Os alunos foram desafiados a preparar um tema da disciplina de História B e a debatê-lo em inglês.
Last February 25th, 10.º E2 held a class debate on slavery and slave trade in the 19th century British Empire. The formal discussion stemmed from a collaboration between the subjects of History and English and brought together two opposing groups: those who were in favor of the abolition of slave trade and the ones who stood against it. Below you can find two examples of the interesting points raised during the event.
1) André Custódio’s speech
After the Age of Enlightenment, people started to rethink their practices. Many of the actions that humans had practiced for hundreds of years were abolished in several countries as a result of the propagation of ideas like natural rights (the Inquisition, for example).
You defend that slavery was good. Your empirical basis to defend slavery is that slaves were not considered humans, so they did not have the same rights. This premise is morally wrong and I am going to prove it.
If we compare the bone structure of a slave and that of a white man, we cannot detect any differences between them. This fact brings down your empirical basis, because it proves that slaves are equally human and therefore it is morally incorrect for you to say that enslaved black people were not considered human.
In conclusion, it is claimed that slavery is better than death, which is wrong because of the harsh conditions slaves had to undergo: five hundred of them were usually transported on a boat which was fit to carry only a hundred passengers — animals in a slaughterhouse were given more dignified conditions!
Slavery needed to be abolished, and all people had to be treated as equal in our society.
2) Francisco Ferreira’s speech
The number of slaves traded between 1501 and 1867 suggests that it was just another way for merchants to make money. Slave ownership was looked at as something to be proud of throughout the world. Not only was it encouraged but it was also standard practice. Everyone who had enough money desired to own at least one slave.
If the vast majority could not see anything wrong with slavery, then why would the small minority who had a problem with it be right? This is a matter of logic and a matter of numbers. If the power lies with a larger amount of people, then we must not listen to the few who oppose them.
So, it is set that the numbers were in favor of slave trading and the power had to reflect the will of the majority. Let us now look at money and see how beneficial slavery was for the world economy: during the period mentioned above, over 12,500.000 slaves were traded and their prices spiked to $800 at their highest. But let’s say every slave was sold for $500 — you would have figures rounding the $6.25bn in income. If you converted this sum into its value back then, this would an astonishing amount of money.
What is more, if you look at the number of people who would benefit from slavery and compare it to the 12.5 million slaves that might not wish to be owned, then it is simply not up for debate: slavery served a purpose for every social stratum. It relieved the poor workers from some undesirable tasks. The value of a slave nowadays would be something like $92.000 for the price of the initial $500.
Finally, slaves weren’t capable of being their own masters. The black population became almost extinct after slavery was abolished in a few countries. This shows a complete lack of regard for their lives and most importantly for the wishes of people in those countries. The rich, the smart and the powerful have the right to be the masters of the inferior and by “inferior” I mean slaves. Without their masters, slaves would not last a week.
