"I've told you too much. How come they want all this stuff from the colored people anyways? Do they take any stories from the white people...?" a Georgia woman. The View from the Bottom Rail is the name of the chapter, what this meant wasn't easily known from the title, trains, maybe from the first few sentences it could have been. The Bottom Rail in this chapter deals with a social classification specifically African Americans slaves. When men, women, and children were treated as an object to own, trade, abuse and degrade as if no human emotion existed within them. Oppression of another human being for monetary gain, sexual gratification and or pure laziness since it was much easier to sit back and have the work done for you. Africans …show more content…
These were not jobs that a paycheck was earned from or that one could call in sick to, this was forced labor in which some were beat into submission. The provisions for the slaves were different depending on who owned you, where you worked and what tasks were performed. Some slave had just the bare necessities, living in cramped quarters, with barely enough food to sustain life and work, with little hope for change. How do we know these things today seeing we have never been slave owners and there is no written instructional manual to teach an individual? We have the written and recorded accounts from former slaves, independent stories, exaggerated, some maybe slightly, but there is plenty of proof to these facts also. Scars that show the beatings a slave would receive for whatever his master deemed fit, babies born of mixed races when white masters rape their black servants, further proof of the inhumane treatment. These slaves were purposely left uneducated and it shows in their dialect "I go shum" was a phrase said that had to be interpreted from a missionary man to mean I'll go see about it. One can determine that freed slaves would be able to recall their own past experiences but with time and age stories get …show more content…
Did you earn money? Did you see slaves being bought and sold? What did you do and say when the Yankee came and freed you? This brought about a lot of information ex slaves being able to tell their own stories, in their own way. However, there are factors that change accounts considerably, like what state they were from as some states slaves were treated harsher than others, these accounts were recorded when many of these people were quite old and may have confused some facts. One case Susan Hamlin was interviewed, by someone she thought was from the Welfare Office, so the accounts of her life were made to appear milder than what they were for fear of trouble even though she claimed to be 104 years old. After interviewing so many people Lomax realized these were just words on paper flat no emotion, so, Lomax and son started recording interviews with a three-hundred-pound portable recorder. The problem with Oral History is oral history is only as good as the evidence provided. It can be passed down from generation to generation and distorted along the way due to memory loss, plain confusion or difference in perception. Either way without being able to prove
After reading “The View From the Bottom Rail,” explore the CD-ROM on that chapter. Write one or two paragraphs about any insight, discoveries, or items of interest in relation to the topic of slavery. In addition, write another paragraph about the methodological challenges of doing interviews and the things one must keep in mind when reading history that includes interviews. Provide feedback to at least two classmates’ responses. I found it interesting that analogy that there are a top and bottom rails of society.
1.05 Economics and Slavery Part 1 1. Why did slavery start in the colonies? - Slavery started in the colonies because, the colonist needed more workers in their fields and help at home. 2. How were slaves brought to the colonies?
Many colored individuals were forced into slavery and each and everyone of the slaves had a different experience with their master. The slaves were treated as if they were nothing, a piece of property that the white people owned. They were not allowed to learn how to read or write; only needed to know how to do their chores and understand what their master was saying. They were just an extra hand in the house that had no say or existed in the white people world. The slaves’ job was to obey their master or mistress at all times, do their chores and take the beating if given one.
It was one of the most significant and disputed practice ever to reach the shores of the Western Hemisphere. A dimensional issue that caused much argument and conflict on each of its multiple levels. This was the practice of Slavery. Taking a closer look, there are many different interpretations of what the attitude of American slaves were towards their work experiences. In order to fully answer this question, a closer examination, summary, and comparison will be made of three different historians and their ideas to accurately answer the overarching importance of this question.
With freedom coming, some slaves were still loyal to their masters. Yet, the slave masters still consider slaves to be the bottom rail of society. The bottom rail was considered the “lowest level of America’s social and economic scale” (Davidson & Lytle, p. 179). The slaves were portrayed to be dumb or stupid because state governments discouraged slaves
Slave men usually worked out in the field doing hard work. Every slave was none-stop doing something till sun up to sundown. Working environments were way harsh on slaves. They would work in the fields no matter what weather they had. They would work days and nights in the fields.
From 1600 through 1800 the new world experienced a time period in which America does not like to remember. During this time slavery grew and transformed to something we've never seen before. Atlantic slave trade changed the lives of millions of Africans, ripping them from their home like rag dolls and bringing them to a strange foreign land they would call home and being forced to work as slaves, in hot, miserable conditions with little food, and water as a result the lives of Africans would never be same and the Atlantic slave trade would wet the pallet for slavery throughout America's History. In the new found land named the Americas, Europeans were colonizing and were taking the land from the Natives and using it for themselves to
Two examples of slave narratives that I had found strikingly similar was an interview with a Mr. James Monroe Abbot who was a documented slave born in 1854 and an excerpt from the narrative of Solomon Northup called “12 Years A Slave”. These both had shared a large resemblance by how much pain both had felt physically whether it be through traditional working in the fields as a slave on a plantation, or through means of torture and constant cruelty. “Dat night mah feet cracked open un’, when I had to take de fires I left a trick o’ blood across de flo.” “Burch commenced beating me. Blow after blow was inflicted upon my naked body.
From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped.
In the 1700-1800’s, the use of African American slaves for backbreaking, unpaid work was at its prime. Despite the terrible conditions that slaves were forced to deal with, slave owners managed to convince themselves and others that it was not the abhorrent work it was thought to be. However, in the mid-1800’s, Northern and southern Americans were becoming more aware of the trauma that slaves were facing in the South. Soon, an abolitionist group began in protest, but still people doubted and questioned it.
Reading the book, the Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead was an interesting novel that depicted the life story of certain slaves. Although the book showed the struggle of slavery and escaping in a fictional manner with a few history facts to support this novel. The short stories in this book show that something that was shown or read in any history books across the world. These short stories helped shaped my viewpoints of how the slaves. During this point in history, major things was happening to the slaves instead of them buying sold to pick cotton or tend the slave master kid.
In the contemporary era, the issue of race remains a prevalent topic in public discussion. Thus, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad is meaningful as it explores the legacy of racial injustice in the United States and its consequences in today’s society. In his development of the underground railroad as a literal and physical vehicle to freedom, Whitehead is able to candidly detail the ubiquitous nature of racial prejudice and the horrors associated with it. Over the course of his novel, the author utilizes a variety of rhetorical devices in order to further explore the many hardships that ‘freedom’ inevitably entails.
Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.
The combination of these advantages allows for the individual to give an authentic response to questions about their experiences, rather than formulate a well thought out written response. Oral history has many advantages, but as a primary source there are a few disadvantages. One of which is an individual recalling a false memory. In some cases when events took plave more than forty years ago, the individual could have trouble remembering the exact details of their experience. Another disadvantage is the recollection being only one persons point of view.
Slaves worked on farms, as accountants, dancers and