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Thesis of the atlantic slave trade
Analyze the atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course World History 24 summary
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Selfish, uncaring, and ignorant were all words that could be used to describe President Van Burens actions towards us, the Mende slaves, in the movie Amistad. President Van Buren was only eager to please Southern voters and Queen Isabella of Spain by ensuring that none of us, the captured Africans went free, including Me Cinque. Though his actions and decisions he made might have seemed correct to him, we were being put through the worst at such an early stage in our lives.I remember the stormy night during the summer of 1839, the 53 men imprisoned on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad escaped. I, the lion-hearted Cinque, led them. We all took control of the vessel, killing most of the crew. Adrift somewhere off the coast of Cuba and we were
A person can see that they are being oppressed and treated unjustly, but if they do not have the understanding of why they have been placed in a particular position, and if they do not have the tools to remove themselves from said position then their knowledge is useless. In the films Salt of the Earth and Cesar Chavez, the farmers and miners both have a general awareness that the treatment they are receiving is far past inhumane, however they feel powerless because they do not feel they have a place in society or history. Political consciousness is formed by the oppressed cultivating methods to regain a sense of self within history and society; riding themselves from their oppressors authority. Each film ended with the beginning of the process
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
First we see what it is to be a slave to reputation. Throughout the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass it is obvious that what others think matters a great deal to the slave holders. Although this may not make sense since they still do atrocious things to their slaves, there is a certain persona they want to convey to others. Mr. Covey was a harsh, cruel man, and everyone knew and respected him for being such. C...
Frederick Douglass was sent to Thomas Auld plantation to be tamed. That did not work the way they had planned. Douglass took every chance he could to disobey the master no matter how cruel he was to him.
Slaves had an expanding economic force for the Europeans. “Trade between the Europeans and Africans created the first route of the triangular slave trade”. African citizens were “forcibly removed from their homes to never return”. Sales of Africans were classified as having the full cooperation of the “African kings” in return for various trade and goods. Africans who were exchanged were forced to walk chained to the coast of the Indian Ocean. Once at the coast they were stripped of all their clothes, men, women and children all alike with just a loincloth, or strips of blue tap for women to cover their chest area. Once the Africans boarded the ship they were divided by sex, males in the bowel of the ship and the women on the upper deck. The men would be chained side by side by their necks with barely enough room to move. African women were forced to do the “unmentionable acts”. Neither were fed or watered well, and the men would be forced to sit in their own “excrement, and vomit”. Once in awhile the men would be brought to the deck and rinsed off with cold water. While on deck they would be forced to dance to “entertain the ships crew”. Many Africans would try to “revolt” or commit “suicide”, when revolting against their captors many Africans would die. For as much as “3- 6 months” the Africans would endure these torments. Once the ship ported in the America’s shore, all the Africans would be “cleaned up and stripped naked to be sold”. Once the Africans were sold they were no longer Africans to the Merchants, they were product, and, no longer having rights as humans; they were caught into what is called chattel slavery. For approximately “246 years” African Americans would endure such bondage.
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Prejudice is a strong word. It is the kind of word that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. One of Steinbeck's themes in the novel, The Grapes of Wrath, is the prejudice against the migrant workers by the financially established Californians. Steinbeck provides four clear examples of prejudice; the man whose children died of starvation, the fishing story, the California police officer and the history of the Californians.
There is no other experience in history where innocent African Americans encountered such a brutal torment. This infamous ordeal is called the Middle Passage or the “middle leg” of the Triangular Trade, which was the forceful voyage of African Americans from Africa to the New World. The Africans were taken from their homeland, boarded onto the dreadful ships, and scattered into the New World as slaves. 10- 16 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic during the 1500’s to the 1900’s and 10- 15 percent of them died during the voyage. Millions of men, women, and children left behind their personal possessions and loved ones that will never be seen again. Not only were the Africans limited to freedom, but also lost their identity in the process. Kidnapped from their lives that throbbed with numerous possibilities of greatness were now out of sight and thrown into the never-ending pile of waste. The loathsome and inhuman circumstances that the Africans had to face truly describe the great wrongdoing of the Middle Passage.
Indentured slaves, were people who’s hopes and dreams which were to go to the new land and live a free life. Were brutally shattered by the cold reality, that they weren’t. Every day reminded that they were nothing. These people were some of the most abused people in America. But through them, we shaped history.
President Obama said, “And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.” (page 1) Our president is willing to do whatever it takes to see the men and women treated equally. Each individual share t...
To help me understand and analyze a different culture, I watched the film Selena. The film tells the life story of the famous singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez. Not only does it just tell personal stories from her life, it also gives insight to the Mexican-American culture. Her whole life she lived in the United States, specifically in Texas, but was Hispanic and because of that both her and her family faced more struggles than white singers on the climb to her success. Even though the film is a story about a specific person, it brought understanding into the culture in which she lived. Keeping in mind that these ideas that I drew about the Mexican-American culture is very broad and do not apply to every single person in the culture, there were very obvious differences in their culture and the one that I belong. Mexican-American culture identifies with their family rather than individualized or spiritual identities and the culture has gone through significant changes because of discrimination and the changing demographics of the United States.
Recently, there is a spike of historical films being released lately. One of the films is an Academy Award nominee for “Best Picture,” Selma. The film, Selma, is based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches. The film shows the struggles of the black community face with the blockage of their voting rights and the racial inequality during the civil rights movement. Selma is about civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. heading to the rural Alabama City, Selma, to secure the voting rights for the African American community by having a march to Montgomery. It shows the struggles from what the African American community had to endured during the 1960s. Selma shows a social significance to today’s current events, specifically
Abraham Lincoln deserves the accolade “The Great Emancipator”. The title “Great Emancipator” has been the subject of many controversies. Some people have argued that the slaves themselves are the central story in the achievement of their own freedom. Others demonstrate that emancipation could result from both a slave’s own extraordinary heroism and the liberating actions of the Union forces. However, my stance is to agree that Abraham Lincoln deserves to be regarded as “The Great Emancipator” for his actions during and following the Civil War.
Amistad (1997) is a historical film directed by Steven Spielberg and is based on a well-known 1839 uprising of African tribesmen. Director Steve Spielberg successfully presented the David Franzoni's book Munity on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law and Diplomacy (1987) on the screen by making this epic historical movie. The story is about how a group of African slaves suffered through the painstaking experience of being enslaved by Spanish slave owners and eventually set free under the help of a couple of American anti-slavery abolitionists.
Analyzing the factors that escalated full enslavement of Africans can be very subjective. However, taking historical evidence into account, one can reach an unequivocal conclusion that full-scale enslavement was motivated by two major factors. The first factor being “economic purpose” happened to be more self-evident. In order to fully comprehend this very fact, it’s imperative to also understand that at first the initial use of North American land was cultivated raw material necessary for the British to produce goods for end users. However, the need for cheap labor soon arose and the Europeans at this time decided to fill this vacuum through the use of African-slaves. Africans were seen as inferior beings, not worthy to be treated with dignity and with basic human rights,