Zinn

In this chapter Zinn in detail describes how slavery truely began. In past chapters the Indians were the group of people who were taken as slaves but Zinn lets us know why that could no longer happen. The Indians had actually began to out number the English and for the English to continue to try and keep them as slaves would cause a massacre. Not just a massacre on the Indians but because they have out numbered the English it would have been a massacre on them as well. Zinn let's us know why the Black's were preferred as the group of people to become slaves next. Zinn explains that blacks they came from a settled culture, of tribal customs and family ties, of communal life and traditional ritual, and when they were taken from that type of an invironment they became helpless and that's why it was easy for the English to chose them. The conditions that the black slaves were placed in were extremely horrible. The trading of slaves and the transportation became ridiculous. The English would pack as many slaves as possible on the ships to increase the profits for the trips. The passengers would be in vomit, filth, and many other bodily fluids laying on top of each other and chained. Due to this many of the slaves didn't survive the trip. Again that didn't stop the English from including more and more slaves because the profits doubled after a while for the trips.

Zinn was very well spoken in this chapter. Although I wasn't fully aware of the events with the slave trade I was informes as to how brutal it was. I was taught in school at an earlier age how the slaves were transported from the beginning. Zinn's opinion on racism and slavery not being natural but is more of a choice that we as people make is true in my mind. No one is born racist or born believing that slavery is the right way to go. People form opinions by the invironments that they are brought up in. Racism is nothing more than a ignorant way of not being able to express feelings about a person or a group of people that you don't understand. Slavery is another foolish way that we as a people created to selfishly control others. Neither one of them in my opinion is needed or has ever been needed.