American Slavery and ‘the Relentless Unforeseen’ Reflection

After reading American Slavery and ‘the Relentless Unforeseen’ by Sean Wilentz, I get to see how the ideal of slavery was portrayed throughout the world. We almost get to see a chronological timeline of how slavery started and the begining of this ideal presented in the essay would be the Portuguese arriving to the new world. Besides this, the essay also talks about the first plantation which was located in Chesapeake, one of the first settlements in the New World. Reading this essay makes me relate to the 1619 project by Hannah Jones and the fact checking article on the 1619 project because it helps contradict the fact that the colonies wanted their independence to preserve slavery. I get to read two views of what people think based on slavery and America and they easily contradict each other. The Article by Wilentz gives me better understanding of what was happening with this topic of slavery in the 1600s, 1700s and 1800s. I agree with the claim Wilentz has portrayed in his essay which is “Yet it is too often at best consigned to the inevitable, as something that was bound to happen as if in the natural unfolding of progress” because I do feel as if slavery was bound to happen due to the greed and power and superiority that fueled many of the countries to dominate and destroy anything in their paths. This ideal also contributes to the topic of the Civil war because we can see that this was bound to happen due to the influence of the American revolution. In the American Revolution we have two sides, the British and the colonies, and they both believe to be right in which contradict both their ideals. Eventually a war happens and the colonies emerge victorious and this influenced the Civil war because we can see that the Southerners believed slavery was their right and it shouldn’t be abolished while the North beleived that slavery would put an end to what was known as their Union and would seperate the country. The Civil War was inevitable due to many of the ideals that have been presented before the war itself and due to many of the tensions that have arisen during that time period.

The essay also bring up a great point and it deals with many people that were opposed to slavery such as Thomas Jefferson. The essay expresses how Jefferson was against slavery and believed that the slaves were equal yet he did not do anyting in his power to stop this. We also get to see how Abraham Lincoln wasn’t too fond about ending slavery, his main goal was to stop the South from seperating which would break up their nation. In this ideal we see how people can have their viewpoints about slavery but yet their actions and endgame don’t display it as much. The essay includes how eventually there is some sort of action taken in order to contradict slavery and we see an example of this through the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage which were a group determined to abololish slavery.