, you could not compete in the market without using slaves for labor. Slavery quickly became an epidemic. I think slave owners had to develop racist ideology in order to justify their actions. I feel that it was clear to them that what they were doing to the slaves was inhumane. By convincing themselves that black people were less human than white people, they were able to enjoy the free labor without feeling guilty. This thinking was contagious. Plantation owners began to spin every resource they had to support these ideas of white supremacy. Their twisted words attracted other whites, thus allowing them to justify their ownership of slaves. After a short time, white people had brainwashed themselves to believe that they were physically and spiritually superior to black people. This thinking was passed down over generations and unfortunately is still relevant in some aspects today. Racism is not was inspired slave trade, but what resulted from it. When slavery was the only option to compete in the cut=throat market, people were desperate for anyway to justify it.