Accounts Of Slavery Essays Example

Joseph Taper and Nat Turner were two slaves who had endured the bondage and mistreatment of slavery. Both give very telling accounts of their experiences and what freedom ultimately meant to each. Joseph Taper had escaped from slavery and fled with his family to Canada where they were free to live as all other men. Nat Turner was a slave preacher who attempted to escape but never knew freedom. Both touch on the level of bondage and suppression they both endured as slaves. Both claimed to have great faith in God. Turner believed he was called by God to carry out His plans in helping to free the slaves. Taper was incredibly grateful to God for being carried out of slavery into freedom.
The experiences of Taper and Turner contradict what supporters of slavery believed in that day. Taper explains in his letter that being free was exactly as God intended man to be. Turner believed God would use him to give his fellow slaves the courage to stand up to slavery and fight for their freedoms. Those in support slavery believed black people should be treated as sub-humans with subordinate roles. Slave masters’ inhumane treatment of slaves proved this point very well.
Taper and Turner had their own individual ways of resistance against slavery. Taper chose to flee with his family and avoid the slave catchers. Turner, on the other hand, became violent against white people; going to farm after farm killing all the white people that resided there.
There have been many summations of the heinous abuses of slavery and its impacts it had on the slaves at the hands of cruel masters. To read these accounts by Taper and Turner of their experiences gives the reader a mere glimpse of the sobering conditions in which slaves lived and the inhumane mistreatment. To escape was a formidable feat to those slaves who risked it all for the sake of their freedom.