During the Antebellum Era, slave narratives were prominent historical sources that gave great insight to the first-hand experience of slaves in America. As they signified to white America the true horrors and exploitation of the institution of slavery from the witness accounts of enslaved African Americans who actually experienced it. In the narratives, the enslaved stressed the horrors of slavery through their various life experiences in the south with their slaveholders and their great will to escape their bondage. Thus, demonstrating the immorality of such an institution to their intended audience of white America in order to not only tell their story but move their audience to see the demeaning and inhumane institution for what it is to hopefully abolish it. Through Frederick Douglass’s Narrative and the story of Harriet Jacobs documented in the documentary Slavery in the Making of America’s “Seeds of Destruction,” their struggles reveal the horror and triumph of surviving and escaping such…
There is a common accepted historical narrative that portrays the antebellum era as one fraught with prominent, white figures who owned slaves who were subservient and complacent. This commonly accepted notion of what slavery was like depicts slaves as individuals who simply accepted their fate and did not opt to exercise any form of agency. This notion that slaves did not try to actively resist the confines of slavery is untrue and is illustrated by the work Kindred by Octavia Butler, Black Thunder by Arna Bontemps, and Django Unchained directed by Quentin Tarantino. These creative works of historical fiction do accurately represent how slaves were treated but also, perhaps more important how slaves resisted such unjust treatment. The three aforementioned pieces were all created at different period of time.…
The American South encapsulated some of the most influential African American writers of the time. These writers were able to connect with others through their writings about pain, faith, struggle, and hope for a life with more camaraderie. Known for perpetuating the cruelest acts of violence toward slaves, the South was a place that a colored individual was known to avoid. Although the South was not just considered the site of brutality, it was considered the birthplace of African-American cultural practices and now a place for hope and change. In this essay I will discuss and analyze the works of Frederick Douglass, Jean Toomer, and Zora Neale Hurston and their outlook of the American South.…
Of Typhoons and Forced Servitude After Trayvon Martin’s horrific murder in 2012, a campaign christened as Black Lives Matter was established to celebrate the undeniable excellence and importance of the African American community and to pursue total social equality, regardless of past prejudices. Even though the 15th Amendment to the United States’ Constitution makes the discrimination or prohibition of rights on the basis of race criminal, African Americans constantly have to strive to prove themselves in a society dominated by the glorification of European descent. The necessity for overcompensation essentially stems from the era of colonization of the United States, when slavery dictated economic progress. The Slave Ship, painted by British…
During the historical period of slavery in America, authors were able to create the nations first truly indigenous genres of writing literature. These works surrounding individual accounts and stories of enslavement give us a glimpse into the life of a slave. There are numerous examples of such work; however, authors Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs give readers two of the most eloquent accounts as they describe their lives as slaves. While the authors of Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl appear analogous due to their shared experience in the clutches of slavery, gender roles sculpt each individual’s story. The differences between…
The Puritans who owned the slaves as their property to sales or traded them for money. The wealthy puritan became slave trade from the traffic in human cargo and made a great amount of money. The Puritans viewed slaves as labor who can do any kind of works. One of the most prevalent attitudes towards slavery throughout New England, the rest of colonies, and many Puritan slave owners was slaves were taken in order to Christianize them.…
In Lose Your Mother by Saidya Hartman, Hartman gives the reader a unique perspective on the institution of slavery than is often examined. This work begins to question our previous knowledge of the slave trade and forces us to look at the story from a perspective that as a society we may not want to acknowledge. Her work demands a deeper understanding of the institution of slavery be known and no longer allows society to perpetuate the misunderstandings of slavery and Africa that we have been perpetuating since the trade started. Often we are taught slavery from a Western perspective; we discuss how America prospered from the industry and how devastating the institution treated the individuals it captured.…
Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, Inc. 2014. Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc., 2005. 54 -------------------------------------------- [ 1 ].…
After reading about Harriet Jacobs’ life as a slave, the book expanded my understanding of the lifestyle that many African Americans lived during slavery. Although they may not be as close to Jacobs’ journey, they all fought for freedom. In this essay, I will be writing about the four different topics that we were assigned. First, I will be talking about Jacobs’ racial identity and her experiences in the south. Then I will talk about how gender and religion impacted on her life.…
It is the only article that continually discussed the matter of slave’s opinions towards their enslavement, was subjective, and did not idealize only the pleasurable parts of slavery. Both Genovese’s and Fogel and Engerman’s projects can and should be studied, but not based on the question of the sentiments slaves felt toward their bondage; instead they should be interpreted to form opinions and discussions on the slave and future freed black people’s culture and the inner workings and effects of the slave system,…
Slavery in the American context was different than its predecessors, it was brutal, heinous, and dehumanizing. This brings us to the American paradox, on one hand the founding fathers supported freedom, and natural rights but on the other hand supported an institution that deprived people of every ounce of human dignity. How could such a great nation as the United States have such a horrendous past? There’s no one simple answer, but there is evidence that one of the factors that cemented the slavery institution in America was commercial in nature. This paper will examine how the legal system was forged to bolster the slavery institution and how insatiable power and greed compelled otherwise rational people into supporting such a heinous and barbaric system.…
Slavery has always been an awful thing. But It can be denied it play a major role in our history. For the purpose of this historiographical paper I will focus in slavery in the United States in colonial times. Focusing on African women something that many historian agree hasn’t been talk enough.…
Frederick Douglass argues in his narrative that slavery dehumanizes both the slave and the slave master generating a dependency for each other. For slave’s, this dehumanization came in the form of having their name, culture and personal identity stripped away from them and for the slave master, the inability to function when deprived of slave assistance. In this essay, I will use Frederick Douglass’s narrative; along with, first-hand accounts to demonstrate how both the slave and the slave master became dehumanized through the institution of slavery. Using Frederick Douglass’s narrative, I will explain how slaves became exploited for cheap labor by the slave master creating a society depended on slaves.…
This final paragraph is dedicated to the misconceptions and discrimination regarding slaves. As discussed in previous chapter, slaves were seen as property, a property to do with as a master saw fit. This paper also discussed how having the mindset of being superior over another person can warp the mind and nature of a person. This paragraph will expand on the misconceptions of slaves, which did not fit into the previous two chapters. One aspect that is critically important is the understandings that people had regarding the nature of slaves.…
The book, “American Slavery: 1619-1877” written by Peter Kolchin and published first in 1993 and then published with revisions in 2003, takes an in depth look at American slavery throughout the country’s early history, from the pre-Revolutionary War period to the post-Civil War period. The first chapter deals with the origins of slavery within the United States. It discusses the introduction of slavery to the nation even before it was officially a nation. The colonies in the United States were agricultural and the cultivation of crops required labor.…