Navigating Distant Shores: A Historical Overview By Dr. Ronald Doris

In 1709, Jacques Raudot, passed an ordinance planned to identify owners’ demands for Seeking validation and security of their enslaved property and reinforcing the legality of both African and Indian servitude in New France. The ordinance accentuated the problems associated with insubordinate slaves, who often attempted to escape from their owners by repudiating their enslaved status. In his ordinance, Raudot also highlighted the need of slaveholding for the growth and development the colony. The ordinance disseminated to the public through New France’s officials who referred to Raudot’s ordinance as the root of legalized slavery in the colony. It was published in the towns of Quebec, Three rivers, and Montreal and was notarized by authorities.

This chapter addresses the central argument that African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed. For example, the author underlines that approximately 50,000 African captives were taken to the Dutch Caribbean while 1,600,000 were sent to the French Caribbean. In addition, Painter provides excerpts from the memoirs of ex-slaves, Equiano and Ayuba in which they recount their personal experience as slaves. This is important because the author carefully presents the topic of slaves as not just numbers, but as individual people. In contrast, in my high school’s world history class, I can profoundly recall reading an excerpt from a European man in the early colonialism period which described his experience when he first encountered the African people.

Document A is a painting of Landing Negroes at Jamestown from Dutch Man-of-War, 1619. The New World’s need for labor was fulfilled with indentured servants, brought from Europe, and African slaves, brought by the millions to the Americas. The painting shows the ship and the order of these landings. Document A gives the audience the ability to see the way that slavery came to be in and impacted the Americas. Document C gives statistics on the amount of people forced to migrate and work in the Americas.

The Interpretation of Freedom in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, and Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black This essay will argue that the two African-American protagonists from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, written by Frederick Douglass, and Our Nig: Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, written by Harriet E. Wilson, have suffered lives without freedom for long, but eventually they find their way to achieve some freedom, by regaining control of their bodies and souls. Such freedom is limited, for they cannot escape or destroy the racist society that confines people’s free will, but it still can be regarded as a great success for them and other

This book is written in first and third person in an objective style. This style fits the subject very well because in history, facts are much more important than feelings. The book was written very well, but at some times it is hard to understand because it may be in a different languages, use obsolete words, or just use words that aren’t very well known. The book is fairly concise, but sometimes can get a bit lengthy. Overall, the book is fairly easy to understand.

Chains linking together slavery and racial discrimination, stimulated the oppression of Africans. Slavery and labor go hand in hand, there would have been “no enslavement without economic need” (Jordan 50). There is two sides to slavery: one group is displaced and exploited so that the other may prosper. Sylviane Diouf’s book Dreams of Africa in Alabama, reiterate how enslaved Africans were forcibly carried across the Atlantic to the United States after the international slave trade was abolished. Dreams of Africa in Alabama recounts the story of the last shipload of captive Africans brought to the United States and their struggles for survival and the preservation of their culture throughout.

Reparations Slavery began in America when the first African slaves brought the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. Through 250 years of enslavement, African Americans feel like reparations, which are amends for a wrong doing, by paying money or helping those who have been wronged, should be in recognition. “The Case for Reparations” by Ta- Nehisi Coates provides the malevolent, segregated history of the Negro population in the United States. Coates explains all the political and economic issues that Negroes have faced and still endure. White America has left the Negro population at an unfair advantage socially, economically, and politically.

As the boom from the transatlantic slave trade was being put into a question of universal humanity and morality, millions of Africans were still being sold into a life of victimhood. Amongst those millions were freemen being stripped from their homes, because of their race, in the core and coastal regions of Africa. The Neirsee Incident occurred on, “January 21st, 1828” at a “British owned palm oil house near old Calabar” (Blaufarb and Clarke 71). The Neirsee as it was stopped at the port near the British owned palm oil house, was interrupted by a character name Feraud who “slipped out of old Calabar on the Neirsee”, where the ship was eventually seized after it had, “just loaded its human cargo” (Blaufarb and Clarke 72). The incident had led to innocent British citizens lives being sold into the slave trade.

II The book describes African Americans in the time period of slavery through civil war and civil rights revolution, to 1980s, after the segregation of the black race. The book mainly focus on the speech done by social activists of different time period. In addition of the reasons and different beliefs of those social activist had. Such as Frederick Douglass, who believe we can’t wait for somebody else to fight freedom for us.

The desire to escape can be overwhelming. Such desires are present in the common African American folklore about “the flying Africans”, where a select few enslaved Africans are able to escape from slavery through their ability to fly. Escapist desires such as those are also present in Toni Morrison’s novel, Song of Solomon. Morrison’s, Song of Solomon, follows the path of one such family of “flying Africans” as they discover their family history and their abilities of flight. She utilizes the motif of flight to prove man’s escapist desires in regards to the avoidance of responsibility, abandonment of women and freedom from burdens of racial inequality.

The African – American 's Assimilation into White America America is often considered the land of opportunities, a place where people can have a fresh start, a clean slate. America is a land that is made up of immigrants. Over the centuries America has been a place where people dream to live in, however the American dream wasn 't as perfect as believed; there were issues of race inferiority, slavery and social inequality amongst other problems. When a person arrives into a new society he has a difficult task ahead of him- to assimilate into that new society- which includes the economical, cultural, political and social aspects. In the following paper I will discuss how the African American, who came as slaves to America, has fought over the centuries to achieve equality in a white society that discriminated them.

In the short story “Blackness” by Jamaica Kincaid, the narrator’s consciousness develops through a process of realization that she does not have to choose between the culture imposed on her and her authentic heritage. First, the narrator explains the metaphor “blackness” for the colonization her country that fills her own being and eventually becomes one with it. Unaware of her own nature, in isolation she is “all purpose and industry… as if [she] were the single survivor of a species” (472). Describing the annihilation of her culture, the narrator shows how “blackness” replaced her own culture with the ideology of the colonizers.

In Basil Davidson’s video, “Different but Equal”, Davidson examines ancient Africa, and how Africans were perceived in ancient and modern times. Davidson discusses pre-colonized Africa and its history, and how racism prevailed in the past and in modern day. By discussing early civilizations, as well as modern day perspectives, Davidson allows the viewer to have expansive information on how individuals view Africans and their culture. In Davidson’s video, he discusses how people in the past have viewed Africa and African culture, and how that relates to our perception of Africa in modern times.

Created in the waning days of World War II, Philip Evergood’s oil painting, Wheels of Victory , may at first seem to be a celebration of American industry. The foreground of the 1944 painting is dominated by powerful iron girders, tanks, and a train engine, while an endless line of oil tankers crisscross the background. However, when examined more closely in the context of time, the painting seems to possess a more somber mood than a victorious one. While white train workers gather together in the center of the painting, a black soldier looks on despondently. I believe that the oil painting, Wheels of Victory, by Philip Evergood serves to remind its viewers that although African-Americans contributed to America’s victory in war overseas, they were not allowed to hold good jobs once they returned home to America.

Throughout the course of African American Experience in Literature, various cultural, historical, and social aspects are explored. Starting in the 16th century, Africa prior to Colonization, to the Black Arts Movement and Contemporary voice, it touches the development and contributions of African American writers from several genres of literature. Thru these developments, certain themes are constantly showing up and repeating as a way to reinforce their significances. Few of the prominent ideas in the readings offer in this this course are the act of be caution and the warnings the authors try to portray. The big message is for the readers to live and learn from experiences.