Colonization and the Black Man's Struggle

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Colonization and the Black Man's Struggle Slavery was one of the most horrific and in human acts ever instilled on a race of people ever in our world's history. People were stolen from their homelands, broken apart from their families, and were thrust into a lifestyle that inhibited their every move and instilled harsh punishments on them. It is almost impossible for many of us to comprehend the mindsets that these slave owners possessed, but history paints a truly horrific and emotional picture for us all to see. In speaking about slavery many quickly think of the African struggle under the possession of the whites, but slavery is not nearly as recent an occurrence as 1492 when Columbus reached the New World. For thousands of years slaves have been used for means of menial labor and the general dirty work of the more wealthy proprietors. Slaves were used in the creation of the pyramids in Egypt, work on Mayan temples in South America, and even used by the Mongols in northern Asia as a part of the Mongolian fighting machine. The enslavement of the Africans, however, created a legacy of oppression and tyranny that carried on much longer after the abolition of the systems. The reason for this is that African slaves were not looked upon as humans at all, but as a commodity that could be abused and sold purely for the purpose of making a profit. In most other instances of slavery throughout history motives like religion and love for a king drove the souls of the men and women laborers. This is the major striking difference between the Africans enslaved by the white man from the early fifteen hundreds until today. Although today slavery is abolished in all of Europe and America the people of Africa are still in a sense enslaved by... ... middle of paper ... ... domination over others. Bibliography Barrett, E. Leonard. (1997). The Rastafarians. Boston: Beacon Press. Bridges, George. (1828). The Annals of Jamaica. London: Frank Cass and Company Limited. Carley, Mary. (1963). Jamaica: Old and the New. New York: Fredrick A. Praeger Publishing. Floyd, Berry. (1979). Jamaica- an Island Microcosm. New York: Saint Peters Press. Gardner, W. J. (1873). A History of Jamaica. London: Frank Cass and Company Limited. Green, Cencilia. (1997). Historical Roots of Modern Caribbean Politics. Against the Current. Vol. 12, (4), 34-38. Hart, Richard. (1999). Towards Decolonisation: Political, Labour, and Economic Development in Jamaica. Kingston: Canoe Press. Manley, Michael. (1975). A Voice at the Workplace. Washington D. C.: Howard University Press. Verrill, A. Hyatt. (1931). Jamaica of Today. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.

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