| In fact, it is possible that,
had slavery been restricted to the islands of the Caribbean, on which
the social structure was based upon European notions of class
(masters were masters because they were members of a master class, not
because they were members of the European race), the advent of abolition
would have found all ex-slaves equipped with a religion that provided
a sane rationalization of the realities of Africa with the realities of
an essentially European New World. But slavery was not so restricted.
It existed in a nation which held as its basic tenet that class distinctions
are not only false but morally wrong. Thus masters were masters
because they were racially European, and
it followed that any smart African who was dissatisfied with wearing a
collar could aspire to change his lot by becoming like them. |