...Rape During The Antebellum Period The first African slaves arrived in Virginia, North America in 1619. As the plantations of the antebellum south flourished, the African slave trade gained momentum. Between the 16 and 19th centuries, America had an estimated 12 million African slaves (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Enslavement of the African Americans formally commenced in the 1630s and 1640s. By 1740, colonial America had a fully developed slavery system in place, granting slave owners an absolute and tyrannical life-and-death authority over their slaves or 'chattels' and their children (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Stripped of any identity or rights, enslaved black men and women were considered legal non-persons, except in the event of a crime committed. Documents and research on the slave era in the antebellum south are awash with horror stories of the brutal and inhuman treatment of slaves, particularly women (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez). Considered 'properties' by their masters, enslaved black women endured physical and emotional abuse, torture, and sometimes even death. By the 1800s, slavery had percolated down mainly to the antebellum south. While a majority of enslaved men and women were designated as 'field servants' performing duties outside the house, a smaller percentage, particularly women were employed as domestics or 'house servants', mammies and surrogate mothers. In the absence of any security...
Words: 3238 - Pages: 13
...Slavery Before America History 221 American Military University Slavery Before America This paper will focus on slavery before America and the differences in detail while under each rule. When most people think of slavery they fast forward to Slavery in the Americas because for most there is not a lot known about slavery before America. When in actuality slavery was very much present before the union of the states; and in this paper I intend to show the different slave systems and how they play a part in what we as Americans know to be slavery. According to (Scaruffi, n.d.) The Dutch were the first, apparently, to import black slaves into North America, but black slaves had already been employed all over the world, including South and Central America. For example Britain’s earliest known involvement in the western slave trade dates back over two thousand years ago. The British following the lead of the Portuguese in enslaving Africans actually began to get a strong hold on the slave trade and thus became known as the primary facilitator of slaves. With Britain now the primary facilitator of slaves, Special ships were built to accommodate the lucrative business. Under the rule of the British plantation and mine owners bought the Africans and more died in the process called 'seasoning'. In the British colonies the slaves were treated as non-human: they were 'chattels', to be worked to death as it was cheaper to purchase another slave than to...
Words: 997 - Pages: 4
...Slavery to Freedom – African American History Nimra Jilani Los Angles Harbor College History 012 Professor KJ Hitt April 28th 2012 [pic] Slavery to Freedom – African American History The first African American arrived in the North America as servants and worked under contract from sixteenth to nineteenth century. They were brought from Africa by European Traders. In the past they were known by many names such as Negroes, Blacks and Coloureds. The term Nigger was also used for the African Americans mostly in south. More than half of the population of the African American lived in the Southern States of the America. Slavery first began in the late 16th century When African Americans were brought to American Colonies, they were bought by white masters and they had to work on tobacco and cotton farms in the South. They were not paid anything for all their hard work and living conditions were terrible for them. Slave work was very difficult. Most African American women cooked, cleaned the house and raised the children of their white owners, where as the men were trained to become carpenter or masons but most of them remained to be farmers. Most of the African Americans lived in the South where the percentage of the slavery was at its extreme. The racism towards the African Americans was at its extreme. A very famous historian Karl Marx stated In Wage Labor and Capital, Written twelve years before the civil war that: “What is a negro slave...
Words: 1847 - Pages: 8
...such freedom, there is no America. This essay is a comparison between Fredrick Douglass and Sarah Moore Grimke and how they fought for African American and women’s rights respectively. Fredrick Douglass was born into a life of slavery, but he learned to read and after a few attempts, escaped. He started out as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and from then, wrote books and newspapers promoting the cause. He later became a consultant of Abraham Lincoln. Sarah Grimke, on the other hand, grew up in as a daughter of a plantation owner. She had high goals and expectations but her family shot them down. Sarah and her sister fought for slavery and sexism and were expelled from the plantation. They were among the first to fight for women’s rights. Back in the 1800s, African Americans were slaves and treated like property. They were whipped, overworked, starved, and had no freedom. They were denied education and shot if trying to escape. On the other hand, women had very little rights. They were simply housewives who looked after the children. They were not allowed to aspire to anything and forced to simply support the husband. Back then, the worst person to be was an African American female. Some females were chosen as breeding moms and raped repeatedly to bear children to sell. If not, the master would call some women in for their beauty and do such acts as well. There was one such a woman, and she gave birth to a child born from a female slave and a...
Words: 1001 - Pages: 5
...Discrimination Thomas J. Miller III ETH125 August 23, 2010 Maria Kithcart Ethnic Groups and Discrimination Most African Americans are descendants of Africans that were enslaved by Europeans and American slave traders. Slave markets used in Africa to sell prisoners of war by African states. The Europeans used these slave markets to exploit and expand the shipment of slaves to the New World or America. Some ancestors immigrated to the United States from the Caribbean. The first group of African slaves was brought to the United States in 1619 (Slavery, 2003). These slaves were labeled indentured servants, which are workers under contract to an employer in exchange for their lodging, food, and clothes. Most of the colonists used the Blacks on plantations because other groups did not want to work on them and the Blacks were easier to control. All colonies eventually legalized slavery passing laws that would keep the slaves and their children for life. During the Revolutionary War, slaves and free slaves were allowed to fight against the British. After the Americans, won their independence from British tyranny, the Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776 (Slavery, 2003) declaring, “All men are created equal.” Many people in the northern states influenced by the Revolutionary War and began abolishing slavery in the North. The southern states wanted to keep slavery to fuel the South economy through the production from the cotton fields. By 1830, there were 319,000 free...
Words: 855 - Pages: 4
...RACE African American The African American did not arrive in America through the traditional ways of immigration, but instead were forced to leave their homeland by African slave traders. African Slave traders sold African American to American Southerners to work as slave on their plantations. After hundreds of years of being owned by white Americans, the African American was finally given their freedom. Unfortunately, after being released from human slavery and bondage, African Americans had to endure many years of poor treatment and discrimination by members of the American public. After the legislation that was enacted forbidding and punishing discriminatory behavior in society, African Americans were finally able to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Although human equality is still a tremendous work in progress in our society today, after years of decrementing struggles and tribulations, the African American is finally treated like an equal citizen in society. The adverse reality that African Americans did not have the equal right and opportunity to live their lives as free men and women, has set a staggering mark in American history. African Americans were bought and sold like cattle and never looked at as humans but rather property. The laws were designed to benefit the White American and the slave owner and did not recognize the slave as a citizen. Although slavery was made illegal in the Northern regions in 1787, it was not until 1808 before slavery was outlawed...
Words: 874 - Pages: 4
...African Americans and Discrimination Cedric Hepburn ETH 125 March 7, 2011 Josephine Ellsworth Originally from Sub-Sahara Africa, thousands of African Americans were kidnapped and brought over to and sold in the United States during the Atlantic Slavery Trade. By 1860, before the Civil War, 3.5 million African Americans lived as slaves, mostly in the Southern United States. More than 500,000 lived as free persons in 33 states across the United States (2008). Today, many African Americans believed to have come from European American or Native American heritage. They believe to be direct descendants of captive Africans who were enslaved. The original Africans were not given the chance to colonize or immigrate to the United States; they were hunted down and chained together like animals, stacked on top of each other on the bottom of the ship, and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to a life they were not accustomed to- slavery. January 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation declaring freedom for African American slaves in slavery states. Following the signing of the bill, African Americans started facing even more problems with racial discrimination, segregation, racism, and prejudice. African Americans were beaten, put in jail, put to death, and denied basic human rights. To say African Americans were racially discriminated against only because of the color of their skin is an understatement. They were also racially discriminated against because of their...
Words: 803 - Pages: 4
...Oppressed There has never been a day in American history that someone has not been oppressed. During the colonization of America all of the colonies were under Britain’s thumb, then only African-Americans and women were under the rule of white men, and even when African-Americans and women were granted rights, there still hasn’t been true equality. America was founded on the idea that everyone should be free and have inalienable rights, so what went wrong? Two hundred and forty one years ago, Patrick Henry was getting the fight for independence and freedom started. He was strong in believing that people’s rights should be protected and that people should not be oppressed. Henry was able to recognize that Britain was an oppressing force....
Words: 1207 - Pages: 5
...003 African-American Communities in Beloved Thesis: Toni Morrison focuses on negative impact of slavery on the well-being of African American communities throughout her novel Beloved by depicting the damage done, its effects on individual characters, and the renewal of community. 1. The enforcement of slavery has destroyed black communities and families 1. Families throughout Beloved were split due to slavery 2. The community of 124 abandons its members 1. Characters are negatively impacted by the lack of community 1. The deeds and traits of Six-o compared to the rest of the men living at Sweet Home 2. Denver and Sethe’s lack of identity due to a lacking of maternal figures 1. Toni Morrison provides ways to repair a broken community 1. The significance of Beloved as a means to address the past 2. The individual efforts of characters compared to the successes of the community and the importance of Baby Suggs and the Clearing Conclusion African American Communities in Beloved Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a wonderfully written novel filled with themes and symbolisms. The novel is told with a linear moving plot that is constantly short stopped by the recurrence of character’s repressed memories. A very prominent theme in the story is of communal identity. Morrison emphasizes throughout the story the importance of community. Toni Morrison focuses on the negative impacts of slavery on the well-being of African American...
Words: 2111 - Pages: 9
...Essay on African American History Introduction In the essay “On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro- American History” the eminent historian John Hope Franklin declared “Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so.”1 The social and political revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The African American...
Words: 6155 - Pages: 25
...times in history one group of people has dominated and persecuted another group. One example for this is the history of black Americans in the United States. The USA has always suffered from divisions between white and black Americans. Many times white people have stopped black people from being equal citizens. White people thought that Africans were inferior and uncivilised. This idea justified the discrimination and exploitation of black people. But of course these justifications were nonsense: There were important kingdoms and great civilisations in Africa at the same time as people in Britain were living in primitive iron-age huts. Moreover from Egypt came ideas about geometry, arithmetics and astronomy. The proofs of their skills are for example the pyramids which are also one of the seven wonders of the world. Different words have been used to describe black Americans. For a long time they were referred to as negroes and often the word ‘nigger’ was used to insult them. Many whites called them ‘coloured people’. Since the 1960’s the term ‘black’ has become normal, although some people prefer the term ‘Afro-American’ as a reminder of their original roots in Africa. THE BEGINNING OF SLAVERY IN THE US The history of blacks in North America began in 1619, when a Dutch ship brought the first Negro slaves to Virginia. The first imported Africans were brought as indentured servants, not slaves. They were required, as white indentured servants were, to serve seven years...
Words: 6362 - Pages: 26
...Jacquelynn Bernhardt History 1 Social Group Research Paper Women Slaves in the Nineteenth Century Since I was a young child I could never quite understand the reasoning behind slavery. I do not understand how one human being could possibly believe he or she has the right to treat another human as little more than an animal - buying, selling, leasing, and physically punishing someone else. Although slavery in general interested me, I was even more interested to find out how enslaved women were treated in the nineteenth century, before the Civil War and also after they were finally granted their freedom. I often thought women would have been treated a little better than males. I believed they would have been given an easier workload to bear since they also had the task of raising their children. It was disturbing to discover they were treated much worse than males were. Because women could work as well as reproduce offspring, providing an additional generation of slaves, women were extremely valuable to slave owners. "Strong black women were sold as breeders valued for their reproductive as well as productive capacity" (Doherty). In the years just before the Civil War women were often sold for higher prices than males at slave auctions. "For one group of women, the assigned price depended upon their beauty and subsequent use to the master who could lease them to wealthy white men" (Doherty). Women were sold for as much as $1,800. Skilled men were sold for up to...
Words: 2661 - Pages: 11
...After many long years of brutal slavery, many African Americans were beginning to gain freedom from slavery, specifically from 1775 to 1830. However, while slavery was shrinking in some states, it was also growing in others. Along with this growth of slavery, and possibility of being re-sold into slavery, free slaves often faced very tough challenges. These challenges included, the lack of rights for African Americans, and their nationality. Free slaves were not the only ones with problems, on top of the many obvious inhumane challenges faced by slaves, they were now beginning to think of what life is like outside the control of their masters. The Northern states were beginning to free slaves. In the north slavery was less common due to the lack of farms, and because of this, those states found having free African Americans as a good thing. As shown in the map of document C, many places who in 1790 had under 10 percent of their population as slaves now either reduced those numbers, or have no slaves at all. Some people even discussed the idea of sending African Americans back to Africa so they could truly be free (Doc. H)....
Words: 498 - Pages: 2
...Slavery: A Free but Forced Civilization from Origin Slavery is predated to the earliest known and existing cultures. Regardless of the culture, time, period or race, slavery is a discriminating concept in which people are held against their own will. Before new age society found a more humorous and sexual definition for the concept, slavery was and still is, in some parts of the world, humiliating. In particular, there is one which has been historically long lasting; the Transatlantic African slave trade. This long and grueling migration paved the way for new races and culture. African Americans thrive all over the world but unfortunately descendants from this race did not come to the Americas on their own free will. A world altering voyage and conquest took shape when Christopher Columbus traveled and discovered the Americas in 1492 (1). Historically true, the America’s took shape but not without risk, sacrifice, or discrimination of a divine civilization. Columbus was on venture seeking route to Asia, in turn; found an untouched land devoured by Native Americans (2). Being distracted new ideas and opportunities, he reset is path. The mark of the Columbian Exchange happened; bringing the eventual commerce of food, disease, culture, power and new races (3). All of the changes were not as promising or good. The transatlantic slave trade brought new life but also brought darker times. Columbus didn’t develop this concept, he actually adapted to it. Although, slavery in the...
Words: 1239 - Pages: 5
...RUNNING HEAD: US Constitution and Slavery Cardinal Stritch University Instructor: Judge David Bastianelli American Government and Politics – ASB 118 DLU 08 0893 May 22, 2012 US Constitution and Slavery The U.S. Constitution established America's national government and fundamental laws, and guaranteed certain basic rights for its citizens. It was signed on September 17, 1787, by delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, by George Washington. Under America's first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. At the 1787 convention, delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches--executive, legislative and judicial along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. The Bill of Rights is 10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections such as freedom of speech and religion which became part of the Constitution in 1791. America's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, was approved in 1781, a time when the nation was a confederation of states that each operated like independent countries. The debate of the constitution focused on contentious issues like the question of state representation in the national legislature and slavery. Slavery The American Civil War approximately 4 million enslaved African Americans lived in the southern region of the United States...
Words: 1361 - Pages: 6
