The Fires of Jubilee: How Reliable is It? Essay

Throughout the 16th century, as there was a demographic collapse of the indigenous population, there was now a new demand for slave labor in Latin America. In Brazil, the Portuguese needed a large workforce to cultivate sugar plantations. As a result, numerous slaves from Africa were imported to work on large plantation fields. In various plantations, rural slaves experienced harsh working and living conditions. Few slaves had a high life expectancy. Robert Edgar Conrad in “Children of God’s Fire,” shares some primary sources that dealt with the types of environments and conditions many slaves faced and encountered in Brazil. The sources also gave insight into the regulations and economics/business of the slave trade. Conrad states that rural Brazil was “a hell for blacks” (Conrad 54). Many slaves dealt with extremely harsh conditions just to keep the European market in Latin American growing and profitable. This paper will analyze how rural slaves lived and worked on Brazilian sugar plantations.

American Revolution. In this book, the author, Gary B. Nash, tells a detailed and engaging story about the issues of race and slavery that these people faced. He brings many facts to the table that seem to have been left out of “the books that commanded library shelves multivolume nineteenth-century histories of the United States by George Bancroft, Richard Hildreth, Edward

The book “The Fires of Jubilee” describes the lifestyle that America had in the 1800s. It shows what kind of life the African people and also Black people that were born in America, how the Americans made rules and laws to get more control on their slaves, and how they used the influence of the church to make the African think that they were born just for services the white people. After that, Stephen Oates wrote the story of how an African American believed that he was a messenger of God, that born to be the leader of the slaves.

Gray’s “The Confessions of Nat Turner” opened with an overview of Turner’s early life. He included a passage in which Turner said that an odd moment in his life, when he recalled events that happened before his birth, “laid the ground work of that enthusiasm, which has terminated so fatally to many” (44). By declaring his revolt as an enthusiasm, which means that it was a divinely inspired pursuit, he already ingrained the prejudice of the confessions being the one of an overly religious man. The confessions persisted with the idea of Turner being an irrational self-proclaimed prophet. He was said to have many revelations in his life which convinced him that he was “ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty” (46). The purpose, as he saw it, was to lead his people to freedom.

In chapter seven of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass is finally aware of his approximate age, and is burdened with the thought of being a “slave for life.” At the age of 12, it is not very encouraging to be given the description of a “slave for life.” Douglass uses his newfound reading and writing skills to cleverly comprehend the book The Columbian Orator, and the speeches from the Catholic emancipation it contains, in his favor. The book Douglass discovers does a good job of supporting his invalidation of slavery as well as providing him with knowledge and reasonable arguments.

In The Fires of Jubilee Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion: Stephen Oates gives an account of the brief but deadly slave revolt in and around Southampton, Virginia. His controlling theme is that of religion and the profound influence that it had on the development of Nat Turner's charismatic persona and his rationale for engaging in a project of deliberate murder of people who had at least in the context of slavery as a given of Turner's experience, treated him quite decently. The effects of Nat Turner's rebellion were profound. The insurrection of Nat Turner was inspiration for all slaves, even if just 60 whites were killed to the 140 blacks. I am

The Fires of Jubilee by Stephen B. Oates describes a sad and tragic story about a man named Nat Turner who was born into slavery and his fight to be free. Ironically, his willingness to do anything, even kill, to gain his freedom leads to his own demise. From the title of this book, 'The Fires of Jubilee,'; a reader can truly grasp the concept that there is trouble, chaos, and mayhem brewing in the month of August.

     The Fires of Jubilee, is a well written recollection of the slave insurrection led by Nathaniel Turner. It portrays the events leading towards the civil war and the shattered myth of contented slaves in the South. The book is divided into four parts: This Infernal Spirit of Slavery, Go Sound the Jubilee, Judgment Day, and Legacy.

The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion written by Stephen B. Oates, is a biography about a slave that lived in America during the 1800’s and the affects the institution of slavery had on him and society. Being a specialist in the nineteenth-century United States history, Oates, was a reputable history professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Oates has composed sixteen books as well as been presented with the Nevins-Freeman Award of the Chicago Civil War Round Table for his historical work on the Civil War.

Fires of Jubilee is a book that is talking about slavery and rebellion against it. The book is enjoyable but still is very saddening because of the occurrences in the plots. Slavery is not something to be happy about. Humans treating other humans with no mercy, and making them works with no pay for extended hours.

“The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” is often told with a harsh and unemotional tone; it is this euphemistic style that gives the reader a keen insight into the writer's epoch as a slave in Maryland during the early 1800’s. Douglass never let us forget that his narrative was true, he wanted the readers to understand the truth that was Douglass's life, in addition the symbols and allusions that populate this book showing the intelligence and sophistication of the writer, while the detached writing also gives the reader another look into that time’s attitude and into Douglass’s own perception.

     Nat Turner’s slave revolt may have not been the greatest way to solve the problem of slavery,

   Frederick Douglass was arguably the most prominent African American abolitionist during the mid-19th century. He established his notoriety through his narrative entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave published in 1845. Frederick Douglass also produced an African American newspaper, Frederick Douglass' Paper, which highlighted the reception and critiques of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Frederick Douglass praised Uncle Tom's Cabin through not only his writing but in the critiques and letters contained in his newspaper. It is important to look at these reviews to understand Douglass' intentions. However, C.V.S. from the Provincial

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the

Ilan Stavans says that Juan Rulfo’s book, The Plain in Flames, is best represented by the phrase realismo crudo. Stavans defines this phrase as “a type of realism interested in the rawness of life”, meaning that he characterizes Rulfo’s writing as an unfiltered view into the lives of the average Mexican (Stavans, xi). By writing in this style, Rulfo is able to provide “an image—instead of just a description—of our landscape” as stated by Octavio Paz (xv). To create this image, Rulfo broke his story writing the process down into three separate steps. As paraphrased by Ilan Stavans, the first step “is to create a character”, the second step “is to place him in an environment where he might move around” and the third step “is to discover how the character expresses himself” (xiii). Rulfo was able to repeatedly crafted stories that were filled with high levels of realismo crudo by using that special three-step process. By creating his protagonist, crafting an environment for said protagonist, and allowing the character to express themselves within this environment, Rulfo crafted a three-tier image of post-revolutionary life in Mexico that has never been seen before.