Freedom, Stability And Human Rights

In America, the lives of Africans did not get any easier. Once the demand for labor began increasing dramatically, more and more Africans were imported to America. Originally, white people and black people worked together in the plantations. As a result of the increase in Africans in these British colonies, less white people took jobs on plantations. Eventually, enslavement became based on race. Numerous slave codes were developed, which included denying slaves the right to be out past sunset and denying slaves the right to meet in groups of three or more. These Africans forced to live enslaved in America were treated as if they were inferior to white people. It is discouraging to think about the fact that this country, though it was long ago, once accepted this kind of social injustice.

Both free and enslaved Africans were discriminated against in this time period but responded differently towards their challenges. African Americans found ways to cope with their situation one being religious gatherings (Doc D). They sang old traditional African songs and danced. By doing so, they can forget about life troubles for a moment and give themselves a sense of hope that someday they would by free. Some slaves where more violent than other and began rebellions against their white owners. The use of rebellion was inspired to them by the Bible and that God was pleading for their cause with earnestness and zeal (Doc G). Slaves who caused mischief was relocated deeper south where the treatment and condition was even worse. The Fugitive Slave Law forced the North to send back any slaves who escaped to the North in return for a reward. Slaves who tried to escape to the North were also relocated. By relocating them, the chances of escape decreased for them. Even

In the time period of slavery, many famous slave songs were produced, and most of the slave owners and others found their singing as a form of joy. In reality, singing was the slave’s form of sadness, and emotion. Slaves got through the day by singing about their hardships and troubles. Fredrick Douglass in the quote above explains that through all of his hardships, he got through it with his “sorrow songs” to pacify him and his fellow slaves to be able to complete their

In this passage Douglass explain that the songs that the slaves sing symbolized hatred and resentment against their masters and the condition they were brought into. They also know that they had someone they could cry out to who would understand their agony, which is God. Singing those songs was their coping mechanism and a way for them to tell their story for those who understood the meaning, and those songs were a connection to their souls, and the representation of their struggles. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass implies the meaning of those songs and the slaves are two in one. They are expressing a pain so deep that only the ones who endured would recognize, and the ones who heard their songs would be held accountable. Douglass’s

Once free they had a realization that they could do anything. This appeared in the stories, essays and poems they wrote. They were opened up to a world that held so many possibilities. The world was theirs and because they didn’t have it for so long. African Americans lived oppressed and without any rights. When they were freed it opened up so many possibilities. Emily Dickinson talked about how we can’t understand something until it is no longer with us. African Americans were trapped for all their lives and once released they had ambition. Their ambition sent them to work and continue to advance in the world. The problem for the white people is they didn’t have this ambition. They had never had been without rights, so they couldn’t understand. African Americans worked until they surpassed the white’s so no white could ever put them in captivity again. They were humans and were equal and nothing could change that.

Africans have, since the early settlement of America, has had a great influence in the nation’s growth. These contributions to the United States from enslaved Africans have been greatly portrayed in American culture. Varying from cuisine, to song and dance are not only portrayed today but it has a deep-rooted impact throughout the United States. During the middle passage, enslaved Africans were forced to abandon their everyday lives, their families and their homes and forced to adapt to a new lifestyle they knew nothing of. However, upon arrival into the New World, due to their prior knowledge and wisdom from back home, they were able to quickly adapt and custom themselves to this new lifestyle in order to survive with the hope of potentially one day returning back to Africa. Unfortunately, African contributions to the culture of the United States has received little to no recognition and it has been taken credit for by Europeans and Whites since the early establishment of the United States.

By telling us this it shows us that the slaves were taught to not feel, and that there was no other way for them to live life. Everyone can relate to the fact that in the moment of a certain situation it might not seem too bad, but when you look back on it you really see how bad it really was, this is what Frederick Douglass was experiencing. By explaining how he felt while hearing the songs, it makes the reader feel the unknowing nature that all of the slaves had and it makes us see the injustice in the situation.

The author starts out by describing the harsh situation slaves were put in and how the black experience in America is a history of servitude and resistance, of survival in the land of death. The spirituals are the historical songs which tell us what the slaves did to hold themselves together and to fight back against their oppressors. In both Africa and America, music was directly related to daily life and was an expression of the community’s view of the world and its existence in it. The central theological concept, which is the prime religious factor, in the black spirituals is the divine liberation of the oppressed from slavery. Further, the theological assumption of black slave religion as expressed in the spirituals was that slavery contradicts God, and therefore, God will liberate black people. This factor came from the fact that many blacks believed in Jesus, and therefore, believed that He could save them from the oppression of slavery because of his death and resurrection. The fact that the theme of divine liberation was present in the slave songs is supported by three main assertions: the biblical literalism of the blacks forced them to accept the white viewpoints that implied God’s approval of slavery, the black songs were derived from white meeting songs and reflected the "white" meaning of divine liberation as freeing one from sin (not slavery), and that the spirituals do not contain "clear references to the desire for freedom". The extent of

A spiritual journey dominates these songs, but the concern for physical freedom is there as well. The most pervasive image in the spirituals is that of the chosen people for the slaves believed that they had been chosen by God just as the Israelites had. They also believed that they understood better than anyone what freedom truly meant in both a spiritual and physical sense. The Old Testament characters that the slaves referred to in their songs experienced deliverance by God. The slaves believed that the same God that had granted them spiritual freedom would someday loose the chains of slavery. The wonderful flexibility of the spirituals allowed for that double meaning of freedom. For example, Frederick Douglass claimed that the line” I am bound for Canaan” in one of the songs he frequently sang meant that he was going North, not just that he would experience the freedom of the promised land in a spiritual sense. The flexibility and multiplicity of meanings also allowed for slaves to use these sacred songs as secret communication. Some songs, such as “Steal Away to Jesus,” were used to call a secret meeting where the people could worship without the supervision of the whites. Other songs, such as “Wade in the Water” served as coded directions for runaway slaves. With the eventual emancipation of the slaves, religious music of African Americans became prominently

Slavery was one of the darkest periods in African American history. Africans were taken from their homes in West Africa and brought to America to work on plantations. However, slavery was not something new, as it existed in Africa before Europeans partook in it, but slavery in Africa was very different from slavery in America. During their voyage through the Middle Passage many slaves perished. Those who survived were sold and subjected to the harsh life on the plantations. When this happened, their authentic cultures were drastically changed from the way of life in their native homelands in Africa to life in the plantation society of the American colonies.

The power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. A word created by man to escape the bonds of tyranny to express the idea of what it means to persist one's own ambitions. Freedom. Freedom is not the absence of confinement but the will to achieve freedom when imprisoned. After carefully concluding the reading done over this semester one is able to clearly understand the confinement these early Americans felt and their decision to achieve a form of freedom. Freedom has always existed but it is the history of this nation that will define what actions freedom takes.

As a result of slavery in a whole a distinct slave culture emerges. In this culture privileges are few, but the few privileges are greatly valued. For example, in the slave culture singing was a very popular and important part of their lives, it was one of the few ways they were allowed express themselves. They would sing of their sorrows and of their joys. In the words of Frederick,

Achieving their assignments was for the real value for their owners, not their own personal well being and worst of all not knowing when they were going to be free again. African slaves intelligently knew that in European beliefs, Christians were not allowed to enslave another Christian, so they tried to convert to Christianity to create a space in which they could negotiate for better freedom, but in reality this was only to increase their hope and faith, because this did not helped them at all.

Douglass corrects white reader’s misconceptions about the slave’s assumed happiness by illustrating the song’s true meaning through his personal experience “within the circle.” Douglass is astounded that northerners believed they were singing songs out of happiness; he says, “I have often been astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake” (26). Douglass explains that the songs create a common experience among all slaves. Therefore, those outside the circle are ignorant to believe that their songs are out of happiness or contempt. In actuality, “slaves sing most when they are the most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears” (26). Douglass makes it clear that slaves are actually evident on a sub-conscious level of deep unhappiness. The singing is a coping mechanism, per say, to the aching hearts. The songs are not a pastime

Often slaves who attempted a secret education were penalised and this led to either disfigurement or even death. Certain slave writers focused on the quest for literacy which these slaves believed were in a way often linked with their personal quest for freedom. Slaves who managed to learn to read and write were the ones who were most likely to escape, because they could use their hard-earned knowledge to forge their own passes after having read about the successful escapes made by the other similar slaves from the other plantations. Like the Negro spirituals – religious songs sung by the Negroes – the slave narratives have had a profound impact on the contemporary American literature scenario. And like the lively negro spirituals — which often contained secret codes and messages that were decipherable only by the enslaved blacks — the slave narratives were considered dangerous and subversive by many of the slaveholders and these plantation owners feared that these narratives might lead to slave revolts and