Takaki Chp. 3

“The Giddy Multitude: The Hidden Origins of Slavery” was a chapter that discussed the consequences of the enslavement of Africans as the key source of labor. This chapter talks about how this idea was not only problematic for the blacks, but how it in turn injured the American society. Takaki talks about how the slave owners did not thoroughly consider the consequences of only enslaving Africans.
“The Tempest”, a play written in about a man named Caliban was used to open this chapter. Many Europeans had the viewpoint that Caliban was savage due to the idea that he was black, and that was rare during those times. Many, for some reason, had the idea in their heads that Africans were cannibals, and therefore evil. And on the other side, whites were pure beings. Slavery in the United States was not well thought through. Though slavery had been around for quite a long time, the idea was never just put upon blacks. It originally was composed of both blacks and white indentured servants. Because they both were seen as servants, they were both seen in the same class and viewed each other as equal to one another. Because they viewed each other as equal, neither one had any prejudice toward the other and therefore they had no problem joining together to fight for rights. Once this began to become effective, the slave owners began to split the two groups up, eventually breaking it down to just blacks. This came about because the blacks alone were unable to fight for their rights, because essentially, they had none. After a while of this going on, a man came along who had new ideas. A man by the name of Thomas Jefferson stepped in and began to make moves toward the abolishment of slavery. Though, according to Takaki, Thomas Jefferson believed that blacks were inferior to whites by nature, and he personally owned ~267 slaves, he still felt bad for them. His ideas were to abolish slavery, but then to rid of them out of the United States, and ship them to an island in the carribean. His main reason for this was because, according to Takaki, Jefferson stated that blacks and whites could never live together. Racist ideas were brought about in a few different ways, but Takaki believes that these actions in particular could take much of the blame for how everything is today.
I have seen this information and learned about it before in high school. None of this being new information today, but the idea still bothers me. I personally have many black friends, and these ideas still blow my mind. All my life I have seen myself as equal with everyone, and I just cant bring myself to understand why that idea had to change a long time ago, when they were equals then as well.