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Slavery's impact on us
Effect of slavery on society
Essays on african american culture
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Slavery in America was common practice throughout the 17th, 18th, and even 19th centuries. Many are aware of the cruelty that took place in this inhumane system of labor, which regarded African Americans as property and nothing more. Though African Americans were degraded, they were still human beings, and through this they found livelihood. Among their everyday responsibilities as slaves, they found time to create relations with fellow African Americans not only from their own plantations, but also with those from adjoining plantations. These relations lead to the formation of communities, some of which labeled neighborhoods. Amidst these communities, slaves interacted and attended activities such as celebrations, religious services, and matrimonial …show more content…
Joyner’s idea of the slave community is predominately predicated on the adaption of African culture into American culture and the institution of slavery. Naturally, Africans who were imported to America brought their culture, consisting of customs, traditions, arts, religion, language, and social organization. As they were implemented into not only a new society, but also new geography, this culture adapted to the new environment encompassing them. Joyner goes into depth with this idea as demonstrated by the rice culture in South Carolina. These Africans, specifically, were “socialized into the ways the British colonists would have them behave,” but since there was such a predominance in presence of Africans, there was “a constant renewal of African cultural patterns on the rice coast” (Joyner 15). Along with the influence this new environment had on the African slaves, the African slaves also influenced the American culture around them. Joyner states, “…there could hardly have been successful rice culture in South Carolina without the strength and skills of enslaved Africans” (14). The African American culture of South Carolina remained very similar to that of African culture, including aspects of “material culture, their folk tales, their religious expression, their use of times, and even their use of language,” which is how they responded to hindrances of American society (Joyner …show more content…
The Gullah language worked its way into all aspects of African culture, including things such as religion and the naming process. The Gullah language gave African proverbs and parables a very connotative nature making them customarily relevant. The language also worked its way into the naming process, where names of Gullah roots were referred to as basket names. Joyner states, “Since one’s name is his most basic label of identity, [basket names were] no trivial accomplishment” (222). While many slave masters believed they held the right to name newborn slave children, enslaved Africans used these basket names among themselves to establish a their own sense of identity. Gullah gave the enslaved Africans an exclusive bond amidst the slave communities, and therefore is a prominent aspect of African American
During the era of 1789-1850, the South was an agricultural society. This is where tobacco, rice, sugar, cotton, and wheat were grown for economic resources. Because of labor shortage and the upkeeps of the farm to maintain the sale of merchandise property-owners purchased black people as slaves to work their agricultural estate, also low- key sharecroppers often used slave work as their resources as well. As the South developed, profits and businesses grew too, especially those expected to build up the local crops or remove natural resources. Conversely, these trades regularly hire non-landowning whites as well as slaves either claimed or chartered. With that being said, the African culture played a significant role as slaves in the south
Assumptions from the beginning, presumed the Jim Crow laws went hand in hand with slavery. Slavery, though, contained an intimacy between the races that the Jim Crow South did not possess. Woodward used another historian’s quote to illustrate the familiarity of blacks and whites in the South during slavery, “In every city in Dixie,’ writes Wade, ‘blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other’s presence.” (14) Slavery brought about horrible consequences for blacks, but also showed a white tolerance towards blacks. Woodward explained the effect created from the proximity between white owners and slaves was, “an overlapping of freedom and bondage that menaced the institution of slavery and promoted a familiarity and association between black and white that challenged caste taboos.” (15) The lifestyle between slaves and white owners were familiar, because of the permissiveness of their relationship. His quote displayed how interlocked blacks...
The Effects of African American Culture Appropriations on the Minority Black Culture The black culture is the minority culture in this instance and in most cases, it is dominated by the white culture which has imposed its ideas on them (Stuckey, 2013). When two different cultures come together, different types of cultural appropriations occur. These include transculturation, cultural dominance, and cultural exploitation. The appropriation between the white and black cultures, resulting in the African American culture, is defined by cultural dominance and exploitation.
When reading about the institution of slavery in the United States, it is easy to focus on life for the slaves on the plantations—the places where the millions of people purchased to serve as slaves in the United States lived, made families, and eventually died. Most of the information we seek is about what daily life was like for these people, and what went “wrong” in our country’s collective psyche that allowed us to normalize the practice of keeping human beings as property, no more or less valuable than the machines in the factories which bolstered industrialized economies at the time. Many of us want to find information that assuages our own personal feelings of discomfort or even guilt over the practice which kept Southern life moving
I recently visited the American History museum and came upon the most interesting artifact in the Lighting a Revolution section within the Transportation and Technology wing of the museum. This artifact is an advertisement from Charleston, South Carolina in 1769 about the selling of “a choice cargo” of two hundred and fifty slaves.
Being a resident of South Carolina, African-American Culture was chosen as part of the applied learning project for the Intercultural Nursing class, because African-Americans make up more than a quarter of this state’s population. According to the 2010 United States Census Bureau, the total population for South Carolina (S.C.) is 4,625,364, with 27.9% being of African-American descent. The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding and sensitivity to issues and cultural variances or phenomena that are unique to the African-American Culture. Another goal is to identify nursing interventions that are important for the nurse to consider in caring for this population. These phenomena’s include variances in social organization, communication, space, perception of time, environmental control, and biological variations associated with the African-American culture. (Giger, 2013 and South Carolina minority, n.d.)
The ante-bellum south is referred to as the Old South; south of the Cotton Kingdom and plantation slavery. The Old South did not last long but received the term, ‘Old’ in order to distinguish the Old South from the New South. Slavery in the Old South was practiced by the white man to assure subordination of the Negro’s and to determine their status, or ‘place’. The white supremacy view of life, along with the injustices of exploitation can be traced back to the old pro-slavery argument, developed by the Anglo-Saxon (Woodward, 11). Slavery in the Old South required daily interracial contact from both sides of the races such as, supervision, maintenance of order, and physical and medical care of slaves. House servants were a prime example of this type of interracial contact. Bonds of intimacy and affection were also present between races due to house servants living in the same home, attending the same church, and sharing in the family’s conversation (Woodward, 12). House servants were the only slaves to receive this type of association, which overall consisted of a very small proportion. The field hands, however, received the harsher side of slavery. Slavery in the Old South was a ‘system’ in which segregation would only pose an issue, or inconvenience. There also were a few hundred thousand Negroes within the slave states who were free, or quasi-free; not established by slavery. These Negroes received treatment relatively close to slavery, foreshadowing segregation (Woodward, 13).
Slave’s masters consistently tried to erase African culture from their slave’s memories. They insisted that slavery had rescued blacks form the barbarians from Africa and introduced them to the “superior” white civilization. Some slaves came to believe this propaganda, but the continued influence of African culture in the slave community added slave resistance to the modification of African culture. Some slaves, for example, answered to English name in the fields but use African names in their quarters. The slave’s lives were filled with surviving traits of African culture, and their artwork, music, and other differences reflected this influence.
The Constitution guaranteed it as a freedom to them, and white slaves were virtually nonexistent. Slavery was so deeply engrained as a “black race” attribute, that it came to be used as a descriptor to further lower the status of African Americans. Free of these racial tensions, whites seemed to enjoy freedom without conflict. However, in reality, not all whites had access to equal freedom. “Freedom” often meant the ability to have equal opportunity, as the purpose of immigration to the colonies was often based on a desire for economic independence. Equal opportunity was not the case in a hierarchical, socioeconomically-divided America. Land ownership or religious affiliation were often required to vote or run for office respectively. In many ways, slaves were actually subject to less forced social structure on large Southern plantations, where they could develop their own private communities. The Gullah language is an example of a creole of English and West African dialects. Religious syncretism often resulted in African-influenced versions of Christianity, far more culturally-mixed than what Puritanical Massachusetts mandated its citizens adhere to. These cultural features served as a “glue” for many African Americans, and reflects the complex facets of the word “freedom” The phrase should therefore be modified to account for the fact that
By 1860, nearly 3,950,528 slaves resided in the United States (1860 census). Contrary to popular belief, not all slaves worked in hot and humid fields. Some slaves worked as skilled laborers in cities or towns. The slaves belonged to different social or slave classes depending on their location. The treatment of the slaves was also a variable that changed greatly, depending on the following locations: city, town or rural. Although all slaves were products of racial views, their living conditions, education, and exposure to ideas differed greatly depending on their social classes and if they lived in a rural or urban setting.
After writing my newspaper article on the NAACP, I realized that the African American community needed a renewed sense of belonging, like all the other communities have in this day in age. This sense of being is better known as equality. Webster’s dictionary defines equality as having the same rights, social status and opportunities as others. The African American community has yet to reach a plateau were they are seen as equals. Equalities for African Americans are still a foreign subject, but hopefully will progress in the future.
Slavery has been a part of human practices for centuries and dates back to the world’s ancient civilizations. In order for us to recognize modern day slavery we must take a look and understand slavery in the American south before the 1860’s, also known as antebellum slavery. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary defines a slave as, “a man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another” (B.J.R, pg. 479). In the period of antebellum slavery, African Americans were enslaved on small farms, large plantations, in cities and towns, homes, out on fields, industries and transportation. By law, slaves were the perso...
Traditions are practices/beliefs that are passed down from generation to generation. In traditional African societies, a kinship ties people through birth or marriage. There are two kinds of relationships in customary African tradition; those bound by blood, which are called consanguine, and those constructed by marriage, called affilial. There are four key descents that determine inheritance and marriage. However, the most common descent is patrilineal, which traces ancestry through one's father. While in America, we are vary tolerant of tracing our descent from both parents.
Culture can simply be defined as ‘way of life’ of a group of people. It is about the way groups do things. There can be several ways of thinking about and studying culture. Gail McDonald studied the culture of America through four concepts that include “big, rich, new and free”. (McDonald)For this essay, I would like to define and analyze the American culture in terms of ‘freedom’. I selected this dimension because it has been one of the most distinct dimensions of American culture and it has contributed a lot in making what America is today. It will be interesting to analyze how this cultural dimension has contributed shaping the culture of the United States through the course of time.
most authors explore the slave communities as being characterized by, bonding among friends, the abhorrent respect for the elders and the benevolent love among family members. This was the characteristic trend that existed among different families. The African-American culture that was expounded through religion, music and folktales gave the slave community a characteristic endurance positioning in the society. The ex-slaves that included both women, and men were used as tools of the abolitionist movement of the reality; they acted as voices to their respective enslaved community.