In 1860, approximately 4 million enslaved African Americans lived in the South states where slavery was legal. Approximately 2.8 million worked on farms and plantations, and, the great bulk of them, 1.8 million, were to be found on cotton plantations, while the rest were engaged in the cultivation of tobacco, rice and sugar cane . The majority of them were sold to the plantations’ owners at slaves’ auctions, where slave kids also could be found. The first time Django (Jamie Foxx) appears in the film, he comes from a slave’s auction in Greenville.
The plantations’ landlords were also called “planters”, a term used to designate those who held a significant number of slaves, mostly as agricultural labour. There were different categories of planters: large planters (who had more than 50 slaves, and were part of the “Planter elite” or “Planter Aristocracy”) and medium planters (who had an average of 16-50 slaves) . In Django Unchained, two enormous plantations appear (the first one is in Tennessee and the second one in “Candyland”, Chickasaw, Mississippi), and both Spencer “Big Daddy” Benneth (Don Johnson) and Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) are large planters who own more than one hundred of slaves.
In large plantations there were diverse classes of slaves. The ones that had the hardest work were the field workers (also called field hands), who worked longer than any other kind of slave, from sunrise to sunset, from “can see to can’t see” (although it does not appear in the film, it could be accepted that Django was this kind of slave). Furthermore, in large plantations, some slaves (usually women) worked in the plantation home. They were domestic slaves (house slaves/servants) and they enjoyed better living and work conditions...
... middle of paper ...
...y had a place for living, their quality of life was very poor, and, for this reason, they decided to fight for changing it. Some did not reach the freedom, but those who did, demonstrated that human beings have to be treated equally, not by their skin color. Django is the clear example of that everyone can reach their objectives if they work hard. As slavery was a “dark episode” of the history of the US and it still persists in other countries, people have to seek for justice and liberty and to struggle for everyone’s freedom and rights because all human beings may be free.
Works Cited
FRANKLIN, John Hope, and Alfred A. KNOPF. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans. New York: Knopf, 1975. Pages 142 and 143. http://littledixie.net/Slave%20Housing.htm (liast seen: 8th December 2013). http://www.ushistory.org/us/27b.asp (last seen: 8th December 2013).
1. The insight that each of these sources offers into slave life in the antebellum South is how slaves lived, worked, and were treated by their masters. The narratives talk about their nature of work, culture, and family in their passages. For example, in Solomon Northup 's passage he describes how he worked in the cotton field. Northup said that "An ordinary day 's work is considered two hundred pounds. A slave who is accustomed to picking, is punished, if he or she brings less quantity than that," (214). Northup explains how much cotton slaves had to bring from the cotton field and if a slave brought less or more weight than their previous weight ins then the slave is whipped because they were either slacking or have no been working to their
While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.
Bracey, Meier, and Elliot Rudwick. Free Blacks in America, 1800-1860. California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1971.
Altman, Linda Jacobs. Slavery and Abolition in American History. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 1999. Print.
This story was set in the deep south were ownership of African Americans was no different than owning a mule. Demonstrates of how the Thirteenth Amendment was intended to free slaves and describes the abolitionist’s efforts. The freedom of African Americans was less a humanitarian act than an economic one. There was a battle between the North and South freed slaves from bondage but at a certain cost. While a few good men prophesied the African Americans were created equal by God’s hands, the movement to free African Americans gained momentum spirited by economic and technological innovations such as the export, import, railroad, finance, and the North’s desire for more caucasian immigrants to join America’s workforce to improve our evolving nation. The inspiration for world power that freed slaves and gave them initial victory of a vote with passage of the Fifteenth Amendment. A huge part of this story follows the evolution of the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment more acts for civil rights.
Between 1619 and 1862 it was very common to come across free men or enslaved blacks in America, however, it was something special to encounter a man both free and black during this time. Although, as Frado soon learned, “ Freedom from slavery did not mean equality of citizenship” ( Higginbotham 160). The mindset of the elite, white ruling class was to discourage free blacks in every conceivable way, “ not only have we created laws to expel them at will, but we hamper them in a thousand ways.” ( Tocquville). The communities of free A...
The representation of race, in particular the issue of slavery and abolition in film is not only a highly emotive and potentially divisive subject but it also provides a means of accessing the past in a manner which is empowering and knowledgeably rewarding for the viewer. Representations of historical contexts in film are often critically considered to be amongst the main source of the general publics perceptions of the historic past. “When slave narratives are done on film, they tend to be historical with a capital H, with an arm’s-length quality to them. I wanted to break that history-under-glass aspect, I wanted to throw a rock through that glass and shatter it for all times, and take you into it.”1 Following the unlikely duo of a white German bounty hunter, Dr. King, and his black slave counterpart, Django Freeman, as they journey to reclaim the token damsel in distress, film director Quentin Tarantino sparked mass controversy surround the representation of African Americans and slavery in the south of America during the 19th century. The issue of race and slavery are directly confronted within the film told through the narrative of Django. Django Unchained is ultimately a story of white redemption; offering an interpretation into the justifications of slavery while race is represented in ways which both challenge and enforce stereotypes.
Before the start of the Civil War, there were around 3.5 million slaves laboring in the American South. The majority of the slaves working in the South were field workers on large plantations. Slaves held jobs in other areas but the working and living conditions on average tended not to be as severe as it was for the plantation slave. Enslaved people on plantations had harsh conditions in their work and home lives as well as being sold, which was always a continuous nagging fear.
Gender in society has changed. In our present generation, women are displeased with the fact that society does not want them to do men’s work or labor, but during the 1800s, women would do anything to be relieved of the hard labor they endured. Labor is a productive activity, especially for the sake of economic gain. This definition alone describes the drive of plantation owners in Antebellum Georgia, economic gains. As readers there must be an understanding that labor is divided into skilled and unskilled labor. These two distinct types of labor determined who worked, how hard they worked, and what workers received in return. Plantation owners wanted not only the best slaves, but slaves that could make them a better profit. Here is where Gender comes into play. In Swing the Sickle for the Harvest is Ripe, Diana Berry suggests that gender disappears, which is true, but is only true during unskilled labor. During unskilled labor tasks men and women worked together day in and day out to maintain cotton and rice plantations, of which Georgia held the title as the leading producer. The women being more efficient and most commended for their labor in the fields , put in
The Underground Railroad, a term that have been used dating back as early as the1830s.
In these pictures I can tell who the slaves are because they are dark skinned, I see no white people working, however… I see white people telling the slaves what to do. Large plantation= large amount of slaves. Labor was crucial if you wanted to make sugar. You would need a lot of slaves to work on the plantations.
"The Debate over Slavery in the United States. " The African-American Years: Chronologies of American History and Experience. Ed. Gabriel Burns Stepto. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003.
Slavery in America traces back to 1619 when African slaves were chosen to come to North America. They landed in the colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The slaves were delivered and immediately put to work in the fields and crops such as tobacco. According to the website, History.com, “the European settlers in North American turned to slaves as a cheaper, more plentiful source of labor.” (History.com, 2014) From this point on, slavery began to spread throughout the American colonies. Though it is impossible to give accurate figures, some historians have estimated that 6 to 7 million slaves were imported to the New World during the 18th century alone, depriving the African continent of some of its healthiest and ablest men and women. (History.com, 2014)
During the period after the emancipation many African Americans are hoping for a better future with no one as their master but themselves, however, according to the documentary their dream is still crushed since even after liberation, as a result of the bad laws from the federal government their lives were filled with forced labor, torture and brutality, poverty and poor living conditions. All this is shown in film.
In the film, there were various scenes that accurately depicts what slavery was like back in the 1800’s. In one of the scenes, a women slave is seen being whipped because she broke an egg. Just like how this lady was being whipped as punishment, the most common punishment for slaves back in the 1800’s was whipping. In another scene, Jamie Foxx’s wife is seen being branded as punishment which was another popular method of punishment for slaves back in the early 1800’s. In the film, there was also a scene where Jamie Foxx entered a bar and was ask to leave. Although Jamie Foxx didn’t leave, this scene accurately displays the discrimination slaves endured during the 1800’s even if they were set free. Lastly, in another scene, Jamie Foxx’s’ wife is seen trapped in a hot box for attempting to run away. Just like how Jamie Foxx’s’ wife try to run away many slaves back in the early 1800’s did the same and many failed. Although the movie, Django Unchained, fairly depicts the horrendous life of a slave during the early 1800’s, it still shouldn’t be considered a move to be watch to gain historical knowledge because it contains numerous historical