The Horrors of a Slave ship Nigerian kidnappers were the cause of many children missing as their parents left them home alone during the day to work in the fields. Kidnappers often took advantage of this time to take kids against their will and sell them to slave traders, thus becoming a slave at a very young age. Occasionally they would be caught in the act and dealt with however the grownups chose to do but not in Olaudah’s case. One day Olaudah Equiano, merely 11 years old, was left home alone with his younger sister while his parents were off at work and a group of people broke into their home with means of kidnapping them. The kidnappers succeeded in their plans and ran off into the woods with Olaudah and his sister leaving no trace for their parents to find them.
Douglass and Equiano were both Africans and slaves; however, they lived very different lives. They were both young children in their autobiographies reminiscing the horrors and hardships they had to undergo as young African slaves. Olaudah Equiano had a worse time, in my opinion, then Frederick Douglass. Equiano was able to know how it felt to be free. Moreover, he was a prince of his tribe because his father was the tribal elder of Benin.
In “The Wife of His Youth” by Charles W. Chesnutt, there were many stereotypical views on race and gender in the lives of Mr. Ryder and Eliza Jane. In the nineteenth century, every man’s goal was to be successful and the “breadwinner” of the family. However, not every man had the chance to start out big, for Mr. Ryder, he started as Sam Taylor. Sam Taylor was a freeborn slave, where he worked in a plantation as an apprentice and had no source of education. Eventually, the plantation owner wanted to sell him for more money as a slave, but Sam Taylor didn’t want to live the life of a slave.
I was the first born and was the only child till I was six, but during those six years I witness my mother getting hit by my father and him being drunk every day and never home. I was scared and didn’t know if this was okay and normal for my parents but what I did know is whenever it happened I was hiding and covering my ears. My dad would go on drinking binges for days with his cousins and would never be home, my mom would worry and leave me to go find him, usually he was at a bar or at his cousins house and she would bring him home. That’s when things would get throw, slaps would be heard, cries as well, and another beer opening. It got worse and not only was he hitting my mom but now me as well.
Frederick was born on the eastern shore of Maryland. His mother was a slave, and his father is supposedly his white slave master. He was mainly raised by his grandmother. His mother died when he was just seven years old, and his aunt was severely beaten in front of him and that moment was burned into his brain and that image lasted in his memory for the rest of his life, shortly after he was sent to live with his master’s brother. Douglas was encouraged to read first by his master’s wife, but her husband felt differently, and said these words “learning would spoil the best nigger in the world” (140).
At a young age he lost his brother and his father, which dramatically changed his personality for the worse (Cort 3). When he moved to Vienna to become a painter it did not work out well for him. He got rejected from the Vienna academy of fine arts in Vienna twice, and had to live off of orphans pension (Cort 3). After his mother died in Dec. 1907 he only had one living relative which was his sister Paula. Although his childhood was ultimately hard it still led him to becoming part of the war effort.
Jiayao Zhang 12 Years a Slave The film “ Twelve Years a Slave” is based on a true story wrote by Solomon Northup, a free African-American in Washington, D.C. who got kidnapped and sold to Louisiana, enslaved for twelve years. As we can see in the film, When Solomon first captured by the slavery, he tried to tell everyone he is a free man, but all he got is whipping. After he has been sold to William Ford and named as Platt, he shows his wisdom and talent of violin to get Ford’s favor. But he got himself in trouble with the white leader, Solomon ended up transferring to another slavemaster Edwin Epps. At this point, he started to hide his knowledge and skills.
Barack Obama’s Book, Dreams from My Father, is an autobiography of his early childhood life, his life in Chicago as a community organizer, and the time he spent in Kenya before he went to Harvard Law School. The book is divided into three different parts, in each part there are major events that are happening throughout these time periods of his life and gives you an understanding of the way he feels and his confusion. This book describes Obama’s struggle to understanding the meaning of having a white mother and an African American father and the discrimination that came along with it. He experiences a good amount of racial discrimination and prejudice from early childhood years with his mother and grandparents, the time he spent in South Side Chicago with other Black Americans and the time he spent in Kenya with his family, listening to their experiences as well. He begins the novel when he receives the new that his father died.
Spilled Salt: By Barbara Neely The short story “spilled salt”, by Barbara Neely is about a single mother, Myrna, who raised her son alone since he was six. The son, Kenny, convinced a crime. Because he raped a girl, he spent four years in prison and the story starts when he released from prison and came back home where his mother doesn’t want to live with him anymore. She doesn’t want to lose her sweet memories of the little and funny boy. She loves the boy who was four years ago and not the man who is now standing in front of her.
He watched as I left and almost immediately, like the flip of a switch, was overcome with fear. His year started out with problems stemming from this fear, including being suspended from school and having failing grades. The emotions that he was having due to war had become his existence. We had no ideal just how bad that this would get. My wife would send me emails stating that Rex was not well.