Growing up I found myself fascinated with learning history; I found it inspiring and enlightening, that is until I went to college and learned the side of history that was never revealed in my small home town school. It is overwhelming to think about the atrocities that humans can commit against other humans and living beings. There were three readings from the handout that really triggered an emotional response in me as I read.
The first was the writing by Frederick Slare in 1775. Frederick Slare attempts to trigger an emotional response within the reader to not only "crave" sugar but to feel guilty about not wanting to use sugar. He "addresses" several popular concerns about sugar in a strictly emotional way, rather than providing evidence in the support of sugar. He attempts to convince the reader to consume sugar by appealing to women's desire for beauty and acceptance. The reason this triggered my anger is because this is the same thing I see in advertisements today; specifically with tobacco, alcohol and fast food. Although all of these products have been proven to be harmful when consumed, advertisements attempt to use emotional triggering to entice consumers to use those products. This really upsets me, because (at least with three products I mentioned above) they know that the product is dangerous and yet they attempt to seduce the consumer by promising to feel good, have fun or be beautiful. It has always interested me to see how different policies and procedures (including advertising) has changed from the past, or not changed for that matter. I always thought that advertising has become more ruthless over the years based on lack of accountability or originality, so it caught me off guard to see that it has been the same for a very long time.
The second segment that interested me was the letter to parliament. This fascinated me because it is not often that I have seen someone illustrate the entire process of any product before, and I felt like this letter did a good job at that. It would be hard for someone who is a consumer to understand how the entire process works from planting the fields to selling the product in a store, so when they want to add a tax (duty) to the product they don't usually understand the impact this will have on the entire system. What really drew me into this section of the handout, was the way the author simply spelled out the process of sugar production as well as how and why each step of the process would be affected by the increased duty on sugar. One thing I have learned to hate about history is that it changes based on whose pint of view you are hearing. What I like about this is it seemed to take a 360 view of the sugar production industry (whether it actually did or not) and presents it in an intellectual way.
The third and most emotional section of this handout to me was the account of slavery through the eyes and memory of Olaudah Equiano. This was a heartbreaking account of the living conditions of those living as slaves or indentured servants. This is the side of history that is rarely, if ever, displayed. I believe that it is the lack of these stories that has allowed for these injustices that occurred to go unpunished, and almost unnoticed, and it continues to justify these actions today. I think the most fascinating part of this section was on page 106 when he talks about how not all of the slave owners (plantation owners) treated their slaves and indentured servants with distain. What I found interesting about this is that many plantation owners seemed to justify their cruel and horrific actions towards their slaves with the idea that if they treated them better or gave them more freedom they would be uncontrollable. This however is not the case as we can see by Olaudah Equiano's account, those who were treated more humanely, though still living the life of a slave, lived longer and healthier lives and were at the same time able to complete more work than those living in horrific conditions.
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