QUESTIONS

Questions

Questions

1. In what major ways was the enslavement of Africans during the 1500s important to the histories of Europe, Africa, and the Americas?

Modern historians have struggled with this puzzle for several decades. Some have argued that widespread slavery in Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans in the fifteenth century was the main factor.

In the hands of modern historians, the argument has undergone much refinement. Social anthropology has provided a conceptual framework that perceives precolonial African societies as operating a uniquely African economic system, in which land laws precluded the development of private ownership of land; consequently, wealth accumulation took the form of the enlargement of the number of dependents (people with limit rights who depend on others) instead of the accumulation of land and capital that is said to characterize the history of Europe. (Olson, 2003)

Conceptually, different market opportunities pose different problems, and societies at different levels of politico-military development possess differing capabilities in dealing with crises. It is therefore important to examine the structure of socioeconomic and political organization in sub-Saharan African societies on the eve of their contact with the Europeans, and to follow the historical process as it unfolded for the next four hundred years. This historical process can be organized into four broad periods: (1) the pre-European contact period; (2) the main period of the transatlantic slave trade and (3) the last decades of the nineteenth century, after the effective abolition of the trade in captives across the Atlantic to the Americas.

2. How do you think the crises leading up to the American Revolution transformed African American culture?

For African American culture, the American Revolution was not a war of patriotism or independence. The great majority supported the British cause. Some tried to remain neutral, seeing little value in participating yet again in a European conflict. A few supported the American cause. The losers lost their lands, especially in New York state, and were driven into Canada. African Americans, both men and women, understood Revolutionary rhetoric as promising freedom and equality. These hopes were not realized. Both British and American governments made promises of freedom for service and some slaves attempted to better their lives by fighting in or assisting one or the other armies. Starting in 1777 abolition occurred in the North, usually on a gradual schedule with no payments to the owners, but slavery persisted in the South and took on new life after the cotton gin lowered prices, increasing demand, expanding the plantation system to grow it, and requiring exponentially larger nubmers of workers to pick it. (Calhoon, 2000) During the Revolution, some African American writers rose to prominence, notable Phyllis Wheatley, who came to public attention when her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral appeared in London in 1773, while she was still a domestic slave in Boston. Kidnapped in Africa as young girl and converted to Christianity during the Great Awakening, Wheatley wrote poems combining piety and a concern for African ...