Asher Sisneros

In this essay, John Thompson and the Great Slave Dilemma, I wrote about John Thompson’s most memorable experiences as a slave. After the events in that essay, Thompson became a runaway slave when he was falsely accused of helping slaves escape. His master believed that Thompson was innocent, but because he could write, the magistrate was confident that Thompson was guilty. Fearful, Thompson knew that his destiny was freedom. Since the magistrate was already hunting him, there was nothing to lose by pursuing liberty. On his excursion to the northern states, he endured troubling things that tested his faith, getting in a fistfight on one occasion and nearly stopping at the door of a slave hunter’s house. By the providence of God, he was delivered and found freedom, but that is not the topic of this essay. While his tales of gaining liberty and hunting whales in the final 1/3rd of the book are exhilarating, I am here to discuss the book’s first section and slavery. In particular, the topic is whether Thompson made a compelling argument that the South’s slave system was evil. 

The biggest problem with the South’s slave system was the law’s inability to recognize slaves as people with inalienable rights. Those rights should’ve been given to all people, free and slave. In my previous essay, I touched on three instances when slaves were nearly beaten to death. Under no circumstances should any moral man do such a thing. If the slave has done something worthy of death, they should be put to death. However, flogging someone until they die regardless of whether they’re “your” property, is wrong. Period. End of story. The abuses John Thompson witnessed as a field slave are so grotesque I cannot fathom how our nation used to practice such things. He recalled instances when slaves were “beaten until their organs could be seen moving inside their stomachs” and when a young girl received a flogging for dropping a teacup. By reading this book, there is no question that the slave system in the South was evil. Granted, some decent masters treated their slaves commendably. The issue was that the law did nothing to protect slaves from abusive, tyrant masters. 

The law did nothing to protect slaves from these masters. The law should have, but it didn’t. At the time, Christianity was the social norm in the United States. They should’ve been familiar with the biblical texts regarding slavery. Regarding slave abuse, Exodus mandated that if a master broke their slave’s tooth or pierced one of their eyes, that slave would be given freedom immediately as restitution.¹ Also, Exodus addresses slave families being broken up. “If he comes in (becomes a slave)  by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him.” ²The issue of slave families being broken up through the slave trade was real. This very thing happened to John Thompson. Another right stated in Exodus includes giving slaves freedom at no expense of the slave seven years after purchasing them.³ I believe these verses should’ve given the South some idea of how to treat their slaves/servants. Today, we consider America at that time far more Christian than it is now; they should’ve been well acquainted with these texts regarding slave’s rights. Either they weren’t as Christian as we give them credit for, or they chose to ignore it. However, the point is that even the South’s religion gave slaves rights. They had no alibi for refusing these rights. 

(1) Exodus 21: 26-27, (2) Exodus 21: 3, (3) Exodus 21: 2.