Slavery as a double-edged sword

It is far from controversial to decry slavery as morally decrepit, and an absolute affront to human rights. What is less talked about, however, and what we began to discuss in class on Tuesday, is the toll slavery takes not only on those being enslaved, but on those who would enslave them. By this, I mean that in the process of enslaving another human being--reducing them to nothing more than property--a person loses their own humanity. Interestingly enough, this opinion is one shared by the enslaved. Equiano eloquently writes, "Such a tendency has the slave trade to debauch men's minds, and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men--No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall." The fact that slaves themselves seem to understand that the slave trade is a corrupting force points to the absolute moral bankruptcy of the trade, and creates an interesting paradox. Presumably, and understandably, slaves hated the men who propagated the trade itself, but they also seem to realize that the slave trade itself has corrupted these men to a point that they defy their own humanity. The fact that this sentiment presents itself in this piece of literature is especially interesting, as it seems to reach out directly to abolitionists. White abolitionists probably had more in common with slave traders than with slaves themselves, but by showing slave traders (white Americans) as good men who have been corrupted morally by the slave trade, Equiano allows white abolitionists to draw a distinct difference between themselves and the slave traders, and in so doing, allows them to take positions in favor of a group they normally would not relate to as easily as those they are taking arms against.