During colonization in the US, farmers held slaves, mostly black people or people of mixed races, to provide labour in their plantations. The slaves were treated as personal property by their masters, and, as such, had no rights and freedom. The colonists, however, believed in natural unalienable rights and freedoms, but denied the same rights and freedoms to the slaves. On the one hand, unalienable rights are those that are naturally given to mankind by the creator, and include the right to life, pursuit of happiness, and liberty (Unalienable.com). It is the responsibility of the government of the day to secure these rights and freedoms for the governed (Unalienable.com). Slavery, on the other hand, involved holding people against their will, alienating them of their natural rights and freedoms, and forcing them to provide cheap labour in plantations. The colonial government supported slavery. This essay explores the contradictions that existed between the colonists’ view of unalienable right and slavery.
The right to pursue personal happiness is an unalienable right. People have the freedom pursue careers of their own choice. In addition, they have the right to engage in businesses of any kind, provided that such businesses are legal and do not cause any harm or injury to other members of the society (Unalienable.com). The government of the day is constituted to ensure that this unalienable human right, among others, is secured. Should the government fail to secure this right or acts in a way suggesting its support for the destruction of the right, the governed people have the right to abolish it. The colonial government in the US held the same view. It upheld the right to pursue happiness for the colonists and the white majority. They were allowed to pursue careers and businesses of their choice, and the government supported them by providing the necessary training, such as through education. However, black people were forced to provide labour to support plantation farming in the colony (Rodriguez). They were kept from pursuing other careers such as joining the military. In addition, they were not allowed to pursue education.
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In the pursuit of happiness, human beings have the right to living in sovereign and self governed states. To exercise this right, human beings vote in leaders and governments to govern them and to institute law and justice. In so doing, people lose a part of their natural liberty to the government in exchange for law and justice, but they retain the other part of the liberty in the sense that they have the power to oust the government should it fail in its mandate of providing law and justice. The colonial government granted the right to establishing a legislative power, normally by means of voting, to Englishmen and all freedmen in the colony (Adams). However, it denied slaves the same liberty. They had no legal rights and were as such kept from voting. They, therefore, lived in accordance to the laws and regulation made by governments put in place by their masters, which were always oppressive to them.
The right to own property is an unalienable human right and cannot be taken from anyone. All human beings should own and enjoy property, as it is important to the subsistence of mankind, and helps them fulfil their wants and desires (Unalienable.com). Just like any other government, one of the responsibilities of the colonial government was the protection of the property of Americans. However, the law of the day did not recognize slaves as citizens. They were, therefore, denied the right to own property. For example, they could not own land (Rodriguez). Instead, they were viewed as the property of their masters, and were used as a means to make their masters richer by way of providing cheap labour in the plantations. They lived in the plantations belonging to their masters, and were often sold from one master to the other, just like any other common good of trade (Rodriguez).
The colonial government recognized and worked to secure the unalienable rights and freedoms of the Englishmen and all freedmen in the colony. It, however, denied the same natural rights to the slaves in the colony. Slaves were not allowed to exercise their right of pursuing their happiness. They were forced to provide cheap labour in plantations, instead of pursuing careers or engaging in business activities of their own. They were not allowed to participate in electoral processes that put governments in power, and as thus were subjected to severely oppressive laws and regulations made by governments put in place by the colonists. Slaves were treated as non-citizens and were therefore not allowed to own property. They lived on the plantations of their masters, and were treated as their masters’ property, and often as items of trade, and were sold from one master to the other.
- Adams, Samuel. ‘The Rights of the Colonists: Samuel Adams, 1772’. Constitution.org. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
- Rodriguez, Junius P. Slavery in the United States. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2007. Print. Unalienable.com,. ‘Unalienable Rights Defined’. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.
