African slaves and the Indigenous people of the Southern United States and Northern Mexico were targets of harsh and racist treatment by both the European and American white colonizers. Due to the marginalization of African slaves and Native American peoples the question of how they responded to this oppression has hardly been explored by historians. Scholars have written extensively about the separate lives of both these groups of people, including their interactions with white Europeans, but less is known about how these two groups interacted with one another. Historians have noted that the first appearance of white Europeans only predated African slaves by around a decade. The first African slaves to arrive in the Americas came around 1502, and perhaps more significantly, the first record of slaves running away to Indian villages occurred in 1503. Using primary documents such as government records, as well as visual evidence such as maps and surveys in combination with secondary the evidence provided by the articles below, one can see how African slaves often fled to Native American villages and lived alongside one another in response to their white oppressors. Also that when these peoples came together society became more beneficial to not only Africans and Amerindians but in some instances Europeans as well. This paper will focus on the social history of the Africans and Indians in Florida and how these people lived in conjecture with one another as well as how they worked with and resisted the white oppressors. As well as looking at these groups and their internal forces, this paper will also look at the external forces which shaped the way these people lived, specifically the Seven Years War, and the three Seminole Wars. ...
... middle of paper ...
... of refuge in a continent of oppression. The constant changing of ownership in Florida allowed for the observation of different European powers as well as the emergence of the American government. To invoke a common cliché for a moment it has often been said that those who write history shape it, but the history of Florida is much better observed by those who could never tell their story. The societies created in Florida stood as the shining beacon of what White, Black and Red interactions could have been. Slavery, warfare and economy all shaped the ways in which the people of Florida lived, yet the marginalized could still flourish. Slaves and Indians could become respectable individuals and even powerful leaders. The history of interactions in Florida provides an interesting approach to American history as it is one of the most diverse yet unknown chapters.
The origin tale of the African American population in the American soil reveals a narrative of a diasporic faction that endeavored brutal sufferings to attain fundamental human rights. Captured and forcefully transported in unbearable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, a staggering number of Africans were destined to barbaric slavery as a result of the increasing demand of labor in Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves endured abominable conditions, merged various cultures to construct a blended society that pillared them through the physical and psychological hardships, and hungered for their freedom and recognition.
Gary B. Nash, Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early America, 1st ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1974)
10. Richmond, Douglas. “The Legacy of African Slavery in Colonial Mexico, 1519-1810.” Journal of Popular Culture 35, no. 2 (2001): 1-17.
African American slavery was used to grow economies in the North and South before the Civil War. Although the North and South had different styles of slavery, they still had an owner/slave relationship that remained demeaning when a person owns a person. Narratives of interviews with Charlie Smith and Fountain Hughes are discussed as the slaves share their memories of their life as a slave.
Christina Snyder, who was a student of South history, focused on Oglethorpe and colonization, slavery and the Civil War. However, when she learned of an older South, which was once dominated by Native people, she was fascinated by the region’s Native history. Although there were much warfare occurred at the region, she concluded the region as “… I also learned that these two Souths were never really separate, that the region was and is diverse and contested.” (Snyder 317) In the book “Slavery in Indian Country”, she explored the long history of captivity. I will write a book review of this book in the following.
South Carolina was one of the only states in which the black slaves and abolitionists outnumbered their oppressors. Denmark Vesey’s slave revolt consisted of over nine-thousand armed slaves, free blacks, and abolitionists, that would have absolutely devastated society in South Carolina for slave owners, and could have quite possibly been a major step towards the abolishment of slavery in the United states. Robertson succeeded in describing the harsh conditions of slaves in pre-civil war Charleston, South Carolina. This book also helped me to understand the distinctions between the different groups. These groups including the black slaves, free blacks, extreme abolitionists, and the pro-slavery communities.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Willoughby’s writing is that so much change has occurred in the past hundred years. His setting, though the very Everglades we travel through today, is an Everglades where saw grass was ten feet tall, and trails were no where to be found. His Florida, though located exactly where he left it, now has too many hotels, tourists, and residents to count. The change that has taken place in Florida was one that Willoughby foreshadowed, and one that we would not be able to fully comprehend without the writings of people like Willoughby. He captured the moment on paper for the future to see and gave us a means of comparison. He wrote about change in Florida over the course of a year since his previous visit. He mentioned that a big hotel and bustling tourists destroyed the picturesque and that Florida’s “wilderness has been rudely marred by the hand of civilization” (62). I wonder what he would say today. The mere two thousand individuals he wrote about was a number no where near to the number of people who have since marred Florida. Like Willoughby, I regret change. An...
Kyles, Perry L.. "Resistance and Collaboration: Political Strategies within the Afro-Carolinian Slave Community, 1700-1750." The Journal of African History 93: 497-508.
Curtin, Philip D: The rise and fall of the plantation complex:essays in Atlantic history (Cambridge, 1990).
“In the Caribbean and in many slave societies in the Americas, one of the most important aspects of resistance to slavery was the retention of African culture or melding African, American and European cultural forms to create new ones such as the Kweyol languages (Antillean Creole).” (“Resistance and Rebellion”) Despite the forcing of European culture on slaves, most of if not all of the of African culture of colonial slaves has been preserved and passed on through the generations. “The importance of African culture – names, craftsmanship, languages, scientific knowledge, beliefs, philosophy, music and dance, was that it provided the psychological support to help the captives resist the process of enslavement. The act of enslavement involved attempts to break the will and ignore the humanity of slaves in what was known as ‘seasoning’. (“Resistance and
Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict. Slavery has existed in the New World since the seventeenth century prior to it being exclusive to race. During those times there were few social and political concerns about slavery. Initially, slaves were considered indentured servants who will eventually be set free after paying their debt(s) to the owner. In some cases, the owners were African with white servants. However, over time the slavery became exclusive to Africans and was no limited to a specific timeframe, but life. In addition, the treatment of slaves worsens from the Atlantic Slave trade to th...
“The ‘Blessings’ of a Slave,” in Kennedy, David M. and Thomas A. Bailey. The American Spirit: United States History as Seen by Contemporaries. Vol. I: To 1877. Eleventh Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.
With a growing sense of acceptance it should be brought to our attention that Andrew jackson owned many slaves. In fact, Slavery was the primary source of Andrew Jackson’s wealth.The Hermitage was a 1,000 acre, plantation that relied completely on the labor of enslaved African American men and women. They performed the hard labor that produced The Hermitage’s primary crop, cotton. The more land Andrew Jackson acquired, the more slaves he had to work it. The Jackson family’s profit was made possible from the crops worked by the enslaved on a daily basis.When Andrew Jackson bought The Hermitage in 1804, he owned nine enslaved African Americans. By the year 1930, that number had swelled to over 100. At the time of his death in 1845, Jackson owned approximately 150 people who lived and worked on the property. Seminole Native Americans in Florida often provided refuge to runaway slaves. In 1818, Jackson led more than 3,000 soldiers to terrorize the Seminole and return escaped slaves to their owners. This event is now known as the First Seminole War. These acts of violence against minority groups should be evidence of a man not deserving of a positive legacy on an American paper
Located on the lower east coast of Florida the city of Miami is bordered by the Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Going east from the city the islands of Key Biscayne and Miami Beach help shelter the bay from the Atlantic Ocean, giving Miami a naturally protected harbor. The elevation of the city never rises above 40 feet and within most neighborhoods the elevation stays under 10 feet. The highest undulations are the Miami rock ridge which is found along the coast. A majority of the city lies on the shores of Biscayne Bay which contains hundreds of natural and artificially created islands, the largest being Miami Beach and South Beach.
Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.