My group presented about the U.S slave stories and secular song. In our presentation we learned a lot about all the hardships slaves had to go through during that time and how difficult it was for them all they had to go through.

For our presentation we talked about the things slaves had to go through all the pain they had to endure. During the story “All God’s Chillen Had Wing” we see how all these slaves had to work from sunrise till night time non stop without any breaks and it didn’t matter men, women, children all of them had to work there was no exceptions. As we saw in this particular story how a women had her baby in her back as she worked but eventually fell to ground which cause the drivers to whip her until she got up, in this particular part of the story the women who is getting whipped speaks to an old men but the driver does not understand because they are speaking in a different language, she seek for help from the old men in to which he replies it’s not time yet. Eventually the old men free not just the women but all the slaves as they up the sky to freedom. In “Steal away Jesus” we learn about how the slaves we would work together to plan or organize an escape to finally get freedom. we see how they are all united during this and how they will work together to escape the suffering they all have to go through.

Comparing these stories to Hawaiian folktale we see one of the traditions known as Halaea and in this particular tale we see  how the people sought to rid themselves of the chief’s oppression. Together, the people were able to overthrow their oppressor by sinking him “in a sea surrounded by the objects of his greed.” This story encourages unity and harmony within the people of a community. Harmony is essential in a community in order to gain agreement. It also reinforces the strength of a group and its ability to rebel and bring change for the benefit of society. This lessens the power of higher authority and illustrates the consequences of abusive power.

These two stories are similar in a way because we see how in secular song the slaves work together planned meeting to escape and the same goes for Hawaiian folktales we see the community work together against higher power by holding a council and agreeing to deposit all of the fish onto the chief Halaea’s canoe. We can see the oppression the slaves received is similar to the oppression illustrated in Hawaiian folktales.While the slaves had many authorities leaders and Hawaiian folktales had a single chief.