The History of African Americans

The Slave Trade: A Dark Era in American History

The documentary narrates the encounters of more than 11 million African slaves at the time of the slave trade conducted across the Atlantic. The slaves were harshly handled by the Europeans in their ships and workplaces in British America where they provided labor. Starting with the Province of Virginia, slavery would be legalized across all the 13 provinces in America. The black Americans underwent inhumane treatments by their owners and oppressed under laws that were introduced to diminish their human rights and tame them from having any form of social status, which lead to rebellions by some of them. Such rebellions further lead to the terrible forms of punishment and death of many slaves, which raised concerns with religious leaders and other anonymous people opposing the way the Africans were treated. The trend in slavery that started in the 18th century after earlier before there had been signs of equal treatment in America regardless of color would later continue to trouble the American soul for generations.

Why the documentary is enjoyable

The documentary elaborates the rich history behind the origin of African Americans thereby giving them a source of identity. It indicates how earlier on there had been signs that in America people would be treated equally regardless of race for instance when Anthony Johnson, an African American was able to acquire land and even employ some white people. It also indicates an important factor about human nature, of being able to unite against all odds when under oppression, in as much as they were tightly restricted under laws, Africans could still unite and rebel against oppression, for instance when a black named Jamie from Angola was able to build an alliance among the slaves and rebelled. The rebellion did kill 20 people but pardoned those who had been kind to them such as one Mr. Wallace, an indication that they never intended to kill but were responding to mistreatment and wanted awareness about their suffering.

Even though the slaves were mistreated and worked under very harsh conditions, they massively contributed to the economy of Virginia at the time through the provision of the hard labor on the plantations showing their industrious nature. Those who had come from Angola, Senegal and the windward coast had rice growing skills lacked by the Europeans which indicated that they were after all not that inferior as the whites had treated them. Others slaves were able to survive such as Olaudah Equiano who later died an Englishman, with two daughters and an English wife. He had gained knowledge and experience and despite initially being a slave, he gained status and would later help in fighting slavery. People including church leaders such as Frances Lujan of the Anglican Church began to oppose the way in which the slaves were treated, and showed concern for them, as was the anonymous letter sent from Massachusetts in 23rd June 1741 that warned the government of Virginia against the bonfires that were used to burn Africans that they would receive divine vengeance for the mistreatment of the slaves.

Why the documentary is not enjoyable

It shows the different kinds of inhuman forms of treatment that whites subjected to their fellow human beings, the blacks with laws created for instance by the Virginia General Assembly in June 1680 that allowed their killing. More laws were enacted that further intensified slavery as narrated by historian Frances Latimer about the law passed in 1691 that made it illegal to free a slave unless he was leaving the colony. The African slaves were referred to as foreign, alien and strangers and would have no status in the colonies. It also shows how the traders from England were able to use goods such as gold, guns, and clothes to make Africans wage war against each other and capture one another as slaves instead of uniting and defending themselves against the slave traders.

It shows how slavery intensified in the 18th century with various forms of mistreatment as narrated by one slave, Equiano Olaudah, that a slave master had at one time told him how he had cut off a slave's leg after he had escaped so he could serve as an example to the rest. The conditions under which the documentary narrates that the slaves were in inside the ships was heartbreaking. They were stuffed where the air was limited, others died and were thrown into the ocean, and in 1701, an English sailor narrated how they had shot at slaves who had rebelled killing some while others freely jumped into the sea. In the new lands, death was inevitable. In Barbados for instance, one in every three slaves would die within the first three years of arrival. In New York, for instance, Africans aged 16 years and above were arrested on the streets and taken to court, harshly judged, and prosecuted, by hanging until their bodies decomposed while others were burned.

It becomes important to ask whether the inhumane treatments that existed during the 18th Century against the African Americans ended or could it be that centuries later the great-grandchildren of the early slaves still experience the same treatments that their ancestors faced? Has the status really changed, if so, has it improved or worsened? And was justice ever served for such inhuman treatments?

Making a man a slave deprives him of his virtue, forcing them to live with their masters would only result in a state of war, hence, humans should treat one another with love, care and respect regardless of race or skin color.