AP African American Studies: Unit 2

Ladinos

• Free and enslaved Africans familiar with Iberian (Spanish & Portuguese) culture

• Journeyed with Europeans in their earliest explorations of the Americas

• Some of the first Africans in the US

• Part of a generation known as Atlantic Creoles

Atlantic Creoles

• Africans who worked as intermediares before chattel slavery

• Were familiar with multiple languages, cultural norms & commercial practices

• Gave them social mobility

Ladino’s Significance

• Essential to European colonial claims in the Americas

• Played a role in how Spain colonized “La Florida” (Florida, South Carolina, Georgia)

African Roles in 1400s & 1500s in America

1. Conquistadores

2. Enslaved Laborers

3. Free Skilled Workers & Artisians

Conquistadores

Helping Spain conquering indigenous land in hopes of gaining freedom

Juan Garrido

• Born in Kongo & moved to Lisbon, Portugal

• 1st known African to arrive in North America

• Explored present day Florida through a Spanish expedition in 1513

• Served in Spanish military forced participating in efforts to conquer indigenous people

  

Estevanico (Esteban)

• Enslaved African healer from Morocco

• Forced to work in 1528 as an explorer and translator in Texas and in territory that became Southwesern US

• Eventually killed by Indigenous groups who were resisting Spanish colonialism.

Number of enslaved Africans taken to the Americas

12.5 million

How long the Transatlantic Slave Trade lasted

~350 years (1526-1867)

Where most people came to the Americas from

• Africa

• More arrived from Africa than any other part of the world

Amount of slaves brought to the United States

• Only 5% of all Slaves

• ~388,000 arrived in the US

48% of slaves brought to the US landed here

• Charleston, South Carolina

  • Known as the center of slave trade in USA

Most dominating enslaving nation

Portugal

Most slaves taken during the Transatlantic slave trade were taken to this country 

Brazil 

Top 5 enslaving countries

1. Portugal

2. Great Britain 

3. France

4. Spain

5. The Netherlands

1619 Project

• A collection of essays, stories, and research first published by The New York Times in 2019

• Name comes from the year 1619, when the first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia 

The Middle Passage

• Brutal, forced sea voyage, enslaved Africans endured across the Atlantic to the Americas

• 3 parts/passages

First Passage

• Africans were captured and marched to the Atlantic coast from inner states

• Africans waited in dungeons that were crowded and unsanitary

• Lasted several months

Second (Middle) Passage

• Traveling across the Atlantic Ocean aboard Slave Ships

  • This was the actual Middle Passage 

• Signified permanent separation from communites

• Horrible conditions

  • Physical violence, sexual abuse, disease & Malnourishment

• 2 million deaths (~15%)

• Up to 3 months

Third Passage

• Arrival at ports in Americas

• They were quarantined, resold and transported to servitude

• Could take as long as the First and Second parts combined 

On Board slave ships

• Enslaved people were stuffed into compartments 

  • Ceilings as low as 4.5 feet

  • Where of the voyage was spent

• Segregated by gender & age

  • Men were shackled in pairs

  • Women left unchained

  • Children moved freely 

Conditions on board slave ships

• No sanitary facilities 

  • Relive themselves where they sat

  • Created hellish conditions when combined with heat + lack of ventilation

• Illness was rampant 

• Enslaved people spent 8 hours on deck 

  • Still segregated 

• Were forced to exercise

  • Included song and dance as entertainment 

• Captives deemed disobedient were tortured and beaten 

Africans who profited from The Transatlantic Slave Trade

• African elites/rulers, merchants and middle men profited

• Most other people didn’t gain much from the trades

Destabilization of West African societies

• The Transatlantic slave trade made kidnapping and violence profitable

• Europeans traded guns for captives

  • Fueiling raids and wars between African groups

• Widened the wealth gap in Africa

  • Coastal states grew richer from the trade, while inner states became unstable under the constant threat of capture 

• Created conflict between ethnic groups as leaders sold war captives to maintain dominance and gain wealth 

• Caused long-term instability and the loss of family lines and community leaders who would have passed on traditions and stability 

What slave narratives are

• Detailed accounts from formerly enslaved Africans

  • Poetry, novels, autobiographies, etc.

• Foundational to early American writing

  • Historical accounts

  • Literary works

  • Political texts

Role of Slave Narratives

• Designed to end slavery/slave trade

  • Serve as the basis for the Abolition movement 

• Demonstrate black humanity 

• Advocate for inclusion of African Americans into American society  

Olaudah Equinao

• Captured at 11 from West Africa

• wrote the Interesting Narrative on the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) 

Phillis Wheatley

• Captured at 8 years old from Senegambia

• First AA to publish a book of poetry

  • On Being Brought from Africa to America

• Portrait by enslaved AA painter Scipio Moorhead was the first known individual portrait of an African American

Brooks Diagram

• Diagram of systematic arrangement of enslaved Africans

• Designed to maximize profit by transporting as many as possible

  • Reflects unsanitary and cramped conditions that increased disease, disability and death during a trip that could last 90 days

Information Brooks Diagram excluded

• Brooks Diagram was one of the only slave documents that many normal people were familiar with; they didn’t know a lot of important details becuase the diagram didn’t include them

• Brooks Diagram didn’t include:

  • Typically showed only half the number of enslaved people on ships

  • Guns

  • Nets (used to prevent suicide)

  • Iron instruments to force-feed those who resisted 

  • Showed Africans as an anonymous, homogenous group of “goods“ for sale

African resistance on the Middle Passage

• Africans resisted being displaced (deracination), being treated as a good (commodification), and enslavement. This was done through

  • Hunger Strikes

  • Attempting to jump overboard

  • Overcoming lingustic differences

• Made slave trade more expensive and dangerous

Rebellions on Slave Ships led to

• Changes in ship design

  • Barricades

  • Nets

  • Guns

Amistad Revolt (1839)

• 30 years after abolition of save trade

• Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cique)

  • Méndez captive from Sierra Leone

  • Led a group of enslaved Africans in one of the most famous slave revolts

• Enslaved Africans took over the schooner La Amistad 

United States v. Amistad (1839-1841)

• Supreme Court granted Mende captives freedom

• This garnered public sympathy for abolition 

Impacts of Resistance on Abolition

• Resistance fueled antislavery activism

• Black & White antislavery activists used slave diagrams to raise awareness for the brutalities of the Middle Passage

• Black artists reclaimed/repurposed imagery of slave ships

  • Process historical trauma

  • Honors memories of ancestors

Enslavers used white supremacy to justify

• Physical, mental and spiritual assault of enslaved people

• Done through slave auctions

Consequences for enslaved people who resisted sale

• Severe punishment

• Were whipped in front of peers

AA authors & abolition

• Used many genres

  • Narratives, poetry, etc.

• Showed the physical and emotional impacts of auctions

• Sought to refute claims (from oppressors) that slavery wasn’t harmful

Solomon Northup

• Free AA musician 

• Was captured illegally 

• Sold into slavery on a cotton plantation in Louisiana

• Provides an eyewitness account in Twelve Years a Slave 

Enslaved people could be owned by

• Individuals

• Institutions

  • Churches, factories, colleges, etc.

Variety of labor

• Domestic, agricultural, and skilled labor

  • Urban & rural areas

  • Wide ranges of ages

  • Both men & women

• Sometimes, domestic & agricultural laborers were separated

• Enslaved people could be relocated depending on preferences of the enslaver

Skills brought to the Americas by Africans

• Blacksmithing

• Basket weaving

• Cultivation of rice and indigo

• Specialized skills

  • Painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, healers

• Enslavers exploited AAs skills

• AAs used these skills to survive, create culture and community

Labor systems

• Gang System

• Task System

Gang system

• Enslaved laborers worked in groups from sunup to sundown

• Under the watch and discipline of an overseer

• Grew crops like cotton, sugar, and tobacco

• Created work songs with syncopated rhythms to keep with the pace of work 

Task System

• Worked individually until they met a daily quota

• Less supervision

  • Allowed them to maintain linguistic practices

  • Gullah Creole developed in Carolinas

• Cultivated rice and indigo

Gullah people

• Came from many different ethnic groups in West Africa

  • Wolof, Mandinka, Fula, etc.

• Identity is a blend of West African, European, and Indigenous cultures

Gullah Religion

• Gullah people casted spells with herbs

• Put newspaper in shoes

• Ring shout

  • Religious dance

• Burial customs

  • Drumming

  • Covering mirrors

  • Smashing dishes over burial site so no one else would pass

  • Leaving a portion of food for those who died

Economic effects of the slave trade

• Economic interdependence between the North & the South

  • Northern cities benefited from the Slave economy, even if they didn’t participate 

• Enslaved people were integral to the American economy

• African Americans were detached from the wealth they produced

• Slavery caused wealth disparities along racial lines

• Enslaved people had no wages to pass on & no rights to attain property 

French Code Noir

• Law outlining regulations for slaves in French Colonies

  • From the King of France 

• Forbid slaves from:

  • Carrying weapons or large sticks (save for hunting)

  • Slaves of different masters from meeting up at any time or anywhere

  • Masters who allowed slaves to evade law would be fined

• Slaves were guilty even before any ruling was made on their case

Slavery in the Constitution (Article I & IV)

• Refers to slavery but doesn’t use the words “slave” or “slavery”

• “Slave” appeared in an early drafts but was removed

  • No direct mention until abolition (13th amendment)

Impact of Slave Codes

• Defined chattel slavery as race-based, inherited and life-long

• Restricted movement, meetings among slaves, possession of weapons, wearing fine fabrics, etc.

• Restrictions can be found in Code Noir (French)/Codigo Negro (Spanish) 

Harded the color line

• Made opportunities for moving up in society & protections against enslavement exclusive for white people

  • Denied opportunities for Black Americans

“Free” States

• Also denied free AAs opportunities for advancement

• Some forbid the entry of free Black people into the state

• Voting Restrictions

• Black men couldn't testify against whites in court

Voting restrictions in Free States

• Before the 15th Amendment (1870) only Wisconsin and Iowa had given Black men the right to vote

• In 1860, Black men could vote in only 5 of 6 New England States

  • Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampsire)

Slave Codes

• Created due to enslavers’ fears of slave uprisings and resistance

• After resistance, AAs were met with new, stricter regulations

South Carolina Slave Code updates after Stono Rebellion

• Classified all Black & Indigenous people as nonsubjects (unimportant, unworthy of discussion or attention)

• Prohibited enslaved people gathering, learing to read,

Race

• Not Real 

  • Not based on biology

  • A lie created to justify getting rich in immoral ways

  • More genetic differences within racial groups than between them

• Was invented to justify chattel slavery and claim their cirmes were “natural”

• Notions of race developed along side slavery

Racism

• Caused by slavery, not the other way around

• Racist laws of slavery produced hate & ignorance , not the other way around

Racial hierarchy in Europe

• During the Enlightenment Era

• Philosophers believed rationality & civilization belong to whites

• Thinkers belived Africans were less capable of reason

• Race became the cornerstone of western thought

When Black people challenged racial hierarchy

• People who benefited from the system became angry

  • Their status & view of the world was shaken and threatened 

    • Responded w/ hate

Partus sequitur ventrem

• 17th century law

• Defined a child’s legal status based on the mother’s

• Allowed slavery to be hereditary

  • ensured a woman’s child would inherit the womans staus as property

Partus sequitur ventrem’s impact

• Children inherited a status as property, witch invalidated AA’s claims to their children

• Designed to prohibit the mixed-race children of Black women from inheriting free status (the custom for english common law)

• Gave male slave owners the right to deny responsibility for children they fathered (usually through assault)

  • In order to commodify enslaved womnes reproductive rights

Hypodescent (One-drop-rule)

• One’s race was determined by this

• Stated that anyone with any degree of African descent as a Black person (of inferior status)

Phenotype

• Ones physical characteristics 

• Contributed largely to the way racial identity was seen

• During slavery, racial categories were defined by law, regardless of phentype

• Tied rights & status to race

  • enslaved, free, citizen

  • to perpetuate slavery over generations

For AA’s who had European or Indigenous ancestry

Race classification prohibited them from embracing multiracial & multiethnic heritage