"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal

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Mitul Patel 10H                        Mr Mayers                      English Coursework 1

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal: that they are dowed by their creator, with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”.

How true is this statement with regards to events in America?

I think that the statement above in my opinion is not true. With the evidence that I have gathered and analyzed I found that at the time of this statement, all men were not created equally. I have come to this conclusion as, if all men were created equally, black people should have been treated the same as white people.

An example of unalienable rights is when Mrs Rosaparks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, she was sent to jail. This was the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I definitely do not see this as equal rights. The white people had a choice of were they wanted to sit, this usually meant they got better seats, were as the black people were only allowed to sit in the seat they had allocated to them. This is not equal rights as they were treated as if they were nothing.

White people were happy of what they were doing as they had an advantage over them and they felt as they were in control.

Josiah Henson was a slave who escaped to freedom in Canada. He told of the inhumanities of the slave auction. When Josiah was a boy, he and his family lived on the Mc Pherson Estate, later it went into liquidation and he and his family were sold off. He and his family were split up and didn’t see each other. His brothers and sisters were sold to different owner, and his mother was bought by Isaac Riley of Montgomery County. Josiah was then offered to the assembled purchasers. Her mother being the straught by losing all her family rocked to the knees of Isaac Riley and begged him to buy her baby as well. Riley totally ignored her pleas, and gave her violent kicks. She had to crawl away and while she was she cried out “Oh god how long shall we suffer this way”.

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I think that the slave auction was wrong. This is as once a slave is bought the owner is having power over them. A Person should be able to do whatever they want to. When at the slave auctions the slaves had to take off their clothes so the buyers can have a look at them and see if they are healthy and if they are worthy to be bought. This is wrong. Nobody would like having to take off their clothes in front of people and have them looking and touching you, to see if you are healthy.

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