Culture and Slavery?

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Culture and Slavery?
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Outcomes

• 3.5 explain and describe the development and
  difficulties of slave culture economically,
  politically, socially, and spiritually in North
  America and Caribbean
• 3.6 examine how people of African descent used
  various means to resist enslavement through
  cultural expression, i.e., music and slave
  insurrections, religion, folktales and writing

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How did people resist enslavement?

1. Rebellion
2. Escape
3. Assisting Others
4. Quilts
5. Families
6. Songs/Stories

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Thinking

• What is culture?
• Why is it so hard to define?
• How do we show our culture?
• Why would it be better for slavers if they
  influenced slave culture?

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What would it be like?
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Daily Life Slave

• Given enough to eat
• Provided shelter
• Could get access to better if job was in the
  main house
• Could often be sold without warning
• Not uncommon for the master to father children
  with the slaves who would then become slaves
• Crop work long and dangerous including poisonous
  animals like snakes or cold and tedious like in
  Canadian Farms
• Brutal punishments like whipping, withholding of
  food, locking in cages with no access to food or
  water, tied to a tree in the sun
• Day started early and ended late
• Work decided by a quota punishments if they
  were not met

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Daily Life Owner

• Houses made of brick or stone
• Small farmers lived mostly hand to mouth with
  help from neighbours
• Some were rich and lived mostly for recreation
• Church meetings like picnics or socials were
  major events
• Clothing depended on your level of society and
  was often colourful and decorated with flowers or
  ribbons on
• Sundays
• Long work days but plenty of recreational
  opportunities for the average person

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The Price of Freedom?

• freed by their owners to honor a pledge, to grant
  a reward, or, before the 1700s, to fulfill a
  servitude agreement
• bought by Quakers, Methodists, and religious
  activists for the sole purpose of freeing them (a
  practice soon banned in the southern states)
• ran away to free territory
• "self-purchase
• purchasing their own relatives
• turning 25 in Canada after 1763
• living in Canada after 1834
• living in the US after 1865

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Slave Culture

• What was the difference between Thomas Jefferson
  and Jupiter?
• What did both Jefferson and Jupiter have to
  learn?
• When did the work of a slave end?
• What sorts of punishment could a slave expect?
• Who was a slave child expected to obey more his
  master or his mother?
• How could a slave rebel?
• How could slaves negotiate?
• What was the importance of African religion and
  tradition?
• How do we see the mix of American and African
  culture?
• What was different in the dating of Jefferson and
  the dating of Jupiter?
• What was the centre of family life for the slave?
• A slave having a family was a wonderful and
  painful thing for them. Why?

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Slave Religion

• Complete the article questions in full sentences
  for your notes.

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Passing Down Culture

• Slaves were not permitted to read and write
• Teaching a slave to read or write was against
  the law unless there were special circumstances
• Passing down of stories or warnings was through
  oral tradition, songs and art
• From one generation to the next subtle changes

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Music

• Different Kinds of Music
• Different occasions
• Few instruments
• Often required few people
• Often told a story
• 3 main kinds
• Work
• Worship
• Warning

• "Arwhoolie" (Cornfield Holler) YouTube
• Mississippi John Hurt - Do Lord Remember Me
  YouTube
• Follow the Drinking Gourd - YouTube

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