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As it was, just from watching the mini series Roots, Toby was a hard case, but he was the exception, not the rule. Newly arrived blacks to the plantation were often trained by other blacks to forget their past and taught to speak only English, accept their new name given by the master, and taught to do all the the work tasks required on the plantation without complaint or resistance. I suspect the reasoning for this behavior was that life on the plantation must have been slightly more palatable to them, or should I say, not much worse than what they had back in Africa.
Roots was completely fictional. Also, African slaves weren't trained by "other blacks" to forget their past and taught English. Actually, African slaves were beaten by their European overseers and laws were passed forbidding slaves from learning/reading, or speaking their Native languages/dialects or practicing any of their native cultures, customs and religions.
The slave owners used Christianity, in particular, to brainwash slaves into believing that God wanted them to submit to their masters and to give up their native non Christian religious practices.
Based on the scholarly evidence, Christianity played a very important role in keeping African slaves in bondage. If the African slaves weren't indoctrinated with those false teachings, I truly believe that every European slave owner family would have been massacred in a similar fashion as the Nat Turner revolt.
Yes, I realize the characters in Roots were fictional, but much of slave behavior in the series was based on Herold Courlander's book, The African, which Alex Haley used without permission to build his characters for the series. We do know that rebellion on the plantations was rare, escape was the avenue they pursued in trying to gain freedom. The indoctrination into plantation life probably came as much from the other slaves, as the overseer or master. This was a major problem, when 98% are willing to go along with it, and only a handful are willing to organize a rebellion and fight the system tooth and nail. With most being passive, their fate was soon sealed by the success of the plantation system in the 1700's. The only philosophy which could have saved millions of blacks from being kidnapped and sent here, was a quote from Patrick Henry, Give me liberty, or give me death. In reality, there were only a few isolated rebellions spread decades apart and soon crushed.
I wonder quite a bit what life was really like in Africa, in the 1700's. It must have been pretty bad, and I think the concept of slavery was practiced there in some form before the boats arrived. It was tribal societies at war with each other, and pretty close to what mankind lived like for millions of years in prehistorical times. Seeing the plantation system in America for the first time, and realizing the more advanced level of civilization the whites had created, might have impressed the blacks enough to go along with the system. They must have been somewhat amazed seeing it for the first time, and eager to learn the ways of the new world.
Another problem, when it could have made a difference, no escaped slaves from the first round brought here, went back to Africa to warn the local tribes and organize a resistance effort like you might expect would happen. What if all the villages were warned what was happening, and they got a game plan going? A plan that taught people some Patrick Henry tactics to be used if they were ever captured and sent to a plantation. No drills on what to do to overcome the crew of a slave ship, there was no real organized effort to educate Africans and stop it before it got out of control. What if the Africans had built a fleet of pirate ships to intercept the slave ships and turn them back?
Slavery was so successful all over the world for several thousand years because it is such a perfect system. Even when it doesn't produce wealth it guarantees a way of life that southerners fought a war to preserve. Slaves could not rebel and end slavery it self. Kenneth Stamp's book ,The Peculiar institution was considered a ground breaking book because it established that slaves were resisting slavery at every turn. That was the best they could do.
According to John Hope Franklin the continent of Africa was probably not much different than the continents of North and South America in the 1700's in that there were people living tribal and primitively and others living in socially and politically stratified city states.
I can't remember who it was that said the wage worker could be made a slave by simply instilling in him the idea that he would be rich one day if he works hard.
Roots was completely fictional. Also, African slaves weren't trained by "other blacks" to forget their past and taught English. Actually, African slaves were beaten by their European overseers and laws were passed forbidding slaves from learning/reading, or speaking their Native languages/dialects or practicing any of their native cultures, customs and religions.
The slave owners used Christianity, in particular, to brainwash slaves into believing that God wanted them to submit to their masters and to give up their native non Christian religious practices.
Based on the scholarly evidence, Christianity played a very important role in keeping African slaves in bondage. If the African slaves weren't indoctrinated with those false teachings, I truly believe that every European slave owner family would have been massacred in a similar fashion as the Nat Turner revolt.
It wasn't really so much using Christianity (that was, actually, kept from many slaves), as it was sheer physical brutality, such as repeated rape--including homosexual rape--and other forms of torture. What the character Toby in "Roots" went through was actually not the exception but a small example of what was the rule for new slaves.
I'm not going to give the slightest bit of consideration to what a Confederate school book said about the subject. I browsed an Alabama eighth grade schoolbook back in 1996 that stated the slaves in the South were all happy and healthy along with everyone else "until the Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction brought misery to everyone." I put that in quotes because that's what it said.
And this very day, Texas schoolbooks don't even use the word "slaves," they use "immigrant workers."
Was there anyway that U.S slaves could have freed themselves without a huge violent uprising?
They would have had to create a time machine and come out of it 50 years into the future where as the social economics and custom norms developed in a change of lifestyle for everyone. They didn't see slavery the same then as people do now. I really wish people would realize this and move on.
I was wondering because what if the civil war had never happened? How long would slavery had lasted? What would have been the slaves' options for gaining freedom?
Slavery was a dying method of production. The importation of new African slave labor was long banned before before the Civil War even came about.
This notion or implication that America would’ve just continued slavery forever, had the South won, has no basis in reality whatsoever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cara_319
Based on the scholarly evidence, Christianity played a very important role in keeping African slaves in bondage. If the African slaves weren't indoctrinated with those false teachings, I truly believe that every European slave owner family would have been massacred in a similar fashion as the Nat Turner revolt.
Agreed, Christianity was a very important tool to justify slavery. It put a reason and cause behind the treatment of African slaves in America and justified their treatment and “inferiority.†Both slave owners and slabes believed in it.
Not surprisingly, the plantation mentality is still there as the African American community is largely one of the most religious demographics in America with black churches seemingly on every corner in black neighborhoods.
Slavery in America was not dying as of the Civil War. The slave population increased by 20% between the 1850 and 1860 census. It tripled in Texas during the same time. We'll never know when it would have ended had the Southern states not given up their Constitutional right to the practice. It wouldn't have survived to the present day, but whether it would have been 20 years or 50 years or more is anyone's guess.
Therefore, I believe the key to how the slaves could have avoided being locked into generational slavery, rested upon the first boatloads of black slaves who arrived in the Americas back in the 1700's. Most people today would rather fight or die, than be a slave under those conditions. Had the first round of black slaves resisted to that degree, there would soon no longer be a large scale plantation slave system like that. They might have used prison labor for that, to some degree, but would soon abandon the idea of bringing over blacks from Africa.
Africans slaves were ALREADY prisoners in their own countries from losing tribal wars, sold by rival African chiefs who wanted money, before they even stepped on a slave ship.
Resist how? They were already in chains in their home country.
And by the time they landed in America, many were halfway dead. So I have no idea where you get this notion where they were just healthy big strong active men just waiting to fight people with GUNS who OUTNUMBER you.
You want to blame a country for lack of fighting, blame Brazil, they had 4 million African slaves (40% of African exported to the Americas) and little resistance or revolts. America only had about 300K by comparison.
Slavery in America was not dying as of the Civil War. The slave population increased by 20% between the 1850 and 1860 census. It tripled in Texas during the same time. We'll never know when it would have ended had the Southern states not given up their Constitutional right to the practice. It wouldn't have survived to the present day, but whether it would have been 20 years or 50 years or more is anyone's guess.
It’s no one’s guess, Brazil who had 4 million slaves and was the last country in the western world to ban slavery, abolished slavery in 1888
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know America would’ve abolished it before 1888 even in a southern victory. So about 20 years tops is how much longer it could’ve lasted because America sure as hell didn’t have 4 million slaves like Brazil and it wasn’t a 3rd world country like Brazil.
Rocko20 said: Not surprisingly, the plantation mentality is still there as the African American community is largely one of the most religious demographics in America with black churches seemingly on every corner in black neighborhoods.
We have different opinions about "plantation mentality." The AME churches were one of the most important supports for newly freed slaves, offering community, education and so much more to people who had to begin new lives with nothing. That's why churches were and remain so important to the African American community. They banded people together to achieve much more than individuals can do on their own, similar to labor unions.
I am an amateur student of post-slavery transitional period and not a religious person at all.
I agree that Christianity was used to keep slaves enslaved then and today can perpetuate racism but in my opinion the African Methodist Episcopal Church has been responsible for uplifting more than holding down.
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