Blog Assignment Number Four

Revision of Blog Assignment Number Two

               Growing up in the United States school system, I learned about the slavery that existed here in the past. The key facts that we learned growing up were how many slaves were uneducated, they did not know how to read or write. Also, how a slave was a slave for life. They did  hard labor until the day they died. Slaves did very tedious tasks such as picking cotton and were treated as pieces of property because after all, thats what they really were. So you can imagine to my surprise when I learned of the slavery that existed in Latin America. In the book Slave and Citizen, what was considered slavery in my mind, was shifted completely. Slaves were able to have real professions ranging from a doctor to even becoming president. This allows us to infer that slaves were given better opportunities then of those in the United States. If they were given the opportunity to have a career, then that means that education was an option for them. Not only was having a career possible, but a slave in Brazil was able to negotiate with their masters about buying their freedom. An option like that that was never available to slaves in the United States. Being enlightened about the different type of slavery that existed in another part of the world makes me feel ignorant. Because I was only taught about one specific type of slavery, I was not aware that different treatment for slaves existed. It makes me wonder what exactly makes it socially acceptable for these slaves to have these type of opportunities? At the end of the day, they are still a piece of property to their owners, no matter which way you look at it. They biggest difference is that they are actually treated like human beings and very lucky to be treated like so. It's mind boggling.