Slavery And Its Effects On African Americans

Forms varied, but the common denominator in all acts of resistance was an attempt to claim some measure of freedom against an institution that defined people fundamentally as property. Perhaps the most common forms of resistance were those that took place in the work environment. After all, slavery was ultimately about coerced labor, and the enslaved struggled daily to define the terms of their work.

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

From the earliest days of slavery, resistance was a constant feature of American slavery. It took many forms, from individual acts of sabotage, poor work, feigning illness, or committing crimes like our arson and poisoning to escape the system altogether by running away to the north. The bloodiest slave revolt in American history was organize by Nat Turner. Over the year’s other rebellions such as Fredrick Douglas and Lou Smith took place. They all had a common goal in some aspect, which was to reclaim their freedom or the freedom of the enslaved. Despite the common goal, they all had a method to their rebellions.

Life was hard for them but they did what they could to keep themselves happy and hopeful for the future. Religion helped give them hope for the future, hope that god or some other religious figure, would come and save them from clutches of the white man. It also reinforced the idea that they were all brothers, under god and under the same circumstance. It was the glue that solidified the strong family bond that slaves had. The shoulder to cry on, the person to talk to, all of which were helpful for the lives of slaves. They were able to fill their lives with love and laughter which sounds somewhat far-fetched, but was actually true. Singing songs or teaching folktales about outsmarting the white man kept their spirits high with laughter and memories which are told within families for years. Being given the lifelong burden of solitude is unbearable without some sort of method to cope. Whether they did so peacefully or through disobedience, they had to develop ways to lessen the cruelty of the life they had. The largest factor that played to their coping, must have been the strong family bond. The sense that everyone was together and that no one was alone, leaves no one ostracized. Everyone could depend on each other as they were a family built upon the clutches that bound them to the

Some slaves would resist by breaking supplies and put houses on fire and some other slaves run away to the north. Another way they resisted was by Breaking tools, feelings illness, staging slowdowns. But other slaves didn’t risk resisting because they didn’t want to take the risk of getting killed. But some other people dint care if they died because they wouldn’t be tortured it would be death with something painful and fast. Instead of getting whipped or tortured. But the people that did care about their lives did whatever they were

For slaves weakened by the trauma of the voyage, the brutality of this process is overwhelming. Many dies, or committed suicide. Others resisted and were punished. The rest found ways of appearing to conform which still preserved their

Just when people thought slavery was coming to an end, the discovery of new cash crops and the development of advanced innovations spurred the growth of the implacable and unforgiving system of slavery. The eradication of humanity and reduction of slaves to the status of worthless beast continued. Copious individuals, unwilling to accept their faith and to be classified as a thing, contested their situation using different types of opposition that ranged from day to day resistance to large scaled and organized rebellion. In Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life, the author demonstrated the truth of being a human being who disinclined to be classified as an inferior subhuman as he used an assortment of methods to oppose the system he was born into. Slaves, helpless of being born or sold into the system, used various forms of resistance to combat their inhumane and unjust enslavement while holding on to the tiny seed of hope for an escape.

     Slavery in the early eighteenth century was horrible for African Americans. Men were being killed, women were being raped and children were being sold. To avoid the unjust treatment of slavery, slaves did the unthinkable. Some ran away, others killed their masters, and women even killed their own children. What were they trying to accomplish by this? Resistance. In the modern reinterpretation of slavery, considerable attention has been devoted to the subject of slave resistance. Earlier observers argued that such slave characteristics as clumsiness, slovenliness, listleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn indicated racial inferiority. Recent studies of slavery attribute these

The humankind is one of large ego and guilt, and in every period during history have they done selfish acts in the name of “survival”. Every generation, and every culture built much in this world, yet might have still used the wrong path to do so. America is one major example for this. The Americans, just like many other cultures, have used immoral techniques for the benefit and prosperity of themselves and their dawning country. They stole the lives of millions in order to keep their lives intact. Americans captured Africans and traded them in the colonies, and tormented them in order to utilize them as slaves to work under their control and grow their land. Such an immoral act had a huge impact throughout history even up until today.

Slaves did not migrate to America for work they were force to migrate and work. Most slaves were captured and sold to Europeans in order to build America. Slaves never had a chance during their enslavement to have the same opportunities of choosing to work like the Europeans. Slaves were force to come to America and utilize their skills and knowledge pertaining to agriculture because Europeans did not have the knowledge in how to sustain agriculture. Slaves were stripped from their family, freedom, and happiness in order to build America. After slaves were freed they were oppressed and their identity was destroyed. Now, in today society the African American community is looked upon as being deviant and having no family structure. The author at McGraw- Hill textbook publishing has failed to acknowledge that Africans were exploited for labor.

The narrative of slave resistance is often times limited to pragmatic violence. The art of obtaining liberation is documented in this manner due to the secrecy practiced by those colonized to maintain their livelihoods. Consequently, this forms a presumption that allows one to underestimate the mental capacity of the colonized subjects. We separate the human, analytical traits and began to see animalistic creatures acting on rage that is subjectively justified. While it is obvious that the use of violence to evade power is a factor in the fight towards liberation, there were more subtle, sophisticated approaches taken. Those colonized created ways to communicate and fight back in ways that their oblivious rulers rarely noticed or grasped. The indirect techniques, or “hidden forms of resistance” were often directed towards political and economic autonomy. Those methods included the tellings of

The slaves however also used religion as a way to resist slavery by creating music and poems. For instance All God’s Chillun Got Wings explains how all of God’s children are the same. “I got-a shoes, you got-a shoes, All o’ God’s chillun got-a shoes”. This verse explains how the lives of a slave and the life of a free man are identical. All human beings are the same, all God’s children. Another song is Steal Away to Jesus where slaves sing about going away with Jesus. “My lord, my lord, he calls me. He calls me by the thunder. The trumpet sounds

Everyday resistance is the idea of putting the individual in a better situation than one previously was by means of inconveniencing one of higher power. In terms of slavery it would be the slaves pushing an inconvenience onto their master so that their personal lives would be, temporary, better. The idea itself was not put onto the forefront of historical research until the 1970’s. The relationship between slave and slave master is the foundation for this idea of agency or everyday resistance. A push and pull for power that underlines the very nature of the relationship. Where it is true that the master help the majority of the power, but by the practice of the idea of everyday resistance the slaves were able to pull more power towards them. This does not convey they were give a substantial amount of power, but they were given the chance to restore the humanity and bonds that were taken away from them initially. In this paper I shall be describing three different sections with the premise of everyday resistance as the overarching theme of the paper. The first section I will be dealing with the five basic questions of an idea. The who, what, where, when, and why of the idea. In this section I will give my findings related to the idea of everyday resistance and examples that took place in the United States during the time of American slavery. My second section will be dealing with more extreme versions of everyday resistance. Though my first section will cover the basis for

“Where ever there was slavery, there was resistance” (University of the West Indies 86). Before the arrival of the first African slave ship, until the expansion of Maroon communities and the birth of Creolized Africans, slaves have resisted and resented the hostile confinements of slavery. The harsh realities of slavery left many enslaved persons feeling maladjusted to

Kenneth Stampp claimed that slaves inherently yearned for freedom and acted in many forms to show their discontent with their bondage. Slaves rebelled by faking illness or pregnancy in order to postpone work, feigned ignorance, purposely did careless work and damaged properties, stole from their masters, and ran away. Stampp used these instances to justify his claim that resistance was enacted by discontent. In cases where rebellion was not dealt by the slave owners themselves, crimes committed by slaves were considered a bigger offense than the same crime committed by a free white man (Stampp 267). In response, slaves developed their own code of laws rather than abiding by the government laws and their master’s rules. “Stealing, on the other hand, meant appropriating something that belonged to another slave, and this was an offense which slaves did not condone” (Stampp 268-9). By establishing a tacit understanding with each other, slaves established themselves as a body of “us” and pitted themselves against “them”, the slave owners. In extreme cases, slaves turned to self-sabotage, suicide, and homicide in order to rebel against their owners. The resistance was not entirely in response to mistreatment by their masters, but to express the desire to be free and independent. As said by former slave Frederick Douglass, “Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog; but feed and clothe him well,—work