Unit 2a: Freedom, Enslavement, and Resistance

Ladinos

Ladinos

Free and enslaved Africans familiar with Iberian culture

Atlantic Creoles

The generation Ladinos were part of and they worked as intermediaries

Juan Garrido

Conquistador born in the Kingdom of Kongo who was the first known African to arrive in North America and explored Florida

Estevanico/Esteban

Enslaved healer from Morocco who was forced to work as an explorer and translator

Charleston, South Carolina

The arrival point for 48% of all Africans directly brought from Africa and was the center of US slave trade (slaves grew rice there)

Senegambia and Angola

Captives from here made up around half of those brought to North America

Hoodoo

Belief system based on veneration of ancestors, herbal healing, and ring shout

1st Great Awakening

Brought more conversions of enslaved Africans

1st part of Middle Passage

Enslaved Africans were:

• Captured and marched from interior states

• Held in barracoons and in dungeons of “factories“ at the coast

Ex: Elmina Castle and Goree Islands

2nd part of Middle Passage

Enslaved Africans journeyed across the Atlantic (final separation)

• ~15% of captives perished aboard slave ships (disease, malnourishment, etc.)

3rd part of Middle Passage

Enslaved Africans arrived at port and were:

• Quarantined, washed, and inspected before being resold

• Transported to locations of servitude

Domestic wars between kingdoms

Were exacerbated by firearms (from trade with Europeans) and captives were mainly men

Coastal states in Africa

• Became wealthy from trade in goods and people

• African leaders sold soldiers and war captives from opposing ethnic groups to maintain dominance and wealth

Ex: Kingdom of Kongo, Ashante, and Dahomey

Interior states in Africa

• Became less stable under constant threat of capture and enslavment

• Civil wars are more common, loss of kin to pass on traditions, etc.

Slave narratives

Genre of literature in which formerly enslaved Africans detailed their experiences

• Serve as historical accounts, literary works, and political texts

Ex:

• Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

• Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave

• Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

Olaudah Equiano

His account (The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano) documents the horrors of the Middle Passage

Reasons for resistance

• Trauma of deracination (to remove or separate from a native environment or culture)

• Commodification

• Lifelong enslavement

Speculum oris

Used to pry open the mouths and force fed enslaved people who refused to eat

Changes in ship design

• Barricades to separate sleeping quarters

• Guns

• Nets

La Amistad

Successful revolt on a slave ship in 1839 off Cuban coast

• Led by Mende captive Senge Pieh

• Was intercepted by a US gov’t ship

• US Supreme Court granted Mende captives freedom

Slave ship diagrams

• Depict systematic arrangement of captives

• Typically shows fewer enslaved

• Show unsanitary and cramped conditions

• Rarely included features enslavers used to minimize resistance

(Trip could last up to 90 days)

Antislavery activists circulated diagrams and Black artists repurposed iconography

Nature of slave auctions

Brutal, terrifying, and heartbreaking

• Captives “dressed up“ to appear valuable

• Inspected like animals

• Families broken up

• Justified treatment with White supremacy

End of international slave trade in US

Gov’t formally banned transatlantic slave trade in 1808

• Enslaved pop grew primarily through childbirth

Slave-cotton system

• Dominated the lower South

• Enslaved Blacks were valuable as commodities because of profit of cotton

“Second Middle Passage”

Over 1 million African Americans were displaced by being sold further South

• Sparked fear

• Largest forced migration in US history

Types of work in rural areas

• Domestic (cooking, cleaning, etc.) ← often longer work days

• Agricultural (based on crop of plantation; ex: tobacco, cotton, etc.)

• Skilled (potter, carpentry, etc.)

Institutions as enslavers

Some enslaved were bound to churches, factories, and colleges to build and keep them running

Skills brought from Africa

• Blacksmithing

• Basket weaving

• Cultivation of rice and indigo

These were exploited at auctions

Skills developed

• Tailoring

• Musicianship

• Painting

• Carpenting

• Healing

Enslaved African Americans were hired out by enslavers for income but skills could be used to save up to buy freedom

Gang system

Enslaved laborers worked in groups from sunup to sundown

• Under watch and discipline of an overseer

• Cultivated crops like cotton, sugar, and tobacco

• Created work song to keep pace of work

Task system

Enslaved people work individually until they meet a daily quota

• Cultivated rice and indigo

• Enslaver expected them to provide their own food

• Some maintained linguistic practices

Generational wealth

Enslaved Africans were alienated from the wealth they embodied and produced so they didn’t have wages to pass down to descendants

Slave codes

• First established in Barbados

• Restricted movement, congregation, etc.

1740 South Carolina Negro Act

Presumed all Black people were enslaved

South Carolina 1740 Slave Code

• Prohibited gathering, learning to read, etc.

• Allowed whites to kill rebellious Blacks without a trial and use of slave patrols

• Condemned death to any enslaved people who tried to defend themselves

Partus seqitur ventres

• 17th c. law adopted as part of slave codes

• Child’s legal status based on status of mother

Concept of race

• Socially constructed

• Emerged with systems of enslavement (justification for treatment)

Racial categories

• Defined by law during era of slavery

• Important for census (assumption all Black people are enslaved unless proven otherwise)

“One-drop rule”

Classified people with any degree of African descent as part of their singular, inferior status

Ex: Virginia 1924 Racial Integrity Act

Gospel

Blended Christian hymns and biblical themes with African rhythmic and performance elements

• Call and response, clapping, repetition, etc.

Blues

Originated in rural areas of Deep South

• Simple narrative rhymed ballads, work songs, chants, etc.

• Developed from Senegambian and West Central Africans (in Louisiana)

Fodet

Same musical system in Blues; rhythmic and repetitive

Spirituals

Often rooted in biblical stories blended with African musical traditions

• Have double meanings in lyrics

American Colonization Society

Sought to exile free Blacks to Africa

• Formed by White gradual abolitionists

• Divided support among African Americans

Ethonoyms

Names of ethnic groups, racial groups, and nationalities

Negro

Ethnonym used through Civil Rights movement and by Black organizations, artists, and intellects

Black

Ethnonym adopted in 1960s to combat negative connotations and encompasses diversity

African American

Used post 1970s to incorporate African heritage and emphasize American experience

Stono Rebellion

Rebellion in 1739 in South Carolina where slaves stole weapons from a store and killed White people in the area

• More Black people died