Реферат: Slavery And The History Of The Negro

were delivering up to 38,000 slaves and this trade brought in 200 million

livres a year. These people had economic incentives to support slavery,

however others were simply ignorant. One man, Raynal, said that white

people were incapable of working in the hot sun and blacks were much

better suited to toil and labor in the intense heat. Having a similar

view to Raynal, one property owner stated that tearing the blacks from

the only homes they knew was actually humane. Though they had to work

without pay, this man said slave traders were doing the blacks a favor by

placing them in the French colonies where they could live without fear

for tomorrow. All of these people felt that the Declaration of the

Rights of Man did not pertain to black people or their descendants.

All people were not ignorant, however. There was even a group of

people who held surprisingly modern views on slavery; views some people

haven’t even accepted today. In his Reflections on Black People, Olympe

de Gouges wondered why blacks were enslaved. He said that the color of

people’s skin suggests only a slight difference. The beauty of nature

lies in the fact that all is varied. Another man, Jacques Necker, told

people that one day they would realize the error of their ways and notice

that all people have the same capacity to think and suffer.

The slavery issue was a topic of debate among the people of

France. The views of the people, based on enlightenment, the welfare of

the country or plain ignorance were tossed around for several more years

until the issue was finally resolved. In the end the philosophes, with

their liberated ideas, won out and slavery was abolished.