“The soul that is within me no Man can degrade…”
~ F. D.

Living in the 1800’s, with slavery a virtue of everyday life, most modern day Americans would say they’d become abolitionists, protesting against slavery, free those without freedom, and let everyone be even, in a society no majority rules a minority. That’s what people say, but not what they would actually do. Today across the world, thirty million individuals live under the influence and hardships of slavery. More than twice the entire slave population throughout America’s history, countries Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Pakistan, and even the technological India, all have laborers working without their permission to be treated in such a harmful manner. Despite the working procedures of most slaves, some are forced into other situations, such as marriage or prostitution, but these are rare and not as severe as the more common offense of slavery. However, these people have hope, no matter how much physical torment they must overcome, their plead for freedom isn’t broken. All they want is hope, a sliver of chance they can be emancipated. For both time periods of slavery, they never had time to live life gratefully, and all they imagined was a better place for them to be, live life how everyone else has.

American slavery was not as obscure as it could have been, physical forced labor rained down on people only due to their skin color. But with this came men eager of giving the punishment, lashing cow skin and ropes only for their own satisfaction, or for wrong doing of a slave. Plantations at the time were immense, about as large as an average town today. Hundreds of slaves worked from the glimmer of dawn to the last ray of visible light on the horizon. Slaves spent the holidays free of labor, but this is due to making them feel as if they were free, before bombarding them to the brim with work. Overseers, as they were to be called, still had to treat them to the most basic of cutleries and sleeping arrangements as to not be complete depravity as if they were real animals. Still, aside all this, they still have hope. Fredrick Douglass famously justified: “The Soul Within me No Man can Degrade…” The soul is basically what gives us character. Our physical body doesn’t portray ourselves at all. The soul carries our myriad of feelings, thoughts, imagination, entreaties, and hope. All slaves have a hope of freedom, the thought that one day, they wouldn’t be crouching over a field of wheat, basking under a palpable odiousness of sun rays, a hope that they could be like anyone else, able to live their life the way it was supposed to.

Despite all that American 200 year old slavery was, modern day slavery has branched out in directions, yet maintaining a still unfair and unlawful society of which individuals must live their entire life through. Countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Pakistan, and even the technological India, combine for a total of 30 million. It’s said every country has at least 1,000 people under the blight of slavery, but these are the largest suppliers of forced labor. However, slavery today is officially illegal, which is why numbers aren’t as high as they could be. Without that law, numbers could be as high as 150 million, two thirds of that most likely from India. Most slaves aren’t forced into slavery under labor circumstances; they’re for the most part born under the influence. However, Mauritania and Russia have what has been recognized as slavery but not by means of work. Forced marriage, prostitution, and other obscure offenses were forced on people just to keep their life.

Behind both types of slavery our world has dealt with has a multitude of similarities and differences each defining the cultures these slaves live under. Slaves no matter what time period, place, or type of labor, all have one thing in common, hope. People don’t lose it when they lose everything else, it sticks with you, a sight of a better future, a place to evince their ideas to the world, and not endure the hardships they’ve lived through prior. Slaves in the 1800’s unlike modern day slavery, were only under conditions of forced labor, where some, not a majority of today’s slave population live under forced marriage.

People today always reminisce and feel guilt for our predecessors actions towards the harmless individuals living through galling slavery. We believe slavery has ended, as we haven’t thought of our world from outside our own country. People, even despite this major topic aren’t informed of these conditions and how they’re coping to the struggles they encounter. All these slaves have is hope, no other valuables are theirs to obtain. Fredrick Douglass wasn’t a slave; he was a benefactor, one to put others atop him. Without his actions, his bravery to step up against a majority, today would start how yesterday ended, field workers struggling through the day. One can step up to start an insurrection, save hundreds, thousands, we can follow his footsteps, free those not aware of anything past their crops or land. Once one begins, it spreads, creating a wave of abolitionists fighting for the freedom of the less fortunate. We need to help those beneath us, but first, we must be aware.