Slavery in the Americas Region – Resistance/agency

& Culture

Americas Region’s Role in Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade:• U.S. →relatively small-time player in ∆ Slave Trade…it

participated in it, but it didn’t drive it.• Why? U.S.’ biggest crops: cotton, tobacco; sugar – a brutal

industry (French in Haiti treated their slaves the worst, poor diet, tropical diseases) – drove it.

• Slaves cost between $20K - $40K in today’s $.

Population:• Approx. 95% of all African slaves brought to Latin America, especially Brazil & Caribbean• Approx. 5% of all African slaves brought to NA colonies

How Many? ~ Between approx. 1500-1800, at least 25 million Africans were forcibly removed from their homes and taken to the Americas region.

Slave-Owning Population (1850)

(only approx. 25% of the South owned slaves)

Slave-Owning Population (1850)

(only approx. 25% of the South owned slaves)

US Laws Regarding Slavery

US Laws Regarding Slavery

1.U. S. Constitution: * 3/5s compromise * fugitive slave clause

2.1793 Fugitive Slave Act

3.1850 stronger Fugitive Slave Act

Southern Slavery--> An Aberration?

Southern Slavery--> An Aberration?

1. 1780s: 1st antislavery society created in Phila.

2. By 1804: slavery eliminated from last northern state.

3. 1807: the legal termination of the slave trade, enforced by the Royal Navy.

4. 1820s: newly indep. Republics of Central & So. America declared their slaves free.

5. 1833: slavery abolished throughout the British Empire.

6. 1844: slavery abolished in the Fr. colonies.

7. 1861: the serfs of Russia were emancipated.

A bit of slave culture…

Religion:•strong attempt to Christianize slaves•a method of control•slaves guaranteed freedom in afterlife•which justified status quo

•clap and response – enabled audience to participate in church and rejected Anglican hierarchy (i.e. that only white preacher had the religious authority)

Music/songs - critical component to slaves’ lives – Tom Cody, class of 2007

• In West Africa, virtually everything celebrated/acknowledged with music• e.g. births, marriages, war, famine, religious beliefs, hunts, death

• music: a tradition• served as an educational, historical, entertainment device

• masters did not succeed in stripping this aspect of culture from slaves; music such a strong part of day-to-day life that this was impossible

Jazz! (birthplace: New Orleans, LA… music that was democratic w/ improvisation)

• 1. Blues:• Origin: Africa

• Sung as a capella work songs – black agricultural labor in South

• Banjo or guitar, the usual instruments

• Form – 12 bars; lyrics AAB; improvisation

• New notes – flatted 7th, 5th & 3rd

• Beginning syncopation

- 2. March Music• Origin: European (in tonality)

• European instrumentation (trumpet, clarinet, trombone, piano)

• performed by white and Creole bands

• 3. Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896)

- 4. Ragtime

• Origin: Creoles

• Similar to march music adapted to piano

• added African roots of syncopation & “blue”notes; some improvisation

“Jumping the Broom”

"Jumping the Broom" is a symbol of sweeping away the old and welcoming the new, or a symbol of new beginnings….

• Jumping the broom has become one of the most popular African traditions at weddings. History states that the ancestral roots of this ritual began deep in the heart of Africa.

•This broom ceremony represents the joining of two families.  Slaves were not allowed to practice many of the traditional rituals; therefore, much of this heritage was lost over time.  However, a few were considered harmless and allowed. 

• Today, Broom Jumping is a ritual, which is still handed down from generation to generation. During slavery, marriage was not legally sanctioned, so they sought to legitimize marriage by jumping over the broom and into the bonds of domesticity.

•It is also said that broom jumping comes from an African tribal marriage ritual of placing sticks on the ground, representing the couple's new home together.

slave resistance (agency)

Culture of Dissemblance:• dissemblance = to disguise or conceal behind a

false appearance • in this context…pretending to be happy to masters• playing in to masters’ stereotypes • e.g. knocking over lantern to burn barn, feigning ignorance

• didn’t reflect slaves’ value system; rather, it was a way to fight back/a way of empowerment

Gullah:• language, created by

slaves

• English words + words, grammar, and vocabulary derived from African languages

• (still) spoken in Carolina coastal region (also GA, FL)

• Very powerful to be able to speak a language that masters couldn’t understand

Folklore:

• symbolic stories slaves told, passed down in families…• during which powerless

creatures (slaves) used their wits to overcome more powerful animals (slave owners)

• powerful form of resistance - slave owners did not understand significance of stories

Underground Railroad:• freed thousands of slaves• extensive network of

people, helping fugitive slaves escape to North and Canada• not run by any single

organization or person • workers: many individuals

– white and black -- who knew only of local efforts to aid fugitives, not of overall operation

• South lost approx. 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850

A Top-Secret Operation:• Quilts used to give

directions to fugitive slaves • colors, patterns

secretly denoted messages

• Hung over porches and clothes lines of UR-friendly houses

Slaves memorized poems/songs prior to escape…then applied these words to the patterns they saw in the quilts…

• “The monkey wrench turns the wagon wheel toward Canada on the bear’s paw trail to the crossroads.”

Slave Rebellions Throughout the Americas

Slave Rebellions Throughout the Americas

Past P3 test ?:

To what extent were the conditions,

and practices, and methods of resistance of slavery in the United

States and Brazil alike?

Big picture idea?

•Brazilian slave owners were more concerned with short-term profits/goals; U.S. slave owners were more concerned with long-term profits/goals.