Slavery in America

Omar Ibn Seid was a slave in the Carolina’s here in America around the year 1831. He was originally a devote Muslim who had followed the words of the Koran his entire life until he was captured and sold into slavery in America. Although he claimed to have accepted Christianity into his life, if one reads his writings it can be seen that he likely continued his faith in Islam under a superficial Christian guise. Omar writes about how great his masters, the Owen’s, were to him, but one must also note that he was still a slave during these writings and so he may have written more highly of his master because of this. Omar claims that his first master was so bad to him that he ran away until he was captured, jailed and re-sold into slavery to the Owen’s. Omar’s master Jim Owen was a good man says Omar, and he would feed and clothe Omar with similar things that he would feed and clothe himself with. The line that most shows me that Omar had yet to really accept Jesus Christ as his savior was when he said, “ for the law was given by Moses but grace and truth were by Jesus the Messiah.” This tells me that Omar still believes the law of his god is still from the Koran and not the Bible.

William Lloyd Garrison was a white man who believed that both slavery and racism were terrible things that needed to be abolished. He formed a movement to do this known as the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). Many other white slave owners felt that Garrison and others who shared his views, helped start rebellions such as the one caused by Nat Turner. However, Garrison writes that the abuses suffered by the slaves on a day-to-day basis were more than enough to cause the slaves to want to rebel against their owners. He also writes that in keeping slaves and slavery around, people were not obeying God’s will and that they would go to hell for this.

In his “Declaration of Sentiments”, William Lloyd Garrison condemned slavery and set forth to abolish it with a list of proposed activities. Garrison points out that our forefathers had come to this land with the intent of all men to be created equally, yet they now owned slaves. He also makes a point in saying that none of the forefathers were ever sold like cattle and treated as such as well. He makes the point of saying that no man should ever have the right to own another man or to treat another man like a piece of property. Garrison was definitely a good man who believed that the time of slavery needed to end; otherwise men would burn in hell for their unholy acts. He mentions that all people should be allowed the same privileges regardless of the color of their skin. Garrison believes that, “Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph,” in the end. Although no immediate changes occurred from Garrison’s help, we can see now that he was completely right in his beliefs and that all men indeed were created equal and should be treated as such.