What Is The Role Of Slavery In African-American Culture

Throughout American history slave has resist their master, the system and the idea of slavery. These resistance has became of a key stone in the history of slavery. To understand what these resistance is, we will look at incident of the past to analyze how slave in the past resisted their master, the system and the idea of slavery.

Modern and historical forces combine to keep the racial hierarchy in the dominant cultures control. Historically, slavery was diplomatically protected within our constitution safeguarding the control and ownership of African Americans. The three-fifths compromise written into the constitution in 1787, safeguarded slaveowners by greatly increase the representation and political power of slave-owning states (Laws, 2017). Slavery was widespread within the southern states until the year of 1865, when slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished, except for those duly convicted of a crime. Between 1866 and 1870, through congress a radical reconstruction era was executed ensuring guaranteed freedom and civil rights to former slaves. These turn of events, incensed southern slave owners giving rise to white Supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan. Such historical events and accounts help us understand present conditions for people of color through recognition of the enduring struggle of those who have fought slavery and racism.

However, with Jefferson’s dislike for the institution he knew that to oppose the issue could tear the nation completely apart. In 1820, during James Monroe’s Presidency the Missouri Compromise was approved. The Missouri Compromise essentially regulated the balance for the admittance of Slave and Free States into the Union. In Thomas Fleming’s A Disease in the Public Mind the author, states that with the Compromise’s passing that Jefferson declared that it signaled the end of the Union of the nation as they had once known it. With this idea in mind, Fleming presents how the Missouri Compromise seemed unsettling for Jefferson, who believed that regulating the state’s choice to have slavery or not would not end the institution but only stir up more loathing for the Southern States. Along with this Fleming, points out how many slave owners made the claim that the slaves they owned were considered property and were entitled to their property to be preserved by the government. It was here that the first changes in the nation’s society and economics take place in the United States. With the further spread of slavery into the west, the abolitionist and anti-slavery movements began to rise changing the minds of many who lived in the North and even some in the South to look at their society as a whole, which formed the question whether the institution of slavery was a moral and just one. This idea of slavery being moral and moral in American society heavily relied on the religious

The Europeans tried to enslave the Native Americans but found it to be very difficult as it was easy for them to escape and rejoin their tribes and in such a time, there were power in numbers. On the other hand, it was not so easy for Africans to escape and travel back to Africa, and if they did attempt to escape, the punishment in most cases was death. Slavery was profitable and the slaves were sustainable to the tobacco plantations. The African were physically able to work under harsh conditions and another key aspect is that although the African slaves were from Africa they came from different parts of Africa and were diverse in language and skills. The diversity especially in language made it hard for them to rebel. Since, they spoke different dialects it made it hard for them to communicate with each other, rebuttal, and more importantly made it hard for them to organize and to stage any form of rebellion.

Anthropology findings continue to educate people on how human beings before our time used to live and run their societies in the past. While searching online for an article, I was able to find a recent anthropology related article on slave findings at the Magnolia Plantation in Louisiana. The name of the article that I found was called Slave Culture Research Showcased at New Smithsonian Museum written by Katelyn Kenny. This article interested me the most because I am very interested in African American culture and the history of African Americans and how they were treated as slaves, which is why I choose to write about this particular article for my extra credit assignment.

African American veneration of elders did not begin in the new world but was transported by slave ships from Africa during the Middle Passage. Despite the many Africans who chose to acclimate to slavery to survive in the new world, there were many who held tight to their beliefs and traditions including ancestor worship. The values that have been passed down from generation to generation have focused on family, along with the emphasis on both children and elders in the African American community (Billingsley, 1992). From the onset of slavery in the United States, informal caregiving included fictive kin and has played a crucial role in the African American community as a response to racism, according to Sudarkasa (1996). During slavery in the

America just like other nation has had its dark times. America has gone through a dreadful past. It once decided to own people as property and deprive them of their human equality and rights that were basic to life. America deprived African Americans of their liberties and enslaved them. Slavery played a huge role in the economy. Slavery did provide the means for whites to build wealth, income, and status while African Americans have continued to struggle. The oppression and segregation and the lack of rights made it impossible for African Americans to have any political and economic power to change their position. African Americans were basically deprived of their rights to vote and use the power of the government in their own favor to better their living standards. However reparation is not needed. Many may argue that reparation is what African Americans need to better themself now in the current economy states Robert L. Allen, yet it is impossible to establish who 's a descendant? The “Economist” argues that their laws in play that deny and prohibit reparations from corporations and companies. Ask yourself how can we put a price tag on something that happened nearly two and a half centuries ago? In what form would this payment be? How will the central government handle this? How will the economy handle such a large debt? Why should American taxpayers, who never owned slaves, pay for the sins of their ancestors? It is impossible to forecast such a large change in the

The use of African American slaves began in the Mid-17th century. According to the U.S. Census of 1790, the United States had a population of 3.8 million people; from which 700,000 of them were slaves, that is 18 percent of the entire population. The state of Virginia had the largest population of slaves. Virginia alone had 300,000 slaves. In South Carolina, 43 percent of the entire population was slaves ( Zambelli). It all makes sense because in the year of 1790, the average household owned 2-6 slaves. Some families owned a larger farm or had larger plantation fields and they could own up to two-hundred slaves (Walbert). People owned slaves not just for the economic advantages that they produced but also for racial prejudice. “Southern whites were convinced that slavery was necessary … because freed blacks would be savages and a threat to white survival” (Zambelli).

Slavery and the black race in America cannot be separated since slavery is a big part of the history of African Americans from the 18th century to early 20th century. There are many issues to consider about slavery and the lives of the slaves at the period. One of those issues is the role played by women slaves in the societies of the time. Deborah White writes about how women slaves had a different life compared to the other white women and compared to the male slaves. However, it is the statement that White made that suggested that when it came to black women, then it was impossible to separate their race and sex from them that is of much concern. In that, perceptions of a black woman were based on the fact that she was a woman and at

When people think about slavery they tend to believe that when Africans became enslaved they suddenly lost all connection they have to their homeland. It is true that from generation to generation a little piece is lost but that is not always the case. Especially closer to the eighteenth century. Slave culture in colonial North America was largely a combination of tribal African culture, Christian worship, and resistance. In many respects, American slave culture was a culture of survival and defiance against the American slave system

Africans were striped away from their native lands and forced to live in a foreign place that held no trace of familiarity. In the Americas, conditions on the plantations varied, but usually they were far from ideal. The institution of slavery imposed physiological and social damages to the slaves. Still, they were able to use cultural forms to lighten the burden of oppression. Many of them remembered their native languages, songs, and folk tales. This alleviated them from all of the emotional damage that the institution had enforced. However, as the generations of African-American children were born, it became harder to hold on to native customs solely. Eventually, African Americans were engulfed into European culture but added a great amount

and plastic art for the church as he had done in Africa where religion and art

Some slaves were punished when harbouring their culture and trying to better themselves, as their white master who kept a close watch over them could not allow that. Thus, it is commendable how much of the culture they have managed to protect, but with time and due to the Southern society, it has definitely been altered. Some of the early slave culture and the creation of a certain brotherhood between slaves can be traced back to their common history in African tribes. All the slaves came over the ocean with their own traditions and customs which sometimes were similar, but often not.

slaves could nearly develop a kind of culture or society. The expansive number of slaves made supervision troublesome and chance for escaper were more prominent. On these huge homesteads, slaves were separated into various gatherings relying upon their work, for example, field-specialists or house hirelings. These last specified, were viewed as high in positioning. They had the advantage of keeping away from physically requesting work and ate better nourishment and were dressed better, be that as it may, they endured the practically steady perception of their proprietors. Female house workers were especially helpless against manhandle by indecent experts. Moreover, because of the huge measure of slaves causing an impersonalization of the general

I choose to watch the video Slavery/The South and Slave Culture. After finishing the video, I found that the speaker, Louis P. Masur, made this topic quite easy to grasp. He went into detail of the lives of slaves that the book vaguely captured. “A photograph taken during the Civil War captures the absolute power of the master but it also conveys the humanity and agency of the enslaved.” Slaves were in such horrible conditions fighting for their lives. Slave owners continued to break them down and try to get them to succumb to their rules, but they maintained their hope and kept their spirits up. They showed the world what was going on by documenting pictures for news articles to push for emancipation. As he continued through the culture