Essay One Draft: Peer Review AFTER

(excerpt from beginning)

 During and well after slavery in the Americas, Frank Tannenbaum claims in Slave and Citizen: The Negro in the Americas that no matter how significant a role played in building the New World Africans were not viewed as equal to the Anglo-Europeans, during and after the abolishment of slavery. He suggests the concept of “moral personality”, which was denied African slaves under the British Empire, was the premise of the ability for African slaves to obtain their freedom in Latin America _{(Tannenbaum 88)}. The Anglo-Americans perceived the Africans to be incapable of morals and were not given the opportunity to prove otherwise. I agree with Tannenbaum’s stigma of a moral personality as the legal system in effect during the existence of slavery in the New World played a very large role in state and society and was the general basis for a moral code. As religion teaches people and justifies what is right or wrong and how to maintain a clean moral soul on their path to heaven, it thus acts as a sort of template towards interactions with others and how to live one’s life. Tannenbaum addresses the different effects of legislation during the colonization of the Americas, noting the difference in its role under the British, Spanish, and Portuguese Empires, respectively. Tannenbaum supports this argument throughout the text by comparing the different religious standings of the church, the legal system already in place on the Iberian Peninsula as opposed to the one developed under the British Empire, and by noting social standings of slaves of either location. It is also suggested

2

that laws that were already in place and laws that had to be developed played a role in how Africans were viewed by Europeans. While economic gain was the goal the lack of equality towards human beings, and its justification, were the driving forces.

In Spanish and Portuguese controlled areas of the Americas Las Siete Partidas, or The Seven Part Code, which was a set of laws written in the 13^th century, was in effect and enforced well into the 19^th century. Tannenbaum largely argues that in Latin America, under Spanish and Portuguese rule, Africans had “an access to the culture and a role in social life” that would have otherwise been preposterous in the United States and the British West Indies _{(Tannenbaum 4)}.  He relates the treatment and opportunities available to African slaves in Latin America towards the familiarity with slavery from the Spanish and Portuguese empires, where, as opposed to the rest of Europe, slavery had still existed and there were a number of Spanish, Jewish, and Moorish slaves before there were Africans; there, slavery was somewhat tentative based largely in part of their religious, legal, and social structure. The implementation of Las Siete Partidas and later in 1789, El Codigo Negro, translated as The Black Code, allowed a slave to purchase their own freedom. Slaves were also allowed to work in their spare time, sell goods they made or grew themselves, and eventually pay for their freedom. In the early portion of the text Tannenbaum does not fail to elaborate on the laws the Spanish Code had that benefited the African slave as he states how these laws “facilitated manumission, the tax-gatherer did not oppose it, and the church ranked it among the works singularly agreeable to God” _(53). Slaves were given certain rights and indoctrinated into the Catholic faith. While under the Catholic faith the idea of all men being equal regardless of social standing was preached but not strictly enforced, promoting the idea that an African slave could buy his way out of his current position and, upon teaching them religion, that they were essentially morally equal to his captors. Former slaves upon

3

manumission could then seek out certain positions available to them under the limitations of the laws in place, whether as tradesmen or legal officials, or even as members of the church.