african americans at mid century eq: how did african americans face slavery and discrimination in...
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
African Americans at Mid Century
EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid-
1800s?
![Page 2: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Origins and Development
• Portuguese and Spanish first brought Africans to the Americas in 1400s and 1500s
• They worked in the Caribbean sugar plantations (colonies of Europe)
• Slavery was brutal: no rights, forced marriage, long hours, little food, clothing once a year, constant beating and supervision.
• Introduced in Virginia: in 1619, the Dutch West India Company brought indentured servants-white and black-to the colony. Blacks were eventually sold into slavery.
• Slave trade increased dramatically with the need for workers in the tobacco and later, cotton fields.
![Page 3: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Slavery Effects On Black Americans
• Life under slavery was harsh and unforgiving.• Slaves endured wretched living conditions, hard labor
and harsh living conditions, brutal punishments• Families sold apart; children, husbands, wives
separated • African-American culture emerged from harsh
conditions; slaves developed methods of comfort, resistance and hope.
• Music, religion, art and family merged into a distinct African- American culture in the “New World”
![Page 4: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Effects on the Development of the South
• Slavery affected ALL aspects of Southern culture and society, including economics, politics and religion.
• South depended on unpaid labor to grow cotton, tobacco, and rice
• Slavery made it possible for a few people to become extremely rich
• Most Southerners did not own slaves but supported the system, because it made them “better” or “higher” on the social scale.
![Page 5: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Efforts To Do Away With Slavery And To Preserve It
• Slave resistance: work slowly, damage goods, run away, pretend they were ignorant
• Armed rebellion rare but a few spread fear in the white population: Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner
• Many ABOLITIONIST spoke and acted against slavery• Underground Railroad conducted by free (and escaped) blacks and many
whites (mainly Quakers) • Slaveholder fought to protect slavery through harsh SLAVE CODES: severe
punishment for resistance and running. away• Nationally, Southerners fought for strict FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS to have
runaways returned to owners
![Page 6: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Mid Century
• Not all African Americans were slaves!– Many were former slaves who had escaped to
freedom• Whether A.A lived in slavery or freedom,
discrimination shaped their lives. • Whites looked down on blacks, ignored their
contributions to American life, and considered the U.S “their country”
![Page 7: African Americans at Mid Century EQ: How did African Americans face slavery and discrimination in the mid- 1800s?](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022062409/56649caf5503460f949734c1/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
“Their Country”
Your country? How came it to be yours? Before the pilgrims landed here we were here. Here we brought you our three gifts and mingled them with yours; a gift of story and song, soft stirring melody in an…unmelodious land; the gifts of sweat and brawn [physical strength] to beat back the wilderness…and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire…the third a gift of spirit. W.E.B Du Bois