Views on Slavery

In the past I have been taught that all slaveowners were white men. I was also taught that the only way to get out of slavery was to somehow run away. One more thing I was taught is that slavery was based on race. After class this week i realized that almost everything I had been taught before was misconceptions. This week I learned that there were slaveowners of many different races. Even some who bought their freedom after being a slave became slaveowners. Slaves were not looked at as human, they were looked at as property. Most slaves didn't try to escape because they knew that most slaveowners had people who patrolled the area, and if they got caught they would be beaten until they could barely walk, or in some cases until death. Many slaveowners would get their men to impregnate one of the women in hopes of increasing their profit. At times, there would be auctions in which many slaveowners came and purchased slaves based on their physical appearance. Young boys tended to bring a pretty good profit because the slaveowners knew they'd be able to work for a long time. Most slaveowners didn't even own the land in which they had the slaves work on. They would make an agreement with the landowners to live on their land and agree to give them one half or one third of the crops from the land. But, in some cases one bad crop could end it for the slaveowners.