The North and the South pull apart from one another in there ideas of slavery. The North was of mostly well educated and new the importance of learning to read and write. On the other hand the South was less educated with about over 1/3 of the southerners lacking the ability to read or write. Many of the northerners were against the idea of the slave trade and wanted to abolish it. In 1817 the American Colonization Society wanted the slaves to be emancipated for the own good of the southern states. One of the founders of the American Colonization Society, President Monoroe felt that his state of Kentucky progressed slower in fields of agriculture, manufactures, and prosperity of society. But the southerners would not give up their slaves they owned.
With basically all of the blacks born in America they created a homogeneous rural culture. They still kept up their traditions from Africa that they have brought over. The slaves created some of their own rituals so they felt as if they were a stable community with strong core families. For example, the way couples symbolized their marriages was by jumping over a broomstick in a public ceremony. Considering they could not become "legally" be married thats how they celebrated in their own way. Another ritual they had was how they named their children. Sons were named after their fathers, uncles or grandfathers and daughters after their grandmothers. The slaves were very optimistic about their situations working for their white owners in that they took everyday at a time working on their specific daily tasks leaving the rest of their day to do what they wanted.
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You touched several things the African-American slaves did concerning rituals and ceremonies. I think this was one thing that kept the slaves alive during this time. The fact that they were able to unify as a race and keep each other strong helped to lift morale and encourage others. It shows their internal strength and their actions during this time (for the most part, besides the revolts...) were very admirable.
I agree that the courage and optimism that slaves showed under their dire circumstances are unbelievable. They were oppressed beyond imagine but still had hope in their hearts that better days laid ahead. I think that hope and optimism is something that we can all learn from. Also, the importance of education is displayed here. By getting an education you start to think outside of yourself and hear other people's stories (or at least that is the hope). I think northerners had a better understanding of the injustices of slavery because of their education.
I think because some slaves were educated played a major part in the building up of a rebellion. If none of them were educated, they would still probably know they were being mistreated, but may not know how to go about changing that. Unity definitely proved to be be what kept them strong and on their feet. Music and dance and religion was a way of embracing their culture while still having to put up working under a master for no pay. If the slaves would have completely assimilated to "white society" they may have lost their unity slightly and that may have been an action saying, "we give up, y'all win." The Native Americans were the same way because they didn't completely assimilate to American society and just start farming. Complete assimilation could have destroyed both of these groups of people.
Another reason why African-Americans had some of these rituals was to get around American laws and court decisions; such as the mariage ritual of jumping over a broom to symbolize their marriage. This is due to the fact that the courts prohibited legal marriage between slaves so they could be sold without breaking a legal bond. This helps display the fact that the slaves were resilient to have a half-normal life as slaves.
The tradition of jumping over a broom as a marriage ritual that would only last until they were seperated. Did that mean that they could be married more than once? Whenever they moved to a different place/plantation.
I agree that education is so important in an oppressed society. Slaves and free people made themselves aware of the horrifying experience through education. There certainly is a trend here with education and that will explode during the womens movement begining in the mid 1800's.
Slaves used their own and past traditions from Africa to help them enjoy a unity of family in the sense that they could use each other as support after tough days of working and poor treatment by owners. with education Northerners relied on manufacturing goods and since the south had poor educational rates they had to rely mainly on slaves for their work and to keep their income steady
I think that keeping their traditions alive helped out a lot when it came to the slaves. It gave them more unification which lead to the helping out in times of need. Boosting eachothers hopes and morals. It also helped that some of the slaves were educated because they could read and write and tell the others (who couldn't read) what was going on.
The relationship between the abolition movement and the subsequent women's movement is quite interesting. Did it have to happen in this order? I think probably so, for women were first disturbed by the raping of slave women.
I think the African-American ceremonies were amazing. They almost made up more of a UNITED states than the American Colonists. I say this because the American Colonists, as you said, couldn't agree on whether there should be slaves or not, and even between the abolitionists and the anti-slavery people, who couldn't agree on how to stop slavery.
It is definitely a good thing that the slaves continued with their rituals and traditions and tried to stay as optimistic as possible about their situations. That is so sad that when uniting a man and a woman the preacher would not say "until death do you part" because it was not uncommon for couples to be separated by sales.
I really think that the Americans should have realized that the slaves were going to become a problem along with women, educating them on laws and what not. Not that it was a bad thing to educate them.
The fact that slaves continued to practice rituals and traditions from their roots showed that they weren't going to give in to the white American society. Again, it created a bond with other slaves, keeping them hopeful and strong.
I agree it was very important for the slaves to encourage each other and keep their culture a priority. Unification helped them last through this trechorous time. I also agree education played an important role for the slaves. It gave them opportunities to fight against how they were being treated.
Slavery in america changed just not American views, but the worlds. with the invention of the cotton gin and the increase in inter-continent slave trade. With all of this trade between northernh and southern states, the south became the wealth capital of the US. But with this great wealth came the oppressoin of an entire peoples, and built an aggression toward blacks that still lives today. I belive this is Americas "bad foot" in history.
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