Slavery

Growth of Slavery• Why Africans?

•Americans needed laborers; It was harder for Africans to run away than Native Americans

•African strengths

•agricultural practices,

•resistance to diseases

"It was work hard, git beatins and half fed ... . The times I hated most was pickin' cotton when the frost was on the bolls. My hands git sore and crack open and bleed."--Mary Reynolds, Slave Narrative

Growth of Slavery

•Invented 1793 - made slavery VERY productive•100x faster than by hand•More efficient = more $ (so need more slaves)

Cotton Gin

Bance Island in the Sierra Leone River, 1805. This slave "factory" included a "great house" for the Chief Agent, a slave yard, slave houses, storerooms, dormitories, watch towers, a jetty, and a fortification with sixteen cannons. Bance Island supplied numerous slaves to the Charlestown

market in the mid- and late 18th century.

Late-Eighteenth-Century Drawing

African slave traders conduct a group of bound captives from the interior of Africa toward European trading posts.

SOURCE: Culver Pictures, Inc.

Slave Ship InteriorSlave Ship Interior

Onboard the SlaveShip

Notice of a Slave AuctionNotice of a Slave Auction

Nineteenth-Century Engraving

The humiliation Africans endured as they were subjected to physical inspections before being sold.

Slave Master BrandsSlave Master Brands

The Old Plantation," South Carolina, about 1790. This famous painting shows Gullah slaves dancing and playing musical instruments derived from Africa. Scholars unaware of the Sierra Leone slave

trade connection have interpreted the two female figures as performing a "scarf" dance. Sierra Leoneans can easily recognize that they are playing the shegureh, a women's instrument (rattle)

characteristic of the Mende and neighboring tribes.

Slave With Iron MuzzleSlave With Iron Muzzle

30 Lashes30 Lashes

Whipped Slave, early 19cWhipped Slave, early 19c

How did African slaves fight back?

•Open revolt (rare)

•Work slowdowns

•Breaking Tools

•Poisoning food

Resistance

• Flight- Slaves would runaway.

• Truancy- Flight for a short amount of time and then the slave came back.

• Refusal to reproduce-Women refused to have children.

• Covert Action- Slaves would sometimes kill animals, destroy crops, start fires, steal stuff, break tools, poison food.

http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/special/mlk/gourd2.htmlhttp://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/What_The_Lyrics_Mean.htm

In your mind, what does it mean when the people fly away?

The spirit lifting. The will to be free. Freedom.

– Virginia Hamilton

VOCAB

• scorn v., treat with disrespect; reject as unworthy. The other team members scorned me when I failed to show up for the big game.

• croon v., sing or speak in a gentle manner. My mom croons to my baby brother when he cries.

The Fox and the Crow

• http://www.yale.edu/glc/gullah/10.htm

• http://www.emcp.com/product_catalog/school/litLink/Grade08/U07-05peoplecouldfly/index.php

• 1. Consider that “The People Could Fly” originated in the oral tradition during the time of slavery. What purpose might the author or authors of this tale had for telling it? Use details and examples from the text to support your answer.

• Given the content of the story, I would suggest that the author or authors produced this text in order to inspire hope and keep alive the wish for freedom in the enslaved Africans. The story details the hardships the characters face. When the hardships become too difficult to bear, the magic of Africa and its people prevail. They draw on magic and community to escape slavery, flying away from the severe lives they lead in slavery.

• 1. Pretend you are the master. Write a short journal entry explaining your reaction to seeing Toby and the other slaves fly away

Thinking Question:

• (Don’t write down – just think!)• While many slaves resisted, not all

of them did. What did they have to lose?

Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold

•  "... anyone can fly. All you need is somewhere to go that you can't get to any other way. The next thing you know, you're flying among the stars."

• Where do you think the people who could fly really went?

The Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation

• Early in the war, Lincoln began to think about ending slavery in the South to help end the war.

• On September 22, 1862 he issued the Emancipation Proclamation which declared an end to slavery in the states in rebellion on January 1, 1863.

• What did it do? Nothing. It only freed slaves in the states that had seceded.

End of the Civil War and the 13th Amendment

• The South lost, and the states were forced to accept the 13th Amendment to the Constitution before they could be readmitted into the Union.

• 13th Amendment-It abolished slavery in the United States.

• It was ratified in 1865.