An interesting point, and probably deserving of its own topic. Were I a Greek slave in Ancient Rome, unless I had a particularly cruel master, chances are I’d have a fairly “all right” life. Not great, but depending on the household and wealth of my master, I might actually be better off than the poor, free people in the city. I’d likely have a family and hope for earning my freedom, and once I did earn my freedom no one could enslave me again, nor would they be likely to harass me overly much for my former status. But, the way that slavery was handled in the United States was indeed of a much crueler sort, which is why I’d liken it more to captivity in a hostile country than servitude.
For me, it rather depends on whether I felt the system itself had any legitimacy. That is, if it were a genuine error, an honest miscarriage of justice, I would not feel free to kill the guards if there were an alternative way of avoiding death. On the other hand, if I were the captive of an flagrantly unjust regime in which I had no recourse within the system, then, if I have to kill a guard to escape, the guard’s toast.
In the situation I named, I’d say that the United States, by virtue of the Dred Scott decision and other such laws, had rendered itself functionally illegitimate, at least with reference to black Americans. Thus any person attempting to uphold its laws on the matter is a brigand, and I have no moral qualms about doing whatever I need to do to escape. My refusal to kill a child is not a moral qualm; it’s a scruple. I’d like to think I’d rather die than live with that memory.
I’d feel justified in using any level of force necessary to escape. In the case of anyone who is part of or supporting the system, like an overseer or the plantation owner or someone who reports runaway slaves, I’d feel obligated to kill them if possible.As far as I’m concerned supporting slavery means you deserve death; I’d have had no moral problem with executing every single slave owner and overseer after the Civil War.
Morally, my right to life and liberty doesn’t trump somebody else’s right to life. I can always try to arrange my liberty later; I can’t arrange for him to come back to life once I’ve killed him.
For the OP, I think that lethal force is justified if someone is trying to keep you as chattel. Especially when there are places where one wouldn’t be automatically assumed to be chattel that one could go to. Obviously it would be preferred to keep from killing whenever possible, but I’m not likely to jeopardize a likely escape attempt by refusing to take a life.
BTW, I seem to recall that several of the slave states enacted laws in the period after the 1840 compromise that made it a crime for a slave to be literate, and the slave could be killed for it. If that’s the case, in the state where I’d been transported, it’s really going to make the whole kill/not kill conundrum a bit easier…
Well, as other posters have pointed out: Where would you go to be assured of a better situation? I’m not saying that slavery in Rome is any better than US slavery. But there’s no place of safety to go to, in the Roman world. Also manumission was a more palatable goal than simple escape: Freedmen were not as discriminated against in Rome as in the US.
Anyone who actively comes between me and my freedom is fair game. If the overseer tries to stop me I have no problem gutting him. If an informant threatens me I’ll be doing both me and my fellow slaves a favor by strangling him. Bounty hunters? Sure, bash their heads in with the nearest rock, preferrably when they’re sleeping. I’ll even take out the deputy who’s just “following orders” in attempting to bring me in.
Marc
Well, I hardly have hard figures, but it seems to me that there is an obvious disincentive to injury or kill a working chattel that is literally toiling in fields for you, and that such disincentive is largely removed once the chattel attempts to escape. So, yes, I would think my health would be quite obviously better served by staying and working than by running and being caught.
It’s going to depend on how safe I am while in slavery. Do I have food and shelter? How are slaves treated on this plantation? Life as a black person in the 1850s is most likely going to be pretty bad no matter where I live. Plus, as has been said, there’s lots of danger in escaping. If the situation is terrible (not that slavery isn’t all ready terrible), then I’d try to escape, and only use force if in immediate danger.
You don’t have to kill the brat. You could knock him out cold.
And your punishment would most likely not be as simple as you going back to whence you came. You’d be subject to inhumane whippings or sold to “down the river”, to a slave owner who doesn’t cotton to runaways. You might even be killed.
I wouldn’t kill a kid who was sleeping in his bed (as was done in Nat Turner’s rebellion), but if a kid was about to get my ass in trouble, I’m sorry, but that kid is about to get “taken out”. I wouldn’t aim to kill, but if I kill so be it.
I may try to use what I know about future things such as inventions to try to gain favor with the master, live the life or a favored servant and wait till the war.
I would draw the line at killing the child, but anyone else who gets between you and freedom is not only fair game, but is probably ethically correct to kill them. It should help raise the cost (to society, and to that individual) of supporting slave owning.
The life expectancy of slaves at some of my family’s plantations was not very long. At the worst of them, in British Guiana, our slaves lasted on average only three years from date of arrival. At the best of our plantations, in Barbados, the life expectancy was about fifteen years from date of arrival.
I believe that a slave in such circumstances would have every justification in killing a great many people so as to escape – kill a person, kill a family, kill a community, kill a society. Kill until slavery is stopped.
Roughly 620,000 people died in the US civil war. A horrifically high price to pay, but well worth it.
Seriously though, I think I’d lay low and really take my time when escaping. Travel short distances, burrow under the ground at night and be prepared to lie motionless for long periods at a time. Above all don’t head straight for the river and be careful not to ask if anyone wants any odd jobs doing along the way down to Mexico. If anyone stumbled onto me, I would probably get a bit stabby.
Not me. If I were thinking about any children, it would be only my own, the unborn ones who would have to inherit bondage from me if I were to be recaptured. If I were running away with my already-born kids and we were about to get caught? Then this really would be a no brainer for me. The little white kid would have to be silenced by any means necessary, even if it meant death.
To answer your OP: how much force is justifiable to escape from slavery? I say whatever force is necessary to get the job done but not more than that. I’d sanction pre-mediated acts just as long as only those who are active oppressors are targeted. Pattyrollers, overseers, police, slave owners, anyone with a gun…fair game. Children, unarmed men and women who don’t have the means to physically stop me from running away…not fair game.
Well, assuming the “Navy Seal” option, then yeah, I’d kill anyone, including the kid and his little dog, too. I’m on my way to Canada and getting started on my Northern-Empire-based-on-superior-future-tech-like-Penicillin-and-AK-47s post-haste. (I’m assuming a SEAL could recreate an AK with help - I know how to grow Penicillium already)
If I’m just ordinary old me, then I think I’ll go with **kanicbird’**s toadying-and-wait-it-out program. We’d be the first electrified plantation on the River!
I’d tell my owner to let me go or chain me up, because otherwise he’s dead.
In truth, I’d really just try to flee. But implanting fear first would keep him from chasing too hard (and, hey, it might work.) I wouldn’t kill anyone just as I don’t think that will solve anything. The guy running this plantation is a lot less of a worry than all the posses and other white guys between me and the North. Getting them all mad at me doesn’t do much good.
I would certainly spend a lot of time while I was on the plantation lecturing them about the intelligence of black people when not raised as animals, and seek to indoctrinate their children. Of course, this might just mean I’d be locked up a lot and it would be harder to escape, but that would be worth it.