The University of North Carolina maintains a website, Documenting the Essay

The University of North Carolina maintains a website, Documenting the American South, which contains an excellent collection of - Essay Example There are also different challenges facing slaves evident from the narrative; Aaron is lamenting waiting for relief help from well-wishers such as Priests and Levites. It pains to see how he among other slaves suffers in the hands of slaveholders as the congress continues with its process regardless of the issues affecting slaves. However, he is grateful because he is alive seeing a new day as he struggle to fight slavery (Morawsk and Smith, 2000). How did masters maintain the institution of slavery? Oppression was one of the ways used by masters to maintain slaves in slavery. A slave was subjected to torture through thorough beating if they tempted to quit. This made most of the slaves submit as they feared death or other mistreatment from resisting forced labor. Examples of areas where slaves suffered were in the south and the north in the hands of slaveholders, who tied up their slaves for whipping and torture yet they had done nothing. What tactics did they use to enslave other h uman beings? One of the common tactics used by masters to enslave people is bribing friends or relatives; they would go kidnap people and later sell them to slaveholders. An ideal example is the family that was taken away by their cousin at midnight and sold into slavery back in 1834. The other example is the white man sold his three daughters after selling his wife to slavery. This was one of the challenging and painful issues taking place in slavery; people betraying their relatives into slavery for money in quite inhuman. There are also cases where people captured strangers, and sold them to slavery; this is in instances where they met them stranded in their activities or on their way attending to their issues. Arabs were the communities known to practice such activities (Morawsk and Smith, 2000). Another tactic used by slaveholders to keep slaves was making them ignorant of their status. This is by building the thought that slavery is a natural state of being. Most of blacks in the narrative depict a thought that blacks have no capacity of taking part in civil societies in America. Through this, the white gathered courage to oppress the blacks by making them their servants. In slavery, slave children were denied a chance to education as this would make them have the capacity to read and write and this would be a challenge to the slaveholders. This is the reason why Aaron is an illiterate; this denied him a chance to evaluate the state of self-sufficiency and capability. If these slaves had the basis knowledge, they would question the dominance of whites over blacks. Slaveholders also took illiteracy to ensure that the life of slaves did not reach authorities who were against slavery. From this, slaves should seek education, as this is a gateway to freedom. Communication is also significant, as this would mobilize slaves in opposing oppression by slave-masters (Morawsk and Smith, 2000). Most slaveholders were strong Christians. They had buried their evil di d in church thus blinding slaves; most slaves were also Christian therefore found it wired to fight their own religious leaders. This fact also barred the thought that slavery was an unchristian practice following the fact that most of the slave masters were religious leaders. This tactic made slavery prevail in the south as well as in the north despite the fact that it was an era where Christianity was gaining popularity among different communities. Christianity also blinded slaves because they had a strong faith thus