Month: November 2016

Brown’s Article Reapers Garden talked about many things, such as the harsh treatment of living slaves and the harsh treatment of the bodies of slaves. The Article talked about ways in which Europeans could enforce their power onto the slaves. The main way these Europeans decided to enforce their dominion over these slaves is by “making a spectacle of their corpses.” These terror tactics were used to scare slaves into obedience. The reason why these tactics were thought to be effective was these tactics were to attack Africans spiritual beliefs. The bodies of these dead Africans were symbolic, they symbolized what was to come after life and made slaves think what the meaning of it all was. Of course these tactics had some backlash, essentially becoming a requirement in the society slaves had become apart of. In addition to that Slaves of this time were starting to end their lives in order to end the harsh labor, social isolation, and did it in an attempt to return to their “ancestral lands”.Recently I took a trip to the African Burial Grounds in lower Manhattan. Once there i discovered that in 1697 British law banned Africans from having burials in the New York public cemetery. For this reason the African Burial Grounds are “north of the city limits near a ravine.” The reason why this burial ground is significant to the Brown article is, it shows the relation African had with their dead. It shows that they believed in the afterlife, in their culture, and putting their dead to rest in some way.

 

 

Today, I had the opportunity to visit the National Monument to African Burial grounds in the city. The exhibit is highly educational and not just a cemetery as one would assume from the title. Inside the museum, there are replicas of material mostly belonging to the cultures of the many represented African nations in the slave trade; along with a few life-size wax figures of the slaves themselves.

In today’s visit, I managed to learn information I had previously been unaware of. For example, a majority of modern-day Lower Manhattan  was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam during the late 1680s and the first location of African slave arrival. During the early stages of the system, a portion of slaves managed to successfully petition for their freedom and even go on to own land, while peacefully coexisting with the amenable European colonizers of the 17th century. Unfortunately, in the years to come, control of the colonial territory shifted into the hands of British forces who were nowhere near as agreeable as their Dutch predecessors had been. Following their arrival, oppression of existing slaves increased and free blacks lost all land they had previously owned.

Brown’s article mentions British ship Captain Hugh Crowe and his direct involvement in the slave trade. Captain Crowe is described as being cruel and inhumane; both of which were characteristics he considered the slave trade and general treatment of Africans as not being. He looked at the conditions of the slave trade as fitting into the norms of military rule and considered the graphic violence along with the public display of black corpses as being justified for even the Royal Navy to partake in.

In Browns article “Icons, Shamans, and Martyrs” we learn a lot about the slaves living in Jamaica at the time. Slaves were constantly killing themselves because they believed that death was better than being a slave. They would rather be dead than have to go through such terrible things. Henry Coor said that the terrible punishments, hunger, and unbearable workloads led to slaves to killing themselves: “I remember fourteen Slaves, that it was generally said, and I believe it was, from bad treatment, that them rise in rebellion on a sunday, who ran away into the woods, and all cut their own throats together.” These slaves believed in reincarnation, the belief that there is life after death. Owners would put the heads of the dead people on poles to try and prove to their slaves that reincarnation did not exist. Slaves would constantly gather to speak about their culture and their beliefs of reincarnation. They also practiced Obeah, which is the practice of harnessing supernatural forces and spirits for one’s own personal use. Today I went to the African Burial Grounds. I found that this article shared many similarities to the exhibit I saw. The exhibit showed us how the Africans stuck to their culture at all times. African funerals were not allowed at the time, however they would still find a way to bury each other by the way of their culture.

The Brown reading was a very interesting one. It focused on the concepts of authority, applying fear, and rituals. In this time period in Jamaica, the slaves were killing themselves more and more often because they thought death was better than being a slave, as well as their belief of reincarnation in their hometown with their youth renewed. To prevent slaves from killing themselves, slave owners would fix the heads of dead slaves onto poles and prove to the other slaves that this belief of reincarnation was false. “How is he in his homeland when his head is still right here with us?”, the slave owners would ask the slaves. This was their way to manipulate the slaves and it did work for a while.
Slaves soon enough developed their own rituals and cultures and beliefs about the afterlife, and they would gather together and talk about it. They had magical practices, such as obeah. Obeah men were able to treat disease or manipulate human behavior. The white men feared that this practice could inevitably result in the slaves revolting and directing political action.
This article relates to the African Burial Ground exhibit because the exhibit was about the Africans that came together to talk about cultural rituals and their beliefs. The colonial law banned African funerals during this time period, but they would still find a way to get together and bury their dead respectfully within their culture.
In the outside portion of the exhibit, there was something called the Circle of the Diaspora, which had symbols engraved in the wall. These symbols were from the different African cultures, which goes to show that they were able to establish their own culture and practices while being enslaved.