The Book Of Negroes Chapter Summary

In closing, Eric Williams brings a new perspective, while balancing consistent and thorough insight to his analysis of the origins of Negro slavery. I agree with his thesis as it is supported by factual evidence from various sources. It was a well thought out, educated and biased but analytical reading about the institution of Negro

From the 17th century until the 19th century, almost twelve million Africans were brought to the New World against their will to perform back-breaking labour under terrible conditions. The rationalizations and defences given for slavery and the slave trade were absurd and self-serving. Slavery was a truly barbaric, and those who think that they can control what another group of people eat, where they sleep, whether they are to live or die, or even whether they are to be bought or sold, are acting on a totally inhumane level.

In the United States, there has been many cases of Racial injustice. From the beginning of the start of the United States of America it was the injustice to the Native Americans being captured and used for slave labor while their bison be slaughtered for sportsmanship. But this paper is on the specific race of the African Americans. There are many races that have been racially profiled and ostracized by the English people. But the treatment that African Americans have endured even till this day is disheartening. African Americans have gone through enslavement during the early 1600’s to the mid 1800’s. Then the African Americans were obstructed by the Jim Crow laws creating the ‘Separate but Equal” propaganda during the late 1800’s into the 1960’s. After the abolishment of the Jim Crow Laws, people were considered equal until the recent actions of many police officers using deadly force on African American youths in the early 2000’s.

While being in slaved Aminata does not allow anyone to take advantage of her. Such aspects of being a slave are dehumanizing one’s identity, culture, religion, and language. Aminata is very stubborn and looks to religion as a way to save her, Aminata stays true to herself and fights the slave traders to stick with her true name; Aminata. From her resilience, she is seen as a special slave which helps her survive from the very moment she is captured. Due to her skills of language, she is able to be heard by everyone, so others who are being held captive can tell her their name and talk to her especially for communication purposes. "They wanted me to know them. Who they were. Their names." (Hill 96) Strength obtains from knowledge, She knows she is worthy. To prove she is equal, Aminata negotiates an alliance with the slave traders in Sierra Leone and a works a wage for writing the original book of negroes. Aminata affirms her identity, her genealogy, and her power over the words she writes (Carleton University). Her needs to find herself and get home drives her needs for survival. In addition to this Aminata’s social content and knowledge, helps separates her from the other slaves that surround

Throughout American history, minority groups were victims of American governmental policies, and these policies made them vulnerable to barbaric and inhumane treatment at the hands of white Americans. American slavery is a telling example of a government sanctioned institution that victimized and oppressed a race of people by indoctrinating and encouraging enslavement, racism and abuse. This institution is injurious to slaves and slave holders alike because American society, especially in the south, underwent a dehumanization process in order to implement the harsh and inhumane doctrine. In the episodic autobiography Narrative of the

The analysis of the under discussion autobiography indicates a lot of major universal themes and human exploitation is one of them. A reader can see bleak picture of black slavery from the narration of Frederick Douglass who confronts brutal conduct of white masters throughout his childhood.

Throughout Alain Locke’s works “Values and Imperatives,” “Pluralism and Intellectual Democracy,” “Cultural Relativism and Ideological Peace,” “The New Negro,” and “Harlem,” I found there to be a number of reoccurring themes, such as absolutes, imperatives, values, and relativism and their place in pluralism. I am going to be focusing on all the aforementioned themes and showing how they are all intertwined into the principles of pluralism.

The Book of Negroes depicts the early life, capture, enslavement and escape of an African girl, Aminata Diallo, within the age of slavery. Through Aminata's association with many characters, such as Mamadu Diallo, Chekura, Georgia, Mamed, Robinson Appleby, Solomon Lindo, and John Clarkson; Aminata learns important lessons that guide her on the adventure to opportunity. To start, Aminata Diallo originates from the West African settlement of Bayo. She is multilingual and can read and write in Arabic. At eleven years old she is taken from her country and sold into bondage. The novel movements in the middle of at various times and tails her voyage from South Carolina to London to discover her opportunity. Aminata is a just kid raised by her mom,

Prior to the major journey Aminata had lost both her mother and father before her eyes. At that point who else was going to fight for her because she lost everything she ever had before the sun came up. Although at times she begins to lose hope because she has lost so much but remember that her father told her strength is the most important thing you can have, “beauty comes and goes. Strength, you keep forever” (Hill, 2007). Even though her parents died, their voices never died; instead they lived along side Aminata through her treacherous journey. These are the voices that gave her strength in time of despair when she needed it the most to continue on the journey especially at the times when slaves that didn’t make it through the walk died, their bodies were just left on the side of the path. There was no grave for them, or no empathy shown to the people who passed away before they even worked as slaves. Each day, “each rising sun...more people died” (Hill, 2007), and “the loss of lives before the journey across the Atlantic was great” (Bolt, 2007). One must understand that Hill portrayed this image in the reading because he wanted to show the devastating cruelty against humanity. While they endured the journey on the ship to America the condition on the boat was hellish and not just on the ship but the

On the other hand, Aminata in The Book of Negroes portrays excellent judgement by becoming the voice of freedom. Aminata has faced traumatic experiences on the slave ship and in the plantations, yet she continues to grow with ambition and determination. Aminata's hunger for freedom is what made her strong in the first place. Although her freedom was stolen away from her at an young age, she continues to seek what had been stolen away until she regained it; displaying her perseverance. Evidently, Aminata embraces her flaws and strives for what she believes in when she states, “I had chosen freedom, with all its insecurities, and nothing in the world would make me turn away from it.” (Hill, 303) Despite, belonging to the minority, being a black

Aminata is displaying her resistance towards Appleby by standing strong and proud of who she is. Not a girl slave, but a strong girl, born and raised in the village of Bayo.

My paper is an attempt to analyze the entire era of slavery and its later effects upon the lives of Africans who were brought forcefully to America as slaves and even after its abolition were treated inhumanly. My major attempt is to get an in depth insight of the struggles of these people for their survival in such an environment and the predicament of black women who were doubly oppressed; were the victims of both the whites and black men; and treated as naked savages and beasts, with Alice Walker’ masterpiece and Pulitzer prize winning The Color Purple. I have taken this project with my keen interest because the novel touched me deeply and I wanted to analyze it thoroughly.

The controversy of racism scorches Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass himself. Douglass unveils the atrocious truth about slavery that was hidden for so many years. Every beating, every death, every malicious act was all recorded for the people of the U.S. to finally see the error of our ways. The short essay, Slavery as a Mythologized Institution, explains how people in that time period justified the disgusting behavior that was demonstrated regularly. Religion and intellectual inferiority were concepts that were used to manipulate the minds of everyone around into believing that practicing slavery was acceptable. However a very courageous man, Frederick Douglass challenges those beliefs. Douglass debunks the mythology of slavery in his narrative by rebuking the romantic image of slavery with very disturbing imagery, promotes his own views on the intellectual belief of slaves, and exposes the “system” for promoting the disloyalty among slaves.

Prior to the publication of any slave narrative, African Americans had been represented by early historians’ interpretations of their race, culture, and situation along with contemporary authors’ fictionalized depictions. Their persona was often “characterized as infantile, incompetent, and...incapable of achievement” (Hunter-Willis 11) while the actions of slaveholders were justified with the arguments that slavery would maintain a cheap labor force and a guarantee that their suffering did not differ to the toils of the rest of the “struggling world” (Hunter-Willis 12). The emergence of the slave narratives created a new voice that discredited all former allegations of inferiority and produced a new perception of resilience and ingenuity.

In Petrine Archer-Straw’s Negrophilia: Avant-Garde Paris and Black Culture in the 1920s, Paris’ consumption of black culture and perception of blackness is heavily scrutinized. The book offers an intelligent and articulate perspective on twentieth-century Paris that I have yet to encounter in formal education; one that is invaluable to anyone who wishes to fully understand the ways in which people of color had to behave in order to exist in the white man’s world. In the introduction Archer-Straw makes it clear: “Negrophilia’s perspective is essentially non-European” (Archer-Straw, 12). This is largely what separates Negrophilia from other scholarly books and essays; it is also what makes Archer-Straw’s viewpoint so valuable. She examines the avant-garde’s obsession with what they perceived as black culture, and the ways in which they exploited and disrespected it- something that feels largely unexplored in a traditional Western university setting.