Being enslaved was not an easy job for African Americans. African Americans survived slavery through their connection with their culture. They then went on to contribute to the economic and social development of the South and America. African Americans survived the institution of slavery and Africanized the American South. They helped free themselves by sticking together as a family, resisting, as well as wanting slavery to change. They freed themselves by 1865. They founded institutions, for example, black colleges, churches, banks, insurance companies, fraternities and sororities to uplift their race. “The process of enslavement was almost unbelievably painful and bewildering for the Africans. Completely cut off from their native land, …show more content…
Detaching from slavery through their diverse cultural foundations allowed for them to be able to connect with other slaves and hold onto their humanity. The assembly among slaves kept the diversity between slave and master. After a long day of being beaten and working under extreme conditions slaves found a way to disconnect from their danger. They used songs to get through a tough work day out in the fields. By singing they would connect with other slaves and find a way to make a terrible situation better. At night telling folk tales, doing dances and praying were the main reason why slaves did not commit suicide or harm themselves. They used these cultural remedies to assist them through their hardships. African Americans contributed to the economic and social development of America by becoming the engine for white men’s plantations. Without the work of slavery whites would have to work in their own fields instead they decided to get slaves and have the slaves do their work for them with no payment just cruelty. “African Americans…influenced the development of white culture. As early as the seventeenth century, black musicians performed English ballads for white audiences in distinctively African American style…By the eighteenth century, slaves in these regions organized black election or coronation festivals that lasted several …show more content…
Freedom papers legally stated that a slave was no longer attached to the slave owner. Free slaves had the ability and almost the same rights as white men. Free slaves were counted as three-fourths of a person when it was time to vote. African Americans were always looking for a way to become free from slavery. African Americans became free by using the underground railroad to move North away from the South. The Underground Railroad gave Africans the ability to run away from the distress of slavery. Becoming free allowed slaves to build their own institutions. They began building churches, schools and mutual aids. “In the antebellum decades, the black institutions that had appeared during the revolutionary era in urban areas of North, Upper South, and – to a lesser extent – the Deep South grew in strength, numbers, and variety. This was the result of growing black populations, the exertions of the African American elite, and the persistence of racial exclusion and segregation.” 6 African Americans in the Upper South had to endure hardships when earning a living. They built their own institutions for employment to be able to provide for their family. They created black churches to house schools and meeting for multiple organizations. Antislavery groups usually met within the churches to discuss ways they could stop slavery, they also used the churches as to harboring fugitive slaves. They created schools and
Free Black People in Antebellum America were not even deemed to be completely free. They had freedom but lacked egalitarianism. Many black people envisioned freedom as deliverance from their slave owners. They were the main factor of building America. They believed that they would be treated as Americans once given freedom.
Slave music, particularly negro spirituals, played an important role in undermining white society and challenge the idea of slave docility. Slave spirituals conveyed the hardships of slavery and were used to not only as a way of communicating with other slaves, but also as a method of control over their slave labor. Slaves would change the tempo of the song to match the pace they wanted to work. If they wanted to get work done fast the song would be sung faster, if the slaves wanted to work
African Americans were slaves in the South and free in the North. The abolitionist movement gave hope for the slaves to run away into freedom. Slaves escaped their masters on the secret route to the North, called the Underground railroad. The Underground Railroad had been around since the beginning of slavery. The railroad had multiple routes all leading into the Northern states, or even Canada.
In spite of the absence of legal status and the adverse effects of the domestic slave trade, the African American family retained its traditional role in ordering the relations between adults and children. Much religious activity among slaves reflected the influences of African religious practices and served as a means by which slaves could develop and promote views of them different from those held by the slave owner. Outside the South, blacks established separate churches and, eventually, denominations within Protestantism, including many black Baptist churches. Another early denominational effort was the African Methodist Episcopal Church, initially called the Free African Society, which was founded (1787) in Philadelphia by Richard Allen.
Often times, the individuals who would be helping the slaves would often hear about the horrors of slavery, but they could not feel or visualize the suffering of slaves. The Underground Railroad was that tool that spread a change of perceptions because even the most stubborn of individuals, when they witnessed the conditions of the slaves, and they heard the stories the slaves told when slaves became free, that challenged the dominant ideologies of slavery being good. When thousands of slaves permeated the borders of the northern states, naturally even those who wanted to reject African Americans had to confront and live with the fact that African Americans are not slaves. This generated support for abolition because African Americans were quite competent when they did not have to the basic servile duties for their slave masters. Talented black men like Benjamin Banneker and Phillis Wheatley, a mathematician and a famous poet, proved that free black men could contribute to society (Divine et al 138).
The traditions of African-American slaves, from the earliest of times in colonial America, were acts and words that endowed the future of their race with the essence of their past. From the earliest of our rice crops to the females, who provided their masters through repeated sexual abuses, slaves laid ownership to their portion of colonial American history. The key to maintaining the heritage of the early African family was a combined version of their ancient tribal religion and their master’s Christianity. In order to maintain a peaceful accord with their masters, slaves learned that diversifying songs and actions from African shores with slight adjustments in order to abide by the beliefs of their Christian masters. Examples of this
In like manner, all slaves wanted was to be able to have their own job that they could be paid for and their own house just like any other American citizen. “The Underground Railroad was established to aid enslaved people in their escape to freedom” (Hudson 1). Slaves had no other option than to try to run away from their plantation and hopefully run into someone working for the Underground Railroad to assist them in their escape. There were a lot of people who supported the Underground Railroad that did not want to be known publicly about due to how frowned upon it was especially in the South. A majority of some of the people in the North did not want to get immersed in helping with the Underground Railroad because they thought it was iniquitous to help an escaped slave run from the law.
The black folk were freed by the abolition of slavery, yet this new freedom was not so. Ther identity was forever fractured between black and American, and even after they internalized the whites’ perspectives of them, they still wanted to be both without the disadvantages and racism. They were degraded, dehumanize, and shamed for their lack of education and job skills. In 1865, the Freemen’s Bureau was established by Congress to provide them with aid after living in slavery and not owning tools, homes, or land.
The African Americans had a big impact on the Civil War. They had to have all of these laws and papers wrote because of the slavery deal. They had the role of the debate for slavery. They were the slaves and they wanted to have their freedom. The Declaration of Independence said that, “All men are created equal”, but the slaves were not free.
The struggles of slavery in the American South Slaves in the American South endured difficult lives. A couple struggles that slaves had was that their families were split up and they had hard working conditions. During slavery, slaves families got split up .Harriet Tubman 's sisters were sold to plantations far away. This proves that families were split up.
Slave owning and slavery in general had a lasting impression on the way the South functions. The validity of the statement completely falls through; the statement makes a false argument on how slavery affected the United States. Slavery in the Antebellum South led to not only an extremely successful growth in economics, but also enhanced the social diversity and community developments between whites and blacks. The economic structure in the Antebellum South, truly improved with the influx of slavery.
Pertaining to the rights of African Americans a new south did not appear after the reconstruction. While they were “free” they were often treated harshly and kept in a version of economic slavery by either their former masters or other white people in power. Sharecropping and the crop-lien system often had a negative impact on both the black and white tenants keeping them in debt with the owner. Jim Crow laws, vigilantes and various means of disfranchisement became the normal way of life in the South. It was believed that white people were superior to black people and when they moved up in politics or socially they were harassed and threatened.
Slavery, racism, discrimination and segregation is what our world was built upon. The Caucasian men took the African American men, women, children, and infants from their homelands to use them as their slaves. Their slave owners brought them to the United States to teach them how to be all forms of slaves for their needs. If these slaves where not doing as they were told or caught stealing from their owners, they were beaten with a whip. Slavery was abolished in the year of 1865 when it became a part of the 13th amendment .
Jim Crow had many African Americans think there life would be better up north. African American culture was reborn in the Harlem Renaissance. African American culture had the most creative arts and the most influential movement in the African American culture. The Harlem Renaissance help give African Americans changes. The Harlem Renaissance also helped Africans American produce their art and such more.
First, there is the impact on the populations of areas to which the slaves came. Slavery has changed the demographic face of these areas. Some countries, like Haiti and Jamaica, have populations mostly descended from Africans. Others, like Brazil and the US, have populations with large minorities of people of African descent.