The selected slaves would proudly sing songs and chants to demonstrate their enthusiasm as they traveled to the Great House Farm. As Douglass relived his slave memories, he realized that the songs sung by the slaves as they walked towards the Great House Farm did not reveal their sense of eagerness, but instead released all their suffering and pain caused by slavery. Douglass, through repetition and personification, states “They [the songs] told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones loud, long, and deep; they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over the bitterest anguish.” (4). The author explains that the songs in a depressing and deep tone representing their sadness of being enslaved opposed to being a freed man. Douglass very artistically states how the song’s true meaning was beyond its literal content, and actually contradicts his previous thought that the songs showed a sense of happiness from the slaves.
Other masters held up their agreement excellently and treated their servants well. During the 17th and 18th centuries throughout the English colonies, indentured servants and slaves made up the main workforce for land-owning colonists. For a long period of time, both indentured servants and slaves seemed to stand on the same status and were treated about the same. However, as time proceeded, changes in the colonies also brought changes between these two different groups. The path to the Revolution carried new principles regarding freedom and liberty, causing colonists to question their own ideas of freedom and liberty, as well as the idea of what freedom and liberty should mean to slaves and indentured servants.
The audiences for these narratives at the time were abolitionists, with the purpose of calling them to action to abolish slavery. Even now, with slavery abolished, a slave narrative still brings with it intense emotion and heartache that transcends time. For example, Douglass establishes pathos on the first few pages when describing how he only saw his own mother "four or five times in my life" (Douglass 2). This appeals to everyone who ever had a mother. This also makes the reader ache for happiness of this poor boy almost immediately.
These reasons are that it has enabled the construction of black communities, it brought education to many African Americans, it brought African Americans into politics, it ratified the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments, and it gave us a taste of what it means to be free. Reconstruction helped bring African Americans together socially through churches and public schools. Back in the slave days, a social life was non-existent and you were lucky to work on the same plantation as your family. Although it is still scary to go outside for many blacks, we have the option of living with our families and loosening our chains to leave as we please, which was unheard of twenty years ago. Black churches have made it possible for black communities to come together, which has been very beneficial when forming organizations and networking.
The desire of being free resembled the awful conditions that some of them had. Nevertheless, numbers of slaves claimed that they would want to go back in time and visit their owners since they treated them well enough. A variety of slaves experienced various types of slavery and each of the stories represented unique lifestyles that each of them had. The slaves had not only described their working conditions, but as well as the Majority of the slaves suffered during the times they were enslaved while the rest had a fairly good time. The slaves that were being interviewed had various answers about whether or not they had hard times back then.
African American struggles during the time of slavery but yet they did not give up their hope. They fought and battled every day in and day out to be able to see a brighter day. During difficult time, the only thing that kept them moving forward was faith and religions. Some of these religions were spirituals and
Just as the Native Americans, Africans commonly associated their music with daily life; however, when they were brought to America, African slaves combined their music with the anguish they felt on a daily basis. Field hollers were loud, emotional chants that expressed the pain and tragedy of the slaves. Work songs also served a similar purpose. Traditionally, they were to express the joy and pride in the hard work for one’s family; but, for the slaves, work songs described the tragic new conditions slaves experienced. Field hollers and work songs, along with religious shouts, paved the way to many other genres of music that is heard today such as the blues, jazz, and
In 1700’s many slaves starting getting educations by their masters or African school. Quakers also educated many African American kids. Quakers was a community of non-British that followed laws no violence that was the main reason that they were anti-slavery. They played a major role in educating many African Americans and also helped many slaves escape from their
Parents should realize how it’s important for kids to know the past and present and therefore Toni Morrison gives us a little of the background past for African Americans depicting how hard it was for her people to survive in such town in which most people strive to survive everyday. Poverty has existed for decades and in Toni Morrison literature it gives us very much information of poverty that happens even in our present society today. Many people look down at African Americans due to their prior history and kids should be able to understand its time to change that for not only for the good of ourselves but for society to see how much has been overcome. Although her book is fiction is rooted to real
Since early 1950s, black Americans have faced a lot of discrimination, especially in the South, after the Jim Crow law. The civil rights movement was a political, legal and social protest by Black Americans to gain full citizenship rights and to achieve racial equality. This movement has tackled every fields in the life in America with the support of organizations and most importantly, media. At the begin of the movement, there were a lot of campaigns, sit-ins and protest against the segregation system. However, many were left unsolved mainly because of disenfranchisement and the still prejudice of white people.