Blog Post

The first article “Slavery Without Submission” reinforced a lot of my prior knowledge on the justification of slavery. The Government justified slavery because it provided an economic boom in the US economy. Slaves were able to pick millions of tons of cotton a year which was the main source of revenue for the south so taking away this industry would cripple their economy. In doing so poor whites, middle-class whites, and upper-class whites were able to benefit from the hard labor of African Americans because it created jobs for them. What truly upsets me is the forms of punishments African Americans would receive for disobeying their masters. The article described a story in which an African American women provided some food for a starving poor white man. Once her master discovered what she had done she received 50 lashes for feeding the starving man.   What was also extremely upsetting to me was how African Americans would use gospel songs and dance to retain their humanity because without doing so they would be completely and utterly miserable. 

What I found to be very interesting in this article was the fight against slavery as well as the actions African Americans took to fight slavery. Learning about how slave revolts took place and the way in which they would gain followers. One being Turner’s Rebellion where slaves would take arms with axes, picks, hatchets, rocks and so on because muskets would draw too much attention. They would take other slaves from plantations once the owners were murdered. In addition, learning about Harriet Tubman’s nineteen journeys between freedom and back to lands of slavery was extremely impressive that she was willing to risk her freedom for others. She said something along the lines of we will either get freedom or die. If we cannot get one we will take the other. Finally, what I also thought was very fascinating was how Frederick Douglas was able to become educated as a slave and then escape freedom to produce many amazing literary works.