Throughout Black History Month, we’re highlighting materials that provide crucial insights into Black history, culture, and society. This week we are taking a closer look at the Black Experience in Colonial America and the opposition in Antebellum America that followed.
The Black Experience in Colonial America
The Black experience and the struggle against enslavement in colonial America are at the root of European colonization. In the early sixteenth century, people of African descent were present at the earliest moments of Spanish, French, and English exploration. Captured, shipped, and sold in a brutal middle passage recounted by Alexander Falconbridge in “An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa,” African labor was responsible for much of the economic export from the Americas into the Atlantic World. Sometimes free and often enslaved, Africans participated in European colonization as both laborers and interpreters. Most European colonists traveled to the Americas from a common port of origin and shared culture. However, Africans trafficked to the Americas represented a more diverse geographic area. They arrived in groups of varied language, experiences, and beliefs. When combined with European ideas, African expressions of culture and religion helped create distinctly American regional habits and customs. As the monetary value of enslaved Africans became a vital measurement of colonial success, Africans parlayed their experiences and leveraged their economic value to carve out space for themselves in colonial America. This can be seen in the captivity narratives of men like Olaudah Equiano and Venture Smith.
Abolitionism and Black Protest in Antebellum America
Centuries of enslaving Black Americans paved the way for Black protest in Antebellum America. Sometimes prominent figures in the abolitionist movement weren’t leaders in their communities, but rather represented every day, ordinary people. The fact that they had been slaves themselves and were simply relating their experiences gave them a certain credibility, especially in the North. They wrote in language that was accessible to everyday people, which made their words more believable and easier to understand. Perhaps the most militant abolitionist was Nat Turner, a slave who organized a rebellion. In fact, his actions would result in the passing of oppressive laws, including legislation that denied slaves the opportunity for an education and the right to assemble and hold meetings. Women were a particularly important part of the abolitionist movement, as represented by Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
The Antebellum era represented a turbulent time that was complicated by numerous factors: the growing awareness of the brutality of slavery, the desire of moderate abolitionists seeking gradual emancipation, the militant preaching and behaviors of radical abolitionists seeking immediate emancipation, and those who were content to do nothing. In many ways, this period emphasized a growing division among the American people that would eventually escalate to the Civil War.
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