A slave, Betty Abernathy’s, account of plantation life, “We lived up in Perry County. The white folk had a nice big house an’ they was a number of poor little cabins fo’ us folks. Our’s was a one room, built of logs, an’ had a puncheon floor. ‘Ole ‘Massa’ had a number of slaves but we didden have no school, ‘ner church an’ mighty little merry-makin’. Mos’ly we went barefooted the yeah ‘round.”
Chains is a work of historical fiction. While Isabel and Ruth are fictional characters, their situation is realistic. They were both child slaves and child slaves were sold to families and had to work extremely hard. During the Revolutionary War, many slaves ran away in hope to find their family and start a new life. The battles depicted in the book are real.
Isabel is a thirteen-year-old African-American slave working under Madam Lockton, a dirty loyalist, in the novel Chains. Throughout Chains, Isabel changes from an intimated and gloomy young girl to a confident and proud young woman. Many events all through the book help shape Isabel’s character, but a few things were very important to Isabel’s development. Those things are reading Common Sense, realizing that Madam cannot chain her soul, and discovering that Ruth had been “sold”. Before reading the pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Isabel kept thinking that she would never have a shot at gaining her freedom.
Many slaves being shipped to America had been betrayed by their own race, kidnapped and sold into slavery. The conditions on the ship were horrendous and each man was chained to an area and given about six feet long by fifteen inches wide. The boats were extremely packed with close corners and no bathroom, and women or children got even less space than the men. Many a times, the crew tried to justify the chaining by stating the it was a form of protection to avoid an uprising. In one of the examples Rediker gave, the slave ship, with Captain Tomba, who was known for brutal beatings including whipping, handing out cruel punishments to scare the other slaves into not acting out.
There are different ways in which Nat Turner just like many slaves defined slavery as discussed below. In the Fires of Jubilee, by Stephen B. Oates, his rebellion to slave trade is believed to have impacted greatly to subsequent resistance to it. Nat Turner is described as a slave who was the leader of 1831 salve rebellion which failed in Southampton County, Virginia. Though it failed, it played an important part in how antebellum slave society developed. Turner had an experience as a slave following his work in Southern plantations.
The essay by Christopher Leslie Brown, “Slavery and antislavery, 1760-1820”, depicted the setting of that time frame in regards to slavery. One very interesting thing he pointed out was how some countries would recruit former slaves or current slaves to serve in the army against the colonist or whomever the slaves typically opposed. Those armies used that potential hatred and anger to fuel the slaves to rebel and fight against the very people that enslaved them. That however, did not come without some consequences.
17.1 Captivity and Enslavement, Olaudah Equiano, the interesting Narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano written by himself 1. What are Equiano’s impressions of the white men on the ship and their treatment of the slaves? How does this treatment reflect the slave traders’ primary concerns? Equiano’s first impression of these white men is a feeling of uncertainty and sorrow for the future. As his story goes on Equiano is afraid of these white men, but also he is wishing to end it all because of the conditions and treatment of the slaves.
Historical Fiction Essay "A story can always break into pieces while it sits inside a book on a shelf and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth." – Andre Dubus, from Movable Meditations. The story Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson takes place in New York during the year 1777 where the main character, Isabel, an African-American slave is fighting for her and her younger sisters freedom during the American Revolutionary War. The theme developed throughout Chains is perseverance and courage. In Chains the protagonist is Isabel, a thirteen year old girl, who was enslaved in Rhode Island.
They used whips, wooden rods, boots, fists, dogs, and much more to punish the slaves for any type of misconduct regardless of the age or gender of the slave. Threats of separating a slave from family was one of the most feared punishments for slaves. Women were often sexually assaulted or raped by their owners and could not do anything to stand up for themselves. Celia, a slave repeatedly abused and raped by her owner, was hanged and killed for defending herself and killing her master. For five years, Celia has been trying to stand up for herself to avoid being raped but being an African American slave, she could not do anything.
Slaves, including Isabel, see their freedom as not being a slave and having a normal life with their correct identity, different to Loyalists like Mr. Lockton, and
Small acts could trigger these authorities, and that would result in painful repercussions. They lived in constant anxiety, waiting for punishment for anything. The female slave was the object of white men’s lust. They were expected to perform work and were punished just the same as the male slave. They often had to deal with the mistress’s resentment towards them.
In today's society, many people do not recognize community college as a place of opportunity and growth. Liz Addison utilizes a sarcastic tone at the beginning of her essay and later a hopeful tone as well as short and long syntax to convey her belief that community college is the best place to grow and achieve anything. Addison’s use of a sarcastic tone in the first paragraph shows how she feels about college in the years before. By stating “Those days, man, when a pretentious reading list was all it took to lift a child from suburbia. When jazz riffs hung in the dorm lounge air with the smoke of a thousand bongs, and college really mattered”, Addison presents her belief that college, in earlier years, was not as prestigious as community
Whether or not a slave narrative is able to persuade its readers of the inhumanities of slavery, the complexities within slave narratives and the discussions they create should not be overlooked. There is power within the act of writing one’s personal journeys and hardships throughout life, and that power gives former enslaved people the opportunity to express their own thoughts while making changes for future generations. Solomon Northup’s 12 Years A Slave gives a heart-wrenching depiction of what slavery was like in America. If the cruel images of the realities of slavery do not affect readers emotionally, then there is at least hope that the logical arguments raised throughout the novel can persuade those who are unwilling to see slavery
Whips, cigarette burns, broken bones, starvation -- every slave has suffered these tortures, but sex slaves suffer each of these as well as innumerable counts of rape – ten, fifteen, twenty or more times per day. In brothels across the globe, I met women and children who suffered unspeakable acts of barbarity (Kara p. preface x). This portion of the book really reminded me of The Stickup Kids and the experiences that the stickup kids had with raiding drug dealers. The torture that these men did to the drug dealers for the money and drugs sounds oddly similar to the violence that these women and children suffer.
Documenting not only the fear that the slaves faced but also the violence of both physical and sexual abuse, the most ghastly account was towards a slave women he was imprisoned with named Patsey. She was a slave who had the misfortune of
