Jefferson was one of America’s most influential slaveowners and politicians, and his personal freedom and wealth derived from both the land and the hundreds of people he owned. To Locke, slavery is not slavery but a “compact” between a “lawful conqueror and a captive.” Therefore, if an oppressive relationship appears to be slavery, according to Locke, it is instead an agreement between one person or a group of people to submit and obey another person or group. Locke’s convoluted and nonsensical attempt at doing that basically consists of saying that it is impossible for a human being to knowingly agree to be a slave. In Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, his chapter “Of Property” that explains the role of property in society is directly preceded by the chapter “Of Slavery” that attempts to justify the institution White people came to the New World for the freedom that property and ownership would allegedly provide, and with the understanding that destruction of property or the denial of ownership would threaten white freedom. Locke’s dystopian interpretation of freedom also resulted in property and ownership becoming an extension of white identity.
![the pursuit of happiness speech the pursuit of happiness speech](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Nxs88iBQZqY/maxresdefault.jpg)
It should surprise no one that Locke’s words were embraced by colonizers who implemented genocide to take indigenous land, and ethnocide to erect American chattel slavery. In America, ownership was the precursor to freedom. Kyle Rittenhouse’s Future Looks Hideously Brightīy attaching life and liberty to property, Locke undermined the importance of life and liberty within public and shared spaces, making them exist within the items and territory that someone owned.