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Effects of slavery on african americans
The effect of slavery on african americans
The effect of slavery on african americans
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Alberta’s historical record has many significant accounts of rancher and cowboy life in the late 1800’s. One of these cowboys was John Ware, who was known for his horsemen skills and his great strength. This man was well liked by his neighbours, ranchers, and other cowboys. The population of Alberta at this time was predominately Caucasian. John Ware however was an African American. Ware was not the only black cowboy from the United States who settled in Alberta. The late 1800’s was not a time of racial tolerance in the western States, nor in Alberta. What the historical records do indicate though is that John Ware was an individual worth recognition despite discrimination based on skin colour. Ware was not literate. What we know of him comes from oral histories. These accounts either came from his daughter Nettie Ware or from other ranchers who worked him. Oral history is contextualized by the person delivering the account. These records were not just valuable information about an Alberta rancher's life, but give us insight into black cowboys throughout western history. While looking into the oral accounts of John Ware in comparison to black cowboys and settlers in the western United States, and Alberta, a clear image can be derived of who these individuals were, and how they impacted the cattle and rancher industry.
In the United States after the abolition of slavery in 1833, many African Americans were looking for somewhere they could settle and start fresh. Many sought opportunities in agriculture and ranching. Even though they were now free Americans this did not change the perceptions within the minds of white Americans, many were still racists. In 1879 numerous African Americans were settling in the west, because they wan...
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...ll I see a coloured skin as anything but lovely.”
The black cowboy is a figure of western history who has not received the attention they deserve. They were incredibly competent and exceptionally hardworking. John Ware is just one example who received accommodations for what appears to be the work ethic and mentality of many of these fine men. Some of these accounts may be reminisces which have become more fond of Ware with time, but in comparison to the account of other American cowboys he certainly fits into the criteria. Ware was an illiterate man received so much of his accolades through oral records of his accomplishments. Without his hard work and expertise he would have possibly been forgotten. These black cowboys have suffered enough discrimination now they should be recognized for their contributions to western society.
This historical document, The Frontier as a Place of Conquest and Conflict, focuses on the 19th Century in which a large portion of society faced discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and religion. Its author, Patricia N. Limerick, describes the differences seen between the group of Anglo Americans and the minority groups of Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics Americans and African Americans. It is noted that through this document, Limerick exposes us to the laws and restrictions imposed in addition to the men and women who endured and fought against the oppression in many different ways. Overall, the author, Limerick, exposes the readers to the effects that the growth and over flow of people from the Eastern on to the Western states
In the introduction, Hämäläinen introduces how Plains Indians horse culture is so often romanticized in the image of the “mounted warrior,” and how this romanticized image is frequently juxtaposed with the hardships of disease, death, and destruction brought on by the Europeans. It is also mentioned that many historians depict Plains Indians equestrianism as a typical success story, usually because such a depiction is an appealing story to use in textbooks. However, Plains Indians equestrianism is far from a basic story of success. Plains equestrianism was a double-edged sword: it both helped tribes complete their quotidian tasks more efficiently, but also gave rise to social issues, weakened the customary political system, created problems between other tribes, and was detrimental to the environment.
While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.
The next few paragraphs will compare blacks in the north to blacks in the south in the 1800’s. In either location blacks were thought of as incompetent and inferior. The next few paragraphs will explain each group’s lifestyle and manner of living.
Frederick Jackson Turner was largely influential in determining Americans’ perceptions of the West. While tracing the history of the American frontier from white settlement to a gradual disappearance in his essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History” (1893), Turner extolled the American West as a hearth for democracy and other “forces dominating American character” (3). He supports this view by hyperbolically describing the frontier’s effects on settlers, “immigrants were Americanized, liberated, and fused into a mixed race, English in neither nationality nor characteristics” (23). Notably, Turner wrote his essay as a response to the 1890 census’ declaration that the western frontier had become settled land. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is set in the late 19th century after the publication of Turner’s essay. The film shows the final stages of the romanticized West’s disappearance evidenced by the two thieves, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, struggling to find places for themselves in the modernizing
Over the years, the idea of the western frontier of American history has been unjustly and falsely romanticized by the movie, novel, and television industries. People now believe the west to have been populated by gun-slinging cowboys wearing ten gallon hats who rode off on capricious, idealistic adventures. Not only is this perception of the west far from the truth, but no mention of the atrocities of Indian massacre, avarice, and ill-advised, often deceptive, government programs is even present in the average citizen’s understanding of the frontier. This misunderstanding of the west is epitomized by the statement, “Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis was as real as the myth of the west. The development of the west was, in fact, A Century of Dishonor.” The frontier thesis, which Turner proposed in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition, viewed the frontier as the sole preserver of the American psyche of democracy and republicanism by compelling Americans to conquer and to settle new areas. This thesis gives a somewhat quixotic explanation of expansion, as opposed to Helen Hunt Jackson’s book, A Century of Dishonor, which truly portrays the settlement of the west as a pattern of cruelty and conceit. Thus, the frontier thesis, offered first in The Significance of the Frontier in American History, is, in fact, false, like the myth of the west. Many historians, however, have attempted to debunk the mythology of the west. Specifically, these historians have refuted the common beliefs that cattle ranging was accepted as legal by the government, that the said business was profitable, that cattle herders were completely independent from any outside influence, and that anyone could become a cattle herder.
After the close of the Civil War, African American slaves were recognized by the federal government as being free men and women. This new-found freedom led to a push for greater rights, including the ability to educate themselves, own property, and obtain jobs that would provide support for their families. To assist in these matters, the government responded with the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau, an agency that was designed to create a new social order. Through the building of schools, the provision of medical care, and access to the justice system, African Americans were given a host of rights that had been denied them in years past (“Making…”, 1997). It was no wonder, then, that southern whites rejected many of these practices and took steps to undercut the advances of this agency. As they were gradually re-admitted to the union, many southern states passed black codes,...
Nabrit, James M. Jr. “The Relative Progress and the Negro in the United States: Critical Summary and Evaluation.” Journal of Negro History 32.4 (1963): 507-516. JSTOR. U of Illinois Lib., Urbana. 11 Apr. 2004
When the newcomers came to the north and west Starling, Gladney, and Foster it wasn’t a warm welcome. Wilkerson says that often when immigrants from the southern states came to the north or west mostly people closed the door on them and didn’t want to help. It a long time for them to find there place in major cities of the North and West, but southerners who stayed end up finding their way using elements of the old culture with the new opportunities in the north. Also traveling to the newer states wasn’t easy for African Americans. They usually traveling by train, boat or bus. And it was very dangerous to travel because of the gas station your able to stop at and even stop to get food. Also the long trips ahead. You would never know what troubles would be head of the journey. Typically once the black citizens arrived in the state it was hard to settle and to find a job with leak of skills. Like Ida Mae husband George ended up hauling ice up flights of stairs in cold Chicago and Ida Mae did domestic jobs before finding a decent job. Wilkerson also states that it took them a long time before really get settled in an affordable home in south side of Chicago. Then the journey to south was not cheap to make it far so many African Americans took in mind that having money before leaving would be the
The cowboys of the frontier have long captured the imagination of the American public. Americans, faced with the reality of an increasingly industrialized society, love the image of a man living out in the wilderness fending for himself against the dangers of the unknown. By the end of the 19th century there were few renegade Indians left in the country and the vast expanse of open land to the west of the Mississippi was rapidly filling with settlers.
Tragically, however, very few of these goals were achieved. It seems as if every time the African Americans manage to move one step closer to reaching true equality among the Southern whites, whether it be in a social, political, or economic fashion, the whites always react by committing violent acts against them. Initially, the Southern whites (in fear of black supremacy in Southern politics) fought to preserve the white supremacy Southern politics had always functioned by. This “ushered most African Americans to the margins of the southern political world” (Brinkley, 369). Secondly, African Americans struggled to survive once they were set free; they had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Because of such reasons, most former slaves decided to remain living on their plantations as tenants, paying their tenancy by working the crop fields. Sadly, even this failed for the African Americans due to the birth of the crop-lien system. Lastly, the Southern whites counteracted the effects of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments by establishing the Jim Crow laws, which aided them with upholding, if not increasing, the steady level of segregation in the South. Ultimately, out of the very few accomplishments made by the African American population during and following the Era of Reconstruction, there existed one achievement significant enough to change the course of American history: the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. As a result of these amendments, “would one day serve as the basis for a “Second Reconstruction” that would renew the drive to bring freedom to all Americans” (Brinkley,
chooses to assert’” (Boyle 79). As the memory of the Civil War faded, Northern whites began to take more and more after the whites of the South. Migrating African-Americans found that the North didn’t really measure up to the promise land due to the rise of Jim Crow, which was aided by the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling as well as discrimination in the job and housing market.
From Slavery to Freedom: African in the Americas. (2007). Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Retrieved October 7, 2007 from Web site: http://www.asalh.org/
As written in Literature and it's Times, a distinct place where racism and prejudice took place was the South. In the early 1900's, the South remained mostly rural and agricultural in economy. Poverty was everywhere, and sharecropping had replaced slavery as the main source of black labor. Blacks who remained in the South received the burdens of poverty and discrimination. The women faced sexual and racial oppression, making th...
This time in the post World War II era, many African Americans had began to become a more urbanized center of population, around 1970. (Inmotionaame, pg. 1) The regular population included about 70 percent of just the natural population to live in more urbanized cities. (Inmotionaame, pg. 1) Soon African Americans dominated, having 80 percent of their community to live and take the same benefits in more urbanized centers of the Unites States. (Inmotionaame, pg. 2) Only about 53 percent of African Americans and others who seemed to migrate stayed in the same area around the South. (Inmotionaame, pg. 2)