1 of 4

Write now Article Tools

Popular historical accounts lead us all to believe that Africans were the only slaves owned and traded, but this just simply is not true. Lower class whites were owned and traded; as were Indians, Filipinos, Spaniards, and many more. These same people would like us to believe that only rich European Americans were the only American slave holders. However, Indians, Spanish, and Asians got in the act as well. What we have created then, through History books and lessons, is a false sense of reality.

Our History books, television propaganda, and civil liberties activists have taught us for a century of the White's oppression of Blacks. While this is an important aspect to consider, it really wasn't an effect of slavery. The amount of attention and press using slavery as a guilt trip has allowed the nation to focus their attention in the wrong direction; therefore, avoiding the real issues. Instead of refuting social Darwinism and rebuilding America on principals of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, we focus on guilt and reparations. The problem here is no one can fix or change the past.

The act of slavery has its roots in ideals of dominance, supremacy, and social Darwinism. Through powerful classes labeling themselves as supreme, and dominating weaker classes of people, social and racial caste systems were created. In the 18th century, every nation held some sort of belief in supremacy or inferiority based on their race. Superior races were then able to dominate inferior races and force them into slavery.

The strongest, most affluent, effects then of slavery on popular culture have little to do with racism, racial hatred, segregation, or discrimination. For these are not the effects of slavery, they were the roots and causes of it. Slavery, however, did throw the United States' economy into the 19th century. It also laid foundations for sharecropping and tenant farming. The selling, trading, and bartering of slaves laid foundations for business development and corporate budgeting; thus, launching the U.S. into a global market economy.

The abolition of slavery had a more profound effect on popular culture than slavery did. After the abolition, the American economy was destroyed. Black Americans and other freedmen were thrown out into the streets with nothing. They had no training, no education, no money or food, no shelter or home. They had no way to survive. To add to this economic burden, ex-slave holders had no economic means to survive.

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

Add your voice

Know something about Lasting effects of slavery on popular culture?
We want to hear your view. Write now!