...clarification: • African identity- this term will be used interchangeable. (1) realizing the African continent commonality, (2) the culture and behavior of the slaves (African born and creoles)—basically what defines the slaves’ identity. • Creoles- (1) Atlantic creoles that are phenotypically and culturally mixed with African and European cultures. The Dynamic African identity: Coping with Slavery Upon considering the changes and the creation of an “African” identity (definition 2), it is important to realize that similar to the constantly changing slavery due to the frequent shifts in the social, political, and economic contexts, the “African” identity was also dynamic. Although the overall reason that prompted the development of the notion of the African continent (definition 1) might be similar across the board of slavery, the specifics of what constituted this identity (ex: religion, family formation) is largely dependent on the time period and region being discussed—ex: the 17th Century African identity in North America is different from the 18th Century identity in Europe. Several factors that enhanced the creation of the African identity (definition 2) include: (1) ability to form families as a result of the gender ratio, mortality rates, segregation from other slaves, (2) population ratio of native-born to creolized slaves, and (3) religious movement that were characteristic of the time and space. These three factors allowed for the African identity to...
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...Atlantic Chattel Slavery Through the progression of slavery, we see a gradual but dramatic change the way people viewed slaves. Many factors aided the deterioration of treatment towards slaves from a people to property mindset. Whether it was the beginning of the African Slave Trade, the economic driven cash crops, British laws passed to control slaves or the development of British Low Country each factor belittled the human aspect of a slave. To understand how one gets labeled as “cattle” we must understand where it came from. We first look at the beginning treatment of slaves to gather a comparison on how it differed from Atlantic Chattel Slavery. Slaves in the early east Africa were generally war captives of conquering dynasties. Islamic religion helped to maintain the humanity of these war captives. They were accepted as a member of the family (nation) but the lowest ranking one. Islamic members who owned slaves had obligations to educate and convert them to Islam. They also made it illegal to sell children from their parent which in turn was a cultural device to bring outside people into the society. After two generations of slavery these families were accepted into the society. Slaves during this time would also live to the same standards as their owners. This means a slave owned by a wealthy person would have a better lifestyle (clothes, food, etc.) than a poorer one. Slavery was still not a positive experience but when we compare to the lifestyle of Caribbean/America...
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...the stage of the triangular trade in which millions of people from Africa were shipped to the New World, as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods, which were traded for purchased or kidnapped Africans, who were transported across the Atlantic as slaves; the slaves were then sold or traded for raw materials, which would be transported back to Europe to complete the voyage. The journey of slave trading ships was from the west coast of Africa, where the slaves were obtained, across the Atlantic, where they were sold or, in some cases, traded for goods such as molasses, which was used in the making of rum. However, this voyage has come to be remembered for much more than simply the transport and sale of slaves. The Middle Passage was the longest, hardest, most dangerous, and also most horrific part of the journey of the slave ships. With extremely tightly packed loads of human cargo that stank and carried both infectious disease and death, the ships would travel east to west across the Atlantic on a miserable voyage lasting at least five weeks, and sometimes as long as three months. Although incredibly profitable for both its participants and their investing backers, the terrible Middle Passage has come to represent the ultimate in human misery and suffering. The abominable and inhuman conditions which the Africans were faced with on their voyage clearly display the great evil of the slave trade. During the Middle Passage...
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...the challenges Native Americans faced in both allying with and waging war against European settlers. Be sure to reference different regions. From the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century, Britain was at many wars with France, Netherlands, and Spain. These nations dragged the Native Americans into their power struggles as the wars reached the New World. Native Americans faced challenges to trade, peace, and relations with each other and with European settlers in both allying with and waging war against European settlers. However, a few turned these challenges to their advantage. In allying with one European country and not the other, Native Americans faced hostility and conflicts with the other. During the War of the Spanish Succession, Britain was fighting both France and Spain. It allied with the Creek Indians in the Carolinas to attack Spanish settlements in the New World, specifically Spanish Florida. This alliance with Britain resulted in Spanish aggression towards the Creeks. However, even the alliance with Britain could not stop hostility between the English settlers and the Creeks; the Creeks rebelled against the English settlers after the latter ordered the natives to pay trade debts. Farther up north in the New England region, Mohawk Indians allied with the...
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...The African Diaspora across Europe and Asia The study of the African Diaspora is a relatively focused topic, in general focusing on the Atlantic Slave Trade and those who were enslaved in the Americas. Of particular interest to many recent historians is the fact that black Africans have been experiencing forced settlement outside of Africa for centuries prior to the Atlantic Slave Trade. Slaves have established a presence in many different urban and rural areas of the world including, Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Europe. Ibn Khaldun has been quoted, “history is information about human social organization and that there were two basic forms of human social organization: urban and rural.” Through urban and rural settings, one can understand the development of African slavery outside of the Africa and excluding the Americas. In ancient times Africans traveled as merchants, sailors, soldiers, and adventurers across the Red and Mediterranean Seas and the Indian Ocean. Africans and Arabs long interacted in the urban areas of Egypt, the Sudan, and across the Red Sea and shared common values and customs. The Arabian Peninsula seems to have the earliest African contact, with Ethiopian traders settling on the peninsula long before the Romans came. Not much is known how these slaves were captured but they were seemingly traded along the Horn of Africa, in urban trading post set up by traders. Furthermore, during the expansion of Islam after the 7th century AD, ushered in...
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...The Trans-Atlantic slave trade occurred during the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. In determining the role that trans-Atlantic slavery played in shaping the United States economy, one need only to look to the expanding role of labor intensive agriculture, particularly cotton after the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney, as a major factor in this development. Slavery provided a reliable labor force that strengthened and increased the capitalism in the economy of the emerging United States. It was soon discovered by European colonists that the abundance of land they were settling was useless without sufficient labor to exploit it. The first attempts at filling these needs proved to be unsuccessful or unreliable. The Native...
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...Slavery had been in existence in the world, prior to the development of the New World, the Triangle Slave opened the doors to the inhumane abuse and degradation of a people in the now, United States. Plantation crops such as sugar, molasses for rum, cotton for textiles and tobacco were transported from the U.S. to Europe for manufacturing. The manufactured goods were taken to Africa and offered in exchange for African men and women. Bound and chained together, the next quest was to the slave houses lined the west coast of Africa. Enslaved African could be housed in any of the dungeons for as long as a year until the journey across the Atlantic took place. what was ahead of them after such treatment. It is said that only the strong survive. What is known as the Middle Passage, the journey from Africa to America across the Atlantic Ocean, proves just that. Forced to lay on, beside and underneath dead bodies, in vomit and feces, it is said that some # Africans died of European diseases, malnourishment, murder and suicide while in transport to North and South Americas or any of the bordering islands to begin their new lives as servants to whites in a foreign land. What began as indentured servitude, allowing the enslaved Africans to work for their freedom over time, gradually turned into white men and women owning the Africans and their offspring as property. Africans were willed to the offspring of the whites as well. This was the tradition...
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...weeks at a time until being executed or put to work. Being compressed in these bunk beds there was all types of disease amongst them. Those diseases would lead to the death and the healthier Jews would still have to be in those bunk beds. Dealing with the overcrowded camps and bunks many Jews died of others illnesses and unbearable living conditions. This photo correlates with how African American was packed on slave ships during the Atlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade took place between the 14th and the 19th century. During the Atlantic slave trade in the middle passage many African American slaves was living in harsh conditions on board of the slave ships. Many slave ships was overcrowded with slaves. The slaves would be packed like sardines at the bottom of the ships. Women and children was packed in a different section yet they was packed in a tight compact area on the ship. Due to the over crowd of slaves on the ship many began to die because of the horrible conditions among them. Many had to lay in their own urine, vomit, and even bowl movements. This in itself made many slaves sick and...
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...Olaudah’s family was wealthy and actually owned slaves as well. He understood slavery, and within Africa, slaves were treated fairly and with some mount of respect. They had nicer clothes, food, and were not treated like animals. Equiano was the youngest boy within his family, and as a young boy he was taught at a young age how to shoot and defend himself. He was eleven when he and his sister were sought out by robbers, and in no time were taken away. This was literally the moment he knew his life...
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...of the pregnancy. You however, will be just fine and your aunt will raise you in my place. On June 18th, 1990 I plan to give birth to a beautiful, healthy, African American baby girl. The world you are coming in to has improved a lot over the years but still has some parts where racism is still at large. This life is not going to be easy my sweet child so I want to prepare you for the fight. Your ancestors fought for our rights in the world and I do not want you to ever be afraid of standing up for these rights. Ok, I think I am getting ahead of myself, let me rewind and start from the beginning so you understand more clearly. You see baby, Life as an African Americans did not start here in the United States, but on the continent of Africa. We got over to the United States as a result of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Through a combination of imported slaves and births, our family and many other African American families became a large minority of the American Population. The involuntary migration of African Americans all began in the early 1600s when a Dutch ship carrying African Americans slaves docked at Jamestown’s checkpoint, for other ships that wanted to trade with the colonists. The crew of the Dutch ship was starving and traded 20 African American slaves for food and supplies. African Americans became slaves and settled...
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...Mohamud Historical Report on Race We as African Americans have always had a struggle throughout American History. They were brought to America as slaves and had no say at all in their relocation or even separation from their families. Most African Americans today are the descendants of captive Africans held in the United States from 1619 to 1865. In the past, African Americans were referred to and self-identified as the American Negro. Our history is celebrated annually in the United States during the month of February which has been designated as Black History Month. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_history) The majority of African Americans descended from slaved brought in directly from Africa, or from the Caribbean. These slaves descended from prisoners of war that were captured by African states and sold to Arab, American, or European slave trades. The American slave population was made up of the various ethnic groups from western and central Africa, which includes Bakongo, Igbo, Mande, Wolof, Akan, Fon, and Makua. Before the Atlantic Slave Trade there were already people in America who was of the African descent. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_history) Africans first arrived in 1619 when a Dutch ship sold 19 blacks as indentured servants to Englishmen at Point Comfort. Point Comfort, which is known as Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia in 1619. The majority of these people came from the West African coast and a small percent came from Madagascar...
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...Starting with the Emergence of Atlantic Creoles in the Chesapeake, The book opens by telling the story of Anthony Johnson, a slave from Jamestown, Virginia who gained his own freedom. Johnson eventually became a very successful farmer and ironically had slaves of his own. As a master now, Johnson provided food and shelter for his slaves while allowing them to buy freedom just as he had done. Some slave-owners were harsher than other slave owners while some allowed their slaves to be financially independent. Then there was the Expansion of Creole Society in the North. The north also had slaves but didn’t have slave societies. In the North, the slaves were preferred to have experience because they understood European ways already. Mostly Atlantic Creoles settled here. New York had the highest number of slaves who progressed into former slaves. The North could not afford plantation life but accepted the principle idea. In the North slaves did not have the best living conditions however. Slaves were sometimes forced to sleep in back rooms or closets compared to the South where they lived in quarters and homes. Next I would like to address the divergent paths in the low country. In the Low Country, slaves gained freedom and were even involved in political life. Rice cultivation is what caused slavery to be different in low country compared to other regions. In the low country, escaping from slavery was easier versus any other region as well. Slaves were even allowed to serve in...
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...faced in terms of human rights in certain countries. To gain power and wealth is only one of the reasons that exploitation of labor is a major issue. People use their power to take advantage of the less fortunate. Exploitation can be defined as an act of treating someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work or to fulfill their own selfish purposes, whereas labor is defined as the use of physical and mental efforts in the creation of goods and services. So based on Caribbean history even laborers before the 20th century were taken advantage by their owners to gain benefits. Firstly the exploitation of the Caribbean with reference to the encomienda labor system. This system was created in 1512 by the Spanish to control and regulate American Indian labors (Arawaks/Tainos) during the colonization of the Americas. The word ‘encomienda’ comes from the Spanish word encomendar, "to entrust." The encomienda system was the earliest introduction of inhumane slavery as historians believed as one of the most damaging institutions that the Spanish colonists implemented in the New World. In the Americas, the first encomiendas were handed out by Christopher Columbus and institutionalized by Governor Nicolas de Ovando (1503) in the Caribbean. The Spaniards were referred to as the ecomendero because their responsibility was to ensure the well being of the Tainos by offering protections from pirates, educated about new Spanish language, provide them with food, clothing and instruct them on...
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...African American Women Under Slavery This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era. Slave Trade For most women who endured it, the experience of the Slave Trade was one of being outnumbered by men. Roughly one African woman was carried across the Atlantic for every two men. The captains of slave ships were usually instructed to buy as high a proportion of men as they could, because men could be sold for more in the Americas. Women thus arrived in the American colonies as a minority. For some reason, women did not stay a minority. Slave records found that most plantations, even during the period of the slave trade, there were relatively equal numbers of men and women. Slaveholders showed little interest in women as mothers. Their willingness to pay more for men than women, despite the fact than children born to enslaved women would also be the slaveowners’ property and would thus increase their wealth. Women who did have children, therefore, always struggled with the impossible conflict...
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...Question one is what is the African diaspora? (Who should be considered in the African diaspora? How is this like the black Atlantic and how is it different?). Students should use the Colin Palmer piece to answer this question. In its most recognizable form, the African diaspora refers to the many cultures and societies abroad that exist throughout the world as the result of the historic movement, mostly forced, of native Africans to other parts of the globe. Most specifically, the African diaspora is the blanket term used to represent a confluence of events that led to the forced displacement of millions of innocent people. The term first originated in the 1950s and initial studies focused on the “dispersal of people of African descent, their role in the transformation and creation of new cultures, institutions, and ideas outside of Africa”. This cultural migration is responsible for many of the unique cultures that exist today, as is with the black Atlantic and the melding of cultures. A look at the waves of migration, both forced and willing, provides a framework to study the social, economic and humanitarian fallout of the African Diaspora. Those who study the African Diaspora seek information that explains and places into context the globalized experience for blacks. This history is riddled with slavery, colonialism, exploitation and a system of global commerce that has impacted life for those of African descent. The impact of the African Diaspora is a study of cause...
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