DOCSLIB.ORG

History of Slavery in America - Student Success Day

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
History of Slavery in America - Student Success Day 9/22/20 History of Slavery in America - Student Success Day 1619 or 1776? Presented by Chris Stout Sep 22, 2020 11:00 AM 1 A Global Enterprise • All Western European nations participated in the African slave trade. • The slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, the Dutch in the sugar boom of the seventeenth century, and the English who entered the trade in the seventeenth century. • Over 10 – 12 million slaves between 1700 – 1800 • Majority were between the age of 15 and 30 • New England slavers entered the trade in the eighteenth century. • Newport RI, more than 100K slaves carried in the 18th century • Collaboration between American, European, and Africans enabled the trade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0geOQ25Pyw 2 2 1 9/22/20 MAP 4.2 Slave Colonies of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries By the eighteenth century, the system of slavery had created societies with large African populations throughout the Caribbean and along the southern coast of North America. 3 3 The Tobacco Colonies https://www.youtube.c om/watch?v=DSDek9M • Tobacco was the most important -hSk commodity produced in eighteenth century North America, accounting for 25% of the value of all colonial exports. • Slavery allowed the expansion of tobacco production since it was labor- intensive. • Using slave labor, tobacco was grown on large plantations and small farms. • The slave population in this region grew largely by natural increase. 4 4 2 9/22/20 FIGURE 4.3 Value of Colonial Exports by Region, Annual Average, 1768–72 With tobacco, rice, grain, and indigo, the Chesapeake and Lower South accounted for nearly two-thirds of colonial exports in the late eighteenth century. SOURCE: James F. Shepherd and Gary M. Walton, Shipping, Maritime Trade and the Economic Development of Colonial America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1972), 211 –27. 5 5 Families and Communities • In the development of African American community and culture, the family was the most important institution. • Families were often separated by sale or bequest. • Offspring were the property of the female slave’s owner • Slaves created family structures developing marriage customs, naming practices, and a system of kinship. • Fictive kinship was used by slaves to humanize the world of slavery. 6 6 3 9/22/20 Slave Families • Slave marriages were: • not recognized by law • not respected by masters • a haven of love and intimacy for the slaves. • Parents gave children a supportive and protective kinship network. • Slave families were often split up. • One in five marriages broken, one in 3 children sold • Separated children drew upon supportive networks of family and friends. 7 7 Violence and Resistance • The slave system was based on force and violence. • Africans resisted in the following ways: • Refusing to cooperate and malingering • Mistreating tools and animals • Running away – (Seminoles) • Revolt • There was always fear of uprisings but slaves in North America rarely revolted. • Conditions for a successful revolt were not present. • Slaves had also developed culture and communities and did not want to risk losing these things. 8 8 4 9/22/20 Fugitive slaves flee through the swamps in Thomas Moran’s The Slave Hunt (1862). Many slaves ran away from their masters, and colonial newspapers included notices urging readers to Be on the lookout for them. Some fled in groups or collected together in isolated communities called “maroon” colonies, located in inaccessiBle swamps and woods. SOURCE: Thomas Moran (American, 1837-1926), Slave Hunt, Dismal Swamp, Virginia, 1862. Gift of Laura A. Clubb, 1947.8.44 © 2007 The Philbrook Museum of Art, Inc., Tulsa, Oklahoma. 9 9 Eighteenth-century ships being unloaded of their colonial cargoes on London’s Old Custom House Quay. Most of the goods imported into England from the American colonies were produced by slave labor. SOURCE: Samuel Scott, “Old Custom House Quay” Collection. V&A IMAGES, THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON. 10 10 5 9/22/20 The North – Willing participants • The first American slave ship, the • Rhode Island sponsored at least Desire, was built in the Bay State 934 slaving voyages that carried in 1636, according to the 106,544 slaves from Africa to National Museum of African North America in the 1700s. American History & Culture. • After the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island merchants controlled between 60 and 90 percent of the American trade in African slaves. 11 Slavery and the Economics of Empire • Map: Triangular Trade Across the Atlantic • The slave trade was the foundation of the British economy. • Created a large colonial market for exports that stimulated manufacturing • Generated huge profits that served as a source of investments • 95% of exports, were slave created, came from the Americas from 1700 - revolution • Average annual return – 15% in slave trade, 10% in agriculture • 21 – 35% of all British profits during the 1700’s came from slave manufactured goods • 69% of raw cotton for British textile mills came from W. Indies • “There is not a brick in the city but what is cemented with the blood of a slave.” • Barclays, Rothschild's, Lloyd’s all made their initial money in the trade Chart: Value of Colonial Exports by Region, Annual Average, 1768-72 12 12 6 9/22/20 Map 4.3 Triangular Trade Across the Atlantic This pattern of commerce among Europe, Africa, and the Americas became known as the “triangular trade.” Sailors called the voyage of slave ships from Africa to America the “Middle Passage” because it formed the crucial middle section of this trading triangle. 13 13 White Skin Privilege • Skin color determined status. • Legal and other racial distinctions were constant reminders of the freedom of white colonists and the debasement of all African Americans, free or slave. • Relationships between free whites and enslaved blacks produced a mixed-ancestry group known as mulattoes. • Majority of mulattoes were slaves. 14 14 7 9/22/20 Jefferson genealogy • Martha – white – daughter of • Sally – black – daughter of John John Wayles Wayles • Martha "Patsy" Jefferson • children- - Beverly, Harriet, • Mary (died at 16) Madison, and Easton Hemings • 3 OF THE 4 integrated into white society in the north • Only one continued to identify with the black community 15 Thomas Jefferson placed this advertisement in the Virginia Gazette on September 14, 1769. Americans need to seriously consider the historical relationship Between the prosperity and freedom of white people and the oppression and exploitation of Africans and African Americans. 16 16 8 9/22/20 The Internal Slave Trade • Map: Internal Slave Trade, 1820-60 • The cotton boom caused a huge increase in slave trade. • Over 250,000 slaves were uprooted and sold internally between 1830 and 1850 • 1 million total between 1808 and 1860 • Slaves were gathered in pens before moving south by train or boat. • On foot, slaves moved on land in coffles. • Southwest trail – A second middle passage • The size of the slave trade made a mockery of Southern claims of benevolence. • Too many scars was a sign of an “uppity” slave • Alexander McDonald – bank president, alderman at church, maJor slave trader • Sold slaves for profit, not out of necessity, was not a charitable or loving institution 17 17 MAP 10.3 Internal Slave Trade, 1820-60 Between 1820 and 1860, nearly 50 percent of the slave population of the Upper South was sold south to laBor on the cotton plantations of the Lower South. This map shows the various routes By which they were “sold down the river,” shipped By Boat or marched south. SOURCE: Historical Atlas of the United States (Washington DC: National Geographic Society,1988). 18 18 9 9/22/20 The Price of Survival • The growth of the slave population was due to the high fertility rate of African American women. • Health remained a life long issue for slaves and pregnant women were usually malnourished. • Change in breastfeeding duration from two years to one year allowed for more slaves to be produced • Also worked hard, no “pregnant” mother leave • Slaves were more at risk due to poor living conditions. • Mortality rate for infants was double for slaves. (Better today? 6.9 per 1000 whites, 14.1 for African - Americans) • Life expectancy for whites 40 – 43 years in 1850 • For slaves – 30 – 33 years in 1850 • Modern day discrepancies? (Modern day African American Male is 69 Years old; Caucasian Male is 75.3) • 2010 Census - % of White children in poverty in Minnesota = 8% • 2010 Census - % of Black children in poverty in Minnesota = 47% 19 19 Field Work and the Gang System of Labor • 75 percent of slaves were field workers. • Gangs of 20 – 25 • “work from can see to can’t see” • Work was 18 hours a day during season, 10 hours a day during winter. • Work was extremely tedious. • 150 lbs. • Good slave was worth 1000 dollars to the master • Slaves aged fast in this regime due to poor diet and heavy labor. • Elderly or disabled were used to watch children • End of slavery what happened to former elderly slaves? 20 20 10 9/22/20 Racism and Accommodation • The turn of the century was an intensely racist era. • Segregation was institutionalized throughout the South and North • Violent attacks on blacks were supported by vicious characterizations in popular culture. • Racism was based on the assumed innate inferiority of blacks. • Racial Darwinism justified a policy of neglect and repression. • Southern progressives pushed for paternalistic uplift. • Henry Grady – The supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever… because the white race is the superior race.” • Restaurants, drinking fountains, transportation were segregated. • 1896 – Plessy vs. Ferguson – “Separate but Equal” • Less than 5% of the black southerners were allowed to vote. 21 Mob Violence and Lynching • Racial violence escalated.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Buffalo & Erie County Public Library
    The great American abolitionist, writer and Those enslaved TELLING THE STORY: orator Frederick suffered greatly during Douglass once the Middle Passage, or said, “Slavery is the transatlantic crossing, Enslavement great test question and upon arrival, endured unimaginable of African People of our age and Solomon Northup Twelve Years a Slave physical, cultural, and in the United States nation.” Now, 400 intellectual brutality years after the first by their enslavers. This inhumanity is well African people were Buffalo & Erie County documented in shipping records, bills of sale, Public Library captured, enslaved Slave Auction advertisements and personal and transported to Slave Ship Diagram accounts of the the United States, the enslaved. repercussions of this horrific practice remain with us today. This Library exhibit highlights its Supporters of History of Slavery Collection slavery were and, perhaps more typically enslavers ambitiously, to provoke themselves. community conversations Early arguments for slavery were about our country’s Notice of Slave Auction history of enslavement simplistic and merely and its continuing to defend against On display through July 2020 attacks made against the aftermath. practice. Later arguments Downtown Central Library or rationalizations were From antiquity to 1 Lafayette Square protective, religious and modern day, enslavement has existed racist. Slavery was an Grosvenor Room in one form or another. Institutionalized institution of power and Rare Book Display Room slavery—mostly for the powerful people who Ring of Knowledge agricultural labor— protected it to protect Main floor thrived in the American their own profits. English colonies and was central to the Protections for slavery Buffalo & Erie County Public development and were embedded in Cotton is King and Olaudah Equiano - economic growth of America’s founding , The Life of Olaudah Equiano Pro-Slavery Arguments LIBRARYwww.BuffaloLib.org the United States.
    [Show full text]
  • Triangular Trade and the Middle Passage
    Lesson 3 Museum Connection: Labor and the Black Experience Lesson Title: Triangular Trade Purpose: In this lesson students will read individually for information in order to examine the history of the Atlantic slave trade. In cooperative groups, they will analyze primary and secondary documents in order to determine the costs and benefits of the slave trade to the nations and peoples involved. As an individual assessment, students will write and deliver a speech by a member of the British Parliament who wished to abolish the slave trade. Grade Level and Content Area: Middle, Social Studies Time Frame: 3-5 class periods Correlation to State Social Studies Standards: WH 3.10.12.4 Describe the origins of the transatlantic African slave trade and the consequences for Africa, America, and Europe, such as triangular trade and the Middle Passage. GEO 4.3.8.8 Describe how cooperation and conflict contribute to political, economic, geographic, and cultural divisions of Earth’s surface. ECON 5.1.8.2 Analyze opportunity costs and trade-offs in business, government, and personal decision-making. ECON 5.1.8.3 Analyze the relationship between the availability of natural, capital, and human resources, and the production of goods and services now and in the past. Social Studies: Maryland College and Career Ready Standards 3.C.1.a (Grade 6) Explain how the development of transportation and communication networks influenced the movement of people, goods, and ideas from place to place, such as trade routes in Africa, Asia and Europe, and the spread of Islam. 4.A.1.a (Grade 6) Identify the costs, including opportunity cost, and the benefits of economic decisions made by individuals and groups, including governments in early world history, such as the decision to engage in trade.
    [Show full text]
  • |||GET||| Middle Passages 1St Edition
    MIDDLE PASSAGES 1ST EDITION DOWNLOAD FREE Eve Adamson | 9780811212328 | | | | | A Sort of Homecoming The first mateCringle, tries to steer the ship, but he cannot figure out where in the ocean they are, claiming that since the storm, none Middle Passages 1st edition the constellations are where they are supposed to be. Typical slave ships contained several hundred slaves with about 30 crew members. Historical novel. Suicide was a frequent occurrence, often by refusal of food or medicine or jumping overboard, as well as by a variety of other opportunistic means. Doctors checked Middle Passages 1st edition health regularly to make sure they could command high prices once they were sold on the auction blocks in the Americas. External Websites. Slaves also resisted through certain manifestations of their religions and mythology. Aboard ships, the captives were not always willing to follow orders. Published by Atheneum As a way to Middle Passages 1st edition disease and suicide attempts, the crew would force the slaves onto the deck of the ship for exercise, usually resulting in beatings because the slaves Middle Passages 1st edition be unwilling to dance for them or interact. The Zong incident became fuel for the abolitionist movement and a major court case, as the insurance company refused to compensate for the loss. From: glenthebookseller Montgomery, IL, U. They, like the captives, were subject to dysentery, the leading cause of death on these ships, but they were also exposed to new diseases in Africa, like malaria and yellow fever. Osifekunde c. This communication was a direct subversion of European authority and allowed slaves to have a form of power and identity otherwise prohibited.
    [Show full text]
  • Orisha Journeys: the Role of Travel in the Birth of Yorùbá-Atlantic Religions 1
    Arch. de Sc. soc. des Rel., 2002, 117 (janvier-mars) 17-36 Peter F. COHEN ORISHA JOURNEYS: THE ROLE OF TRAVEL IN THE BIRTH OF YORÙBÁ-ATLANTIC RELIGIONS 1 Introduction 2 In recent years the array of Orisha 3 traditions associated withtheYorùbá- speaking peoples of West Africa has largely broken free of the category of “Afri- can traditional religion” and begun to gain recognition as a nascent world religion in its own right. While Orisha religions are today both trans-national and pan-eth- nic, they are nonetheless the historical precipitate of the actions and interactions of particular individuals. At their human epicenter are the hundreds of thousands of Yorùbá-speaking people who left their country during the first half of the 19th cen- tury in one of the most brutal processes of insertion into the world economy under- gone by any people anywhere; the Atlantic slave trade. While the journey of the Middle Passage is well known, other journeys under- taken freely by Africans during the period of the slave trade – in a variety of direc- tions, for a multiplicity of reasons, often at great expense, and sometimes at great personal risk – are less so. These voyages culminated in a veritable transmigration involving thousands of Yorùbá-speaking people and several points on both sides of 1 Paper presented at the 1999 meeting of the Société Internationale de la Sociologie des Religions. This article was originally prepared in 1999. Since then, an impressive amount of literature has been published on the subject, which only serves to strengthen our case. A great deal of new of theoretical work on the African Diaspora in terms of trans-national networks and mutual exchanges has not so much challenged our arguments as diminished their novelty.
    [Show full text]
  • Middle-Passage-Memorial.Pdf
    Slave Trade Memorial Duration: This lesson culminates in a project which can take substantial time. Teachers may assign it as an in-class or homework, group or individual assignment. The core themes of the lesson are contained in the reading on the conditions of the Middle Passage, which is supplemented by images in PowerPoint and written Primary Sources. OVERVIEW AND BACKGROUND TO LESSON: This lesson asks students to demonstrate their mastery of their knowledge about the Middle Passage by designing a memorial. Slavery memorials are not common in the United States, despite the fact that roughly two million people perished because of inhumane conditions during their forced migration to the New World between 1519 and 1867. There have, however, been recent movements to have memorials built. In July 2007, a ten-person committee was formed at Brown University to discuss memorializing slavery in Providence, Rhode Island, in acknowledgement of the university founders’ connection with the slave trade. (Debbie Lehman, “U. Launches Commission to Consider Slavery Memorial,” Brown Daily Herald, 16 July 2007). https://www.browndailyherald.com/2007/07/16/u-launches-commission-to-consider- slavery-memorial/ The lesson contains several steps which teachers can use at their discretion to build an appreciation for what enslaved Africans were subjected to as they were forced to the New World, why this part of history should get a public memorial, and how that memorial should be expressed in words and image. The lesson uses mortality statistics from the database to help students get an understanding of how many people died on a voyage, reading comprehension questions, and a PowerPoint Presentation of various monuments.
    [Show full text]
  • Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History
    Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History Brown-G_Book4print.indb 1 10/11/2006 1:48:12 PM Brown-G_Book4print.indb 2 10/11/2006 1:48:12 PM Middle Passages and the Healing Place of History Migration and Identity in Black Women’s Literature Edited by ELIZABETH BROWN-GUILLORY THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PREss Columbus Brown-G_Book4print.indb 3 10/11/2006 1:48:13 PM Copyright © 2006 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Middle passages and the healing place of history : migration and identity in Black women’s literature / edited by Elizabeth Brown-Guillory. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978–0–8142–1038–3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978–0–8142–9116–0 (CD-ROM) 1. Commonwealth literature (English)—Women authors—History and criticism. 2. Commonwealth literature (English)—Black authors—History and criticism. 3. Women and literature—English-speaking countries—History—20th century. 4. Identity (Psychology) in literature. 5. Emigration and immigration in literature. 6. Women in literature. I. Brown-Guillory, Elizabeth. PR9080.5.M54 2006 820.9’9287’09171241—dc22 2006021305 Cover design by James Baumann Text design and typesetting by Jennifer Shoffey Forsythe Type set in Adobe Minion Printed by Thomson-Shore, Inc. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Stan- dard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Brown-G_Book4print.indb 4 10/11/2006 1:48:13 PM TO Lucius M.
    [Show full text]
  • Pugh-Sellers 1 Seeing Humans, Making Commodities: Slave Ship
    Pugh-Sellers 1 Seeing Humans, Making Commodities: Slave Ship Rebellions on Film Senior Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Undergraduate Program in African and African-American Studies and History Chad Williams, Adviser In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts By Lucia Pugh-Sellers April 2020 Committee members: Name: Chad Williams Signature:___________________________________ Name: Alice Kelikian Signature:___________________________________ Name: Faith Smith Signature:___________________________________ Pugh-Sellers 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee members, who have inspired and helped me enormously during my time at Brandeis. I am grateful to know Professors Faith Smith and Alice Kelikian, who each influenced me so much, and ultimately changed my life. Professor Chad Williams, my thesis advisor, was a model of patience, offering step-by-step guidance and sage advice. His dedication to teaching was evident from the first day I stepped into his class, when he showed himself willing to engage with an intimidated first-year student. I could not have finished this thesis without these profoundly important academic mentors. I also want to thank everyone else who helped me through this thesis process, particularly: Kavita, for being my thesis-writing buddy and commiserator; Yael, for her empathy; Allison, for advice and laughter; Tamar; my thesis cohort (Dannie, Victoria, and Jake). Finally, I would like to acknowledge my family, especially my parents and sisters, for their wholehearted support, which keeps me going. I recognize and wrestle with my positionality as white woman, and one who has largely benefited from the systems of racism I describe here.
    [Show full text]
  • A 6–12 Framework for Teaching American Slavery
    6–12 FRAMEWORK TEACHINGTEACHING HARDHARD HISTORYHISTORY AA FRAMEWORKFRAMEWORK FORFOR TEACHINGTEACHING AMERICANAMERICAN SLAVERYSLAVERY TOLERANCE.ORG/HARDHISTORY I ABOUT THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Montgomery, Alabama, is a nonpar- tisan 501(c)(3) civil rights organization founded in 1971 and dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. ABOUT TEACHING TOLERANCE A project of the Southern Poverty Law Center founded in 1991, Teaching Tolerance is dedicated to helping teachers and schools prepare children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. The program publishes Teaching Tolerance magazine three times a year and provides free educational materials, lessons and tools for educators commit- ted to implementing anti-bias practices in their classrooms and schools. To see all of the resources available from Teaching Tolerance, visit tolerance.org. II TEACHING TOLERANCE // TEACHING HARD HISTORY // A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING AMERICAN SLAVERY Teaching Hard History A 6–12 FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING AMERICAN SLAVERY TEACHING TOLERANCE © 2019 SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. —james baldwin, “black english: a dishonest argument” 2 TEACHING TOLERANCE // TEACHING HARD HISTORY // A FRAMEWORK FOR TEACHING AMERICAN SLAVERY CONTENTS Preface 4 Introduction 8 Key Concepts and Summary Objectives 10 Pre-Colonial and Colonial Era | to 1763 12 The American Revolution and the Constitution | 1763–1787 18 Slavery in the Early Republic | 1787–1808 24 The Changing Face of Slavery | 1808–1848 26 The Sectional Crisis and Civil War | 1848–1877 38 Acknowledgments 52 TOLERANCE.ORG/HARDHISTORY 3 Preface America’s founders enumerated their lofty goals for the new nation in the Preamble to the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • SLAVE HOUNDS and ABOLITION in the AMERICAS* Downloaded from by Guest on 30 September 2021 I
    SLAVE HOUNDS AND ABOLITION IN THE AMERICAS* Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/past/article/246/1/69/5722095 by guest on 30 September 2021 I INTRODUCTION In 1824 an anonymous Scotsman travelled through Jamaica to survey the island’s sugar plantations and social conditions. Notably, his journal describes an encounter with a formidable dog and its astonishing interaction with the enslaved. The traveller’s host, a Mr McJames, made ‘him a present of a fine bloodhound’ descended from a breed used for ‘hunting Maroons’ during Jamaica’s Second Maroon War almost three decades earlier.1 The maroons had surrendered to the British partly out of terror of these dogs, a Cuban breed that officials were promoting for use in Jamaica on account of their effectiveness in quelling black resistance.2 Unfamiliar with the breed, the traveller observed its ‘astounding ...aversion ...to the slaves’. For instance, when a young slave entered his room to wake him early one morning, the animal viciously charged the boy. The Scotsman judged that, without his intervention, the * We should like to thank Matt D. Childs and the Atlantic History Reading Group at the University of South Carolina for critiquing early stages of this article; Karl Appuhn, Joyce Chaplin, Deirdre Cooper Owens, Alec Dun and Dan Rood for commenting on conference papers; and our colleagues Erica Ball, Chris Ehrick and Tracy K’Meyer for sharing advice. Earlier versions of this project benefited from feedback at meetings of the American Society for Environmental History, King’s College London Animal History Group, the Washington Early American Seminar Series, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, the Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction, the Omohundro Institute and the Society of Early Americanists.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Florida Thesis Or Dissertation Formatting
    FREE IN THOUGHT, FETTERED IN ACTION: ENSLAVED ADOLESCENT FEMALES IN THE SLAVE SOUTH By COURTNEY A. MOORE A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2010 1 © 2010 Courtney A. Moore 2 To my parents, Brenda W. Moore and George Moore, my first teachers, and my wonderful family in North Carolina and Florida, my amazing village 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout the course of this process I have received the support of countless individuals who have tirelessly given of themselves to make my dream a reality. Professionally, many teachers and professors have shaped my intellectual growth, equipping me with the skills and confidence needed to excel academically. I would like to thank the faculty and staff at Southwood Elementary, Central Davidson Middle and Central Davidson High Schools, especially Ms. Dorothy Talbert. Since elementary school Ms. Talbert encouraged me to conquer my fears and move toward the wonderful opportunities life held, even up to her untimely passing this year she was a constant source of encouragement and cheer. I am also indebted to the Department of History at North Carolina Central University, specifically Drs. Carlton Wilson, Lydia Lindsey and Freddie Parker. Observing these amazing scholars, I learned professionalism, witnessed student-centered teaching at its best, and had the embers of my love for history erupt into an unquenchable fire as I learned of black men and women who impacted the world. My sincerest gratitude to the History Department and African American Studies Program faculty and staff at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
    [Show full text]
  • The Middle Passage
    The Middle Passage Introduction Historians estimate that approximately 472,000 Africans were kidnapped and brought to the North American mainland between 1619 and 1860.1 Of these, nearly 18 percent died during the transatlantic voyage from Africa to the New World. Known as the “middle passage,” this sea voyage could range from one to six months, depending on the weather. On large ships, several hundred slaves could be packed below decks. Branded and chained together, they endured conditions of squalor, and disease and starvation claimed many lives. “Decks of a Slave Ship” from The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade, Ancient and Modern, compiled by William O. Blake (Columbus OH: J. & H. Miller, 1861). (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, GLC00267.038) Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, described the horrors of the middle passage in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, published in 1789. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocating us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation 1 David Eltis and David Richardson, Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. (Yale University Press, 2010) p 205. © 2017 The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New York NY gilderlehrman.org 2 The Middle Passage was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs [large buckets for human waste], into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated.
    [Show full text]
  • Transatlantica, 1 | 2018 “Queen of the Fields”: Slavery’S Graphic Violence and the Black Female Body I
    Transatlantica Revue d’études américaines. American Studies Journal 1 | 2018 Slavery on Screen / American Women Writers Abroad: 1849-1976 “Queen of the fields”: Slavery’s Graphic Violence and the Black Female Body in 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013) Hélène Charlery Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/12453 DOI: 10.4000/transatlantica.12453 ISSN: 1765-2766 Publisher AFEA Electronic reference Hélène Charlery, ““Queen of the fields”: Slavery’s Graphic Violence and the Black Female Body in 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)”, Transatlantica [Online], 1 | 2018, Online since 12 September 2019, connection on 29 April 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/12453 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.12453 This text was automatically generated on 29 April 2021. Transatlantica – Revue d'études américaines est mis à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. “Queen of the fields”: Slavery’s Graphic Violence and the Black Female Body i... 1 “Queen of the fields”: Slavery’s Graphic Violence and the Black Female Body in 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013) Hélène Charlery 1 One among at least ten prominent movies by and about black Americans released the same year, 12 Years a Slave confirmed that 2013 was “a breakout year for black films” (Cieply).1 Noting movies such as 12 Years a Slave, Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler), Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (Justin Chadwick), The Butler (Lee Daniels) and 42 (Brian Helgeland), both mainstream media outlets and black-oriented news community websites endorsed the idea that 2013 marked a “black film renaissance” (BBC) or a “renaissance of black cinema” (The Grio) (Penrice; Brook).
    [Show full text]