Analysis Of The Book ' Virginian Luxuries ' Pictures Essay

In contrast, the grandmother states that the blacks did not have things like the whites do (p.2118), putting the blacks down infront of her grandchildren, associating the blacks with poverty. We see how the grandmother fails to treat the blacks equally as human, solely because of their social status, as she perceives them merely as an inanimate object - a picture.

Count Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) was a part of the French government and held many positions as a magistrate and political observer. Most of his observations were done on political observations and writings workings of the United States. After some time, he became a reliable source for historical and contemporary aspects of American culture. In Origin of Anglo-Americans Tocqueville makes an excellent point,

Breen and Innes do a great job suggesting that a person’s conduct, not necessarily their race, played the major role in early Virginia. They make an inadvertent argument that dominance and submission were the real issue when it came to owning property at the time, not race. The large plantation owners intimidated the smaller farmers and landowners. Blacks were on the same playing field when compared along with the small farmers and landowners. Sadly, this did not last with the entrance of racial mindsets as aforementioned. There is also an argument that even though the hardest working blacks could work their way out of slavery and into freedom, they could maintain the wealth it took to perpetuate that freedom. The growing plantation system and the growing black population is what brought an end to the equal status of the free, black

Whether Virginia was a color-blind society or not, lots of examples were used to support each of the themes. The readers could easily follow the two main themes by reading through the book. To support that Virginia was not a color-blind society, the authors used African “indentured servants” as examples to illustrate the differences among African and white people, such as how Virginia court treat run-away “indentured servants”, how “indentured servants” were named with racial prejudice, and how law makers set African people apart. On the other hand, for what supports that Virginia was a color-blind society, the authors used plenty of examples as well. The most significant examples should be how Anthony Johnson and Emanuell Driggus, as examples of rich African people, were treated by the society. From those aspects, readers could easily find out that Virginia colony was a color-blind society when an African person became wealthy.

After the geographical location in context of America is explored, Tocqueville begins his exploration of the origins of Anglo-American people in society.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

The limitation of this book is that this book could only dedicate about 10 pages in the slavery in Virginia. Since it covered so much time period, some details were overlooked.

The “Free People of Color” was a term given to the free Africans who were living in the French islands of the Caribbean. These people were also referred to as the free colored. The Island’s population was made mostly of slaves and freed blacks. In 1750 there was much political turmoil. France had begun enforcing abolition and they were trying to eliminate slave abuse on the islands. This gave the slaves hope that they could become free. The free blacks fought for their legal rights. They came to together and revolted, but failed. The National Assembly compromised though and gave rights to free colored people born to two free parents with sufficient property. This angered the white community and they refused to acknowledge the legislation.

Slavery is a contradictory subject in American history because “one hears…of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; [while] on the other hand on hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridles power and wide oppression of men” (Dubois 2). Dubois’s The Negro in the United States is an autoethnographic text which is a representation “that the so-defined others

The relationships of power in this document are featured in “Virginian Luxuries which described that white mans are superior and rule the country and black people are mostly the one who got tortured and beaten by white because they are slaved. One left side of the picture white man has power and on right hand side black beaten by white which also describe that both ways white mans are ruling the country and black is treated badly. white man used them for their need but they also beat them to misbehaved with them in any way. White always think that they are the superior and they can do anything they want

Imagine yourself, a proud American starting another chapter in life where your desires and aspirations ahead of you. Then all of sudden undergo dizziness and then wakes up to a time in your ancestry encompassing not a pleasing sight. You walk around the new surroundings, seeking for a form of life to tell you where you are. When revealed to you where and WHEN you landed, your heart races and plummets to the floor at the same time. The one word and time where evil stands necessary and idea of dehumanization is afoot. Slavery: a segment in time surrounding bondage of African slaves under the societal and political supremacy of European America. Yet you pull yourself together, try to adapt to the ways of living hoping to go back to the present. As you learn to know your place in race and gender, you start to realize that your life can be at stake. The gender roles for white and black made an impact distinctively to function in a society on the matter assuring right and just. In the 19th century, America’s antebellum slave society considered toward white Americans as a way of life, but clearly an inhumane society in absolute existence. The existence of the antebellum south.

This tolerant attitude led to a wide range of “race classification.” According to how much “white” a slave had, their value in the eyes of society increased. Slaves could be black, octaroon or mulatto to name a few. Thus this led to a classification based on one’s degree of white blood. In the United States no such classes existed. If a slave was born to a black mother, that slave was black. In essence, Latin America judged based upon the degree of “blackness” while the South saw only two races, black or white. Outward appearance, the color of the father or anything else deviated the classification in the United States. It has been said, half-facetiously, that Southerners are color blind, in the sense that individuals, despite their racial composition, are considered to be either white or black, while Latin Americans recognized degrees of blackness and whiteness.

Inequality has been a major issue in the Colonial Virginia and it was originated within a hierarchy of race, gender, and social class that already existed in the mother country of England.

This photo is incredibly moving as it depicts three women: two of which are both African-American, and one who is white. Although this photo seems very simple, this is a great representation of not only the slavery of this time period (18th century), but this depicts the relations between blacks and whites even through the mid 20th century. Focusing on the 18th century, the blacks were used as an economic support structure that was being used by the whites in order to build up various areas of the economy, as illustrated through both the article to parliament, and this photograph. Also deeper inside this photograph, the amount of luxuries that the blacks provided to the whites is shown, noticing the necklace around the white woman’s neck. This photograph, along with it’s more detailed interpretation through the letter, paint a very clear picture of how slavery impacted not only the sugar industry during the 18th century, but the relations between blacks and whites for years to

Virginia, nothing in this world can exist unless there are people who believe in it. Anything you can think of, be it Santa Claus, a ghost, or even a tree, simply is not real unless someone believes it is real. Now, it may seem silly to think of a tree as not being real: Wouldn’t trees still grow even if we don’t accept them as trees? Of course they would. Our thoughts alone don’t have the power to make things disappear. However, we may call them by another name, because they are still there, and everything needs a name, does it not? The idea of a tree still exists, and yet trees do not exist because we do not see them as “trees” but as this other name that we call them.