A person whom another individual owns is called an enslaved person. They follow their masters’ instructions strictly. The fact that African Americans were taken captive and brought to America as enslaved gave them an unfair start in the country. Enslaved people received different treatment and living circumstances than ordinary Americans. There were several methods used to liberate the enslaved people. They soon gained the freedom to live as they saw fit when slavery was abolished. They were fed and sheltered by the African Americans who were transported to America as indentured servants. They would then receive what were known as “freedom dues,” typically in the form of a plot of land and provisions. Among those items was a rifle, and Black and white servants of all races gained freedom.
Slavery was first made legal in the U.S. in Maryland. Those goals were the search for more fabulous land and a market-based economy (Rauhut 139). To other enslavers, the enslaved people were transferred or sold. Enslaved people were to operate on the plantations that dealt with various items, such as cotton, rice, and sugar cane, and enslaved people were required. Others viewed it as a financial justification in addition to using enslaved people on plantations. Many enslaved people were used to manufacture sails, iron foundries, and other manual labor activities. Instead of hiring workers, the enslavers bought enslaved people to save money. From the Carolinas to New York and New Jersey, enslaved people were sold to enslavers worldwide.
When African Americans were enslaved, they occasionally had to perform tasks against their will. The white people who owned them as enslaved people were not required to respect the sexual, social, economic, religious, cultural, or political rights of the enslaved people. The institution has an ingrained tendency to exploit Children and women sexually. Black women and girls are routinely raped or coerced into having sex at the discretion of any slaver. Numerous enslaved people had offspring with their masters. When they grew older and more prominent, the enslaved people’s kids were also made to labor as enslaved people as their parents.
After surviving the difficult conditions, the enslaved people decided to take action. Enslaved people were seen as beneath humans, less than human, and doomed for service. To demonstrate their disobedience, they would carry out a variety of behaviors. These behaviors included property damage, arson, poisoning animals, and sloth. The act of just fleeing was perhaps the most common method of resistance. The worst thing they could do to the enslavers was run away. To labor the fields on their plantations, they relied on and required their slaves (Valerio 215). However, they were beaten or even put to death when they were captured. Enslaved people were also disciplined in different ways, like torture, sleep deprivation, denial of medical treatment, and malnutrition.
Running away was another method they tried to use to gain freedom. That did not work out because they were found and returned to their owners by either their original masters or others employed to locate them. Running away had terrible consequences, which was a terrible price to pay. The Fugitive Slave Law was created to safeguard enslavers’ property and interests because so many enslaved people escaped and cost their masters money. They could purchase their freedom, ending their status as enslavers’ property. For a charge, enslaved people may rent their labor to other people (Valerio 215). They were required to provide the slavers with a part of their profits in exchange for the owners’ consent. They were able to purchase their freedom after they had amassed sufficient funds.
The lengthy tunnel of brutal treatment on the estates finally had a light at the end for the enslaved people. Following Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which released enslaved people who were insurrection against the federal government, In the United States, slavery was eventually abolished in 1865. Once more, President Abraham Lincoln made enslaved people available for liberation. One item served to sustain the enslaved people’s hope that they would one day be free and experience better times. That was their steadfast faith in God. In the field, they would have church services or religious revivals (Dobrzeniecki 133).
The families that were not exchanged or put up for sale remained strong thanks to this conviction. Initially, enslavers opposed evangelicals preaching to their bound people. Still, as the revival movement gained traction, some began to believe it was their Christian responsibility to instruct their slaves in biblical principles. They accepted America as their home, including converting to Christianity from their indigenous beliefs.
This American Revolutionary War ultimately resulted in the Thirteen Colonies’ independence and transformation into the United States and had a tremendous socioeconomic impact on African Americans. Black soldiers fought between the American and British forces during the war, and after it was done, slavery was progressively abolished in the Northern United States. But as the US moved west, the American South, whose prosperity depended on slave-run plantations, expanded and strengthened the slave system (Engerman 323). As a result, many African Americans still enslaved in slavery used the Railroad to get to Canada and the free states. Disagreements between Northern and Southern governments regarding slavery led to the American Civil War, in which 178,000 African Americans battled for the Union. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Thirteenth Amendment, ending slavery in the United States, during the conflict.
The Reconstruction era, which began after the Confederacy lost the war, saw African Americans in the South granted the same rights as their white neighbors. However, due to white resistance to these advancements, a system of racial segregation known as the Jim Crow laws was enacted in the Southern states, which resulted in the disenfranchised of the majority of African Americans living in the South. As a result, due to poor economic situations, segregation, and lynchings, over 6 million primarily countryside African Americans left the South in search of opportunities beginning in the early 20th century.
The low point in American race relations served as the impetus for civil rights campaigns to eradicate racial discrimination against African Americans. In 1954, these projects merged into an extensive, well-organized campaign that civil rights pioneers led, including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. As a result, the Act of Civil Rights of 1964, which outlawed racial discrimination, was passed by the federal government. As a result, 46,936,733 individuals, or 14.2% of the demographic, indicated they were African Americans there in the 2020 United States Census. Additionally, over 2.1 million modern-day state citizens of Africa arrived in the US (Engerman 326). African Americans have thus had a significant impact on American poetry, film, and music, along with other cultural forms.
Most African Americans are derived from individuals who were bought into slavery and sold throughout African wars or raids. They were brought to America employing the transatlantic slave trade. Although they came from various ethnic groups, most African Americans were descended from communities that lived in Central and Western Africa, particularly the Sahel. Today, fewer ethnic groups historically inhabited Eastern, and Southeastern Africa are represented among African Americans. These numerous individuals had a unique style of living despite having different customs, religious beliefs, and languages.
These towns and villages produced the majority of the future enslaved people. However, these varied individuals were introduced to European standards and ideologies after being brought to the Americas and sold into slavery, which caused them to give up their native ways.
West Africa was the principal continent from which slaves were trafficked to the New Lands. Despite numerous distinct tribes in West Africa, each with its customs and beliefs, some of them worked with iron, enabling them to make implements that aided in their agricultural activities. Most tribes had adopted Islam by the 10th century (Valerio 216). Settlements in West Africa that had access to favorable conditions for growth and achievement fared well. The slave trade also influenced their prosperity.
The total number of Africans carried to the American Continent was between 10 and 12 million. A handful came via Madagascar and East Africa, but most of them were from the West African coast area that runs from Senegal to Angola. Only 5% of them, or about 500 000 people, went to the American colonies (Valerio 216). The majority made their way to Brasil and the Indies, wherever they quickly died. The population of the American colonies was significantly better than that of the sugar plantations, with less disease, more foodstuff, availability of certain medical services, and more specialized labor needs.
Olaudah Equiano described the voyage to the colonies and life onboard the slave ships as nothing more than a horrific experience in his narrative. Before they even boarded the ship, the enslaved Africans got divided from their kin. Once aboard the ships, the hostages were split into groups according to gender. There was little room for movement for the enslaved Africans jammed underneath the deck (Dobrzeniecki 133). Usually, slaved men were kept in the vessel’s hold, which was the most crowded space. It was difficult for the captives, strapped to the floor beneath low bunks, to move, and they could not move for most of the trip. It could eventually lead to the skin of their elbows eroding to the bone.
During these horrific conditions, Africans who were held as enslaved people plotted an uprising. Enslaved men were rarely found on board; they were most likely to mutiny. Rebellions Were uncommon, yet they frequently failed. Crews were sometimes twice as large, and members terrorized the enslaved Africans by using brutality and harsh penalties to keep control over them and end further uprisings. From the moment the enslaved people were captured in Africa until they arrived on the plantations controlled by their European masters, it often took six months (Engerman 330). Africans had no links to their communities, families, or homes. They were required to change their way of life.
Works Cited
Dobrzeniecki, Marek. “Is the Fact That Other People Believe in God a Reason to Believe? Remarks on the Consensus Gentium Argument.” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 10, no. 3, 2018, pp. 133–153. Web.
Engerman, Stanley. “Slavery without Racism, Racism without Slavery.” Journal of Global Slavery, vol. 5, no. 3, 2020, pp. 322–356. Web.
Rauhut, Claudia. “Mobilizing Transnational Agency for Slavery Reparations: The Case of Jamaica.” The Journal of African American History, vol. 103, no. 1-2, 2018, pp. 133–162. Web.
Valerio, Liana Beatrice. “Slavery and Silence: Latin America and the U.S. Slave Debate.” Slavery & Abolition, vol. 40, no. 1, 2019, pp. 215–216. Web.