The African American Struggle From Slavery

The Afri locoweed the Statesn Struggle From SlaveryA presbyopic and favored mantra of the African the Statesn community has been that which doesnt destroy you tends simply to features you stronger. victimisation these as bywords, the struggle to survive and prosper in the United States has non al personal manners been an easy road traveled by African Americans . From go the eye portrayal, to the auction blocks, to life on the plantations, to the Emancipation Proclamation and on to the Gr eliminate Migration of drabs from the s breakh to blue cities, life has always been one of certain(prenominal) hardships. Religion, faith in a loving and forgiving God and a belief that there had to be a better way helped the African American ever forward moving and strong.Although the c at one timept of striverry was non new to Africans, there were a number of differences in the enstriverment in ones own country and the enslavement in one so foreign. In Africa, for example, slaves became adopted members of the kinship group that enslaved them. Often, they married into a lineage, make up into gamy ranks of society. Slaves could also move up in society and out of the slave role. Also, the children of slaves were not presumed to be born into bondage.The beginning of slave trade began as early as the 1500s and was a profitable business to both sides , African and European. As time wore on, Europeans essential more than and more slaves. The African tribesmen who had once been in favor of such trade, no longer wished to continue. Thus began the capturing of the needed slaves. Those Africans who resisted have a go at iting in human cargo themselves became the victims of bloody slave trade. (Cayton, 2003)As it was for every last(predicate) slaves, the Middle Passage was a long, arduous nightmare. The slaves were branded with fervid irons and restrained with shackles. Their living quarters was often a dump within the ship that had less than five feet of head and t hroughout a large portion of the deck, sleeping shelves cut this special(a) amount of headroom in half. Lack of standing headroom was the least of the slaves problems, though. With 300 to cd population packed in a tiny eye socket an area with little ventilation and, in some cases, not even plentiful space to place buckets for human waste disease was prevalent(Africans in America/Part 1/The Middle Passage). Faced with the nightmarish conditions of the voyage and the chartless future that lay beyond, umpteen Africans preferred to die. But even the pick of suicide was taken away from these persons. A slave who tried to thirst him or herself was tortured. If torture didnt work, the slave was force fed (Cayton, 2003).Despite the captains believe to keep as umteen slaves as possible alive, Middle Passage mortality rates were high. Although its difficult to determine how many Africans died en avenue to the new world, it is now believed that between ten and twenty percent of those transported missed their lives. (www.essortment.com)Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million Africans arrived in the New World. Disease and starvation due to the aloofness of the passage were the briny contri moreoverors to the death toll with amoebic dysentery and scurvy causing the majority of deaths. Additionally, outbreaks of smallpox, syphilis, malaria, measles, and different diseases spread rapidly in the close-quarter compartments. The number of dead increased with the length of voyage, since the incidence of dysentery and of scurvy increased with longer stints at sea as the quality and amount of food and wet diminished with every limiting day. In assenting to physical sickness, many slaves became too depressed to eat or function efficiently because of the loss of freedom, family, security, and their own humanity.(Library think quest) Still, the majority of the captives survived and were soon headed for the auction blocks in America .Once in the Americas, slaves were sold, by auction, to the person that bid the almost money for them. It was here that family members would find themselves split up, as a bidder may not want to buy the whole family, just the strongest, healthiest member.When the slave ship docked, the slaves would be taken off the ship and fixed in a pen like this one. There they would be serve and their skin c all overed with grease, or sometimes tar, to make them look more healthy. This was done so that they would fetch as much money as possible. They would also be branded with a hot iron to obtain in them as slaves. The slaves would be brought from the pen, in turn, to stand on a raise platform so that they could be seen by the buyers. Before the bidding began, those that wished to, could come up onto the platform to inspect the slaves closely. The slaves had to endure being poked, prodded and forced to dissonant their mouths for the buyers. The auctioneer would decide a price to start t he bidding. This would be high for fit, young slaves and lower for older, very young or sickly slaves (Davidson, 2008). effectiveness buyers would indeed bid against each other. The person who bid the most would then own that slave. The picture below shows a slave being auctioned to the highest bidder. The slave auction was a terrible ordeal for the slaves, they did not understand the language and had no idea what was happening (historyonthenet.com).Most owners saw slaves as office that performed job for their businesses. As the demand for slaves rose, so did their value. After the importation of slaves ended, owners began acquire additional slaves from owners in the upper southwest (Cayton, et al, p288). This development started the breakup of many slave families. The slaves unable to live and work under such acrid and dehumanized conditions, started to steal away, and rebel. The institution of slavery had such a swiftness on the economy of America that it would prevail f or a number of years.The most important thing to be said about slavery from the horizon of the enslaved is that millions of African Americans endured slavery by making a world for themselves in the midst of their bondage. At the foundation of this enslaved culture stood the shadowy family. Slaveholders did this for simple stinting reasons and to make it easier to control the slaves. Whatever the reasons, slaves took advantage of the opportunity to use the family environment as a refuge and as a source of ethnical endurance. Enslaved children learned family history from their parents by the stories told to them while they worked along side their mothers in the fields or at night in the slave cabins. Among the survival skills taught them were proper work habits, respect for elders, reverence for a spiritual world, and how to deal with whites by putting on the Massa. In this way, black parents showed their children how to cope with slavery by fooling the master without losing ones s elf respect (www.slaveryinamerica.org.).In addition to relying on the strength of family networks, the enslaved turned to godliness as a essence of coping with slavery. During the colonial era, most enslaved Africans retained as best they could their indigenous African righteousnesss or Islam in the cases of those who had come from Muslim countries. It was not until the mid-eighteenth degree centigrade that large numbers of Africans began converting to Christianity during the religious revival movement that swept over the English colonies. During this Great Awakening, English Methodists and Baptists (later) preached an evangelical style of Christianity that appealed to the emotions and offered salvation to all who embraced Christ regardless of ones class or race. This new emotional religion blended nicely with African spiritual beliefs and religious practices. Its emphasis on singing, emotional fervor, spiritual rebirth, and total body immersion in water during baptism was espe cially attractive to enslaved blacks (http//www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_overview). But, the country was not at rest. apparitional reforms, the anti-slavery movement and the civil war were all in progress at this time. Although very few chose not understand why the slaves wanted their freedom, some(prenominal) citizens did not understand the separation of the institution based on religion and religious reform(Cayton et al.)Starting in 1861, states of the North clashed with states of the South in a brutal conflict that Americans called the Civil War. The causes of the Civil War were many and complex. some(prenominal) white Northerners believed that slavery violated the basic principles of both the United States and the Christian religion, and believed that slavery was an evil that could not be tolerated. The first shots fired in 1861 signaled the start of the nations Civil War and lasted for four years. Slaves were used involuntarily for labor by the Confederates. Freed African Americans were employed to build forts, drive wagons and perform noncombat jobs. downhearted volunteers were not allowed to join the heart and soul army, however in 1862 Congress accepted Lincoln to accept African Americans into the military. Several months later, Lincoln made the annunciation in the Emancipation Proclamation. Given this encouragement, nearly 185,000 African Americans had enlisted in the Union Army. For these soldiers, fighting to help free others who were still enslaved had special meaning(Cayton, p.397). From 1861 to 1865 an estimated 620,000 soldiers were killed, of which more than 38,000 were African American. The wounds of war, both physically and psychologically were not easily healed, and carried on into the ordinal century(Goldfarb, S).Nearly 240 years were to have passed before the Thirteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution officially ended slavery in 1865. This means that 12 generations of blacks survived and lived in America as enslaved p eople-dread(a)ct descendants of the nearly 500,000 enslaved Africans imported into North America by European traders. Some of the 180,000 African Americans who fought for their freedom as Union soldiers in the American Civil War could trace their families to the time of the Pilgrims. Still this was not enough to be inured as citizen of the United States, or as a human being in general. Discrimination, education, voting rights and civil rights were to be the next items sought in the struggle to survive and prosper. The war for the African American waged on.For many African Americans the surge of joy at gaining freedom quickly faded as they realized how many obstacles stood between them and neat comparison. Defeat in war had not changed the fact that white people still dominated southern society, and the white leaders of those governments quickly passed laws to cut down African Americans new found freedoms. These laws were known as black codes. These laws schematic again a virtua l slavery. Curfews, vagrancy laws, labor contracts and land restrictions all but placed African Americans back into slavery. The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment did little to help. The 15th Amendment insured no person may be denied the right to vote and for the first time in history, African Americans had political power in 1870. More than 600 African Americans were elected to state legislatures. While this was all come up and good, it did little for the little man not in government. The demand for a fair chance in the race of life was echoed by freedmen crossways the South. This fair chance meant land. Give us our own land and we can take care of ourselves, but without land, our old masters can withdraw us or starve us as they please(Cayton, 2003). Planters had land, but no labor. Freedmen had labor, but no land. Out of these needs came sharecropping, tenant farming, and another way of being entrapped. However, a stronger people prevailed. African Americans have to th is point survived the Middle Passage, life on the plantation, civil war, the black codes, sharecropping and tenant farming. They have survived beatings, burnings and even the Ku Klux Klan and World War I only to still be treated as a second class citizen. Down trodden, but not dead, African American moves on. Ever faithful, ever strong, ever seeking a better way or better day, to the land of milk and love life they go. Its migrating time-The Great Migration.After the war immigration from Europe virtually stopped, and the build up forces had taken many young men out of the labor pool. Businesses all at once needed workers. Factory owners who had previously discriminated against African Americans now actively recruited them.The African American who had left the South to look for work in northern factories added to the steady stream of migrants had turned into a flood. Some 500,000 African Americans conjugated what came to be called the Great Migration(Davidson, et al, 2008). The d ramatic exodus of African Americans from countryside to city and from South to North during World War I and the decade that followed changed forever black Americas economic, political, social, and cultural lives. The Great Migration was, up to that point, the largest voluntary internal movement of black people ever seen. There were several factors that drew African Americans out of the South and into cities throughout the nation. Poverty, the lack of educational facilities for the children, rigid segregation and discrimination, and limited opportunities were all among the reasons that led some to look North. Besides a dire economic situation, Southerners, as they had done during the Great Migration, were also fleeing Jim Crow. With little confide of redress in the justice system, African Americans were at the mercy of scurrilous employers, landlords, and almost anyone bent on depriving them of their rights. Notwithstanding the Fifteenth Amendment (1870), which guaranteed them the r ight to vote, the great majority were effectively disenfranchised by restrictive rules that applied only to them. Rigid segregation in public spaces signaled by the constant carriage of Whites Only and Colored signs on water fountains, restroom doors, hospital wards, transportation, and living accommodations was a constant humiliation and a reminder that blacks were second-class citizens. Compared to the South, the North, although segregate in practice if not by law, appeared appealing (www.inmotionaame.org).The journey for equality for the African American citizen in the United States continue, great strides have been made. African Americans are once again in the political arena. We are authorise to fair and equal housing , education and employment. We now have an African American president.The struggle has been long, arduous, and steeped with many hills to climb. In keeping to the mantra by which many African Americans live it has been proven that which does not destroy us tends to make us stronger prevails.