Cleveland State University Bringing the Past to the Present: Saidiya Hartman’s Road to Recovery. Ian LeSage AST/HIS 394 Professor Donna M. Whyte 26 February 2024 Hartman, Saidiya V. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. First paperback edition of the book. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. Lose Your Mother is about Saidiya Hartman’s journey to Ghana to find answers to not only her history, but the history of people captured and forced into the transatlantic slave trade. She seeks answers for herself, the millions of forgotten dead and those who evaded capture and remain in Ghana. Hartman retraces the path of the slave routes that transported captives from the northern part of Ghana to the castle forts …show more content…
Saidiya travels to El Mina looking for clues about the people enslaved and captured. She generally comes up short with concrete answers and often comes away with more questions than before. Late into the novel, she laments “what did all this information add up to? None of it would ever compensate for all the other things that I would never know.” The frustration she feels comes often because she is so full of knowledge, but it never fills the loss and the wounds she desperately wants to heal. There are many occasions where the author has a preconceived notion of what she expects to find, only for the reality to defy her assumptions. She travels to several villages in hopes of finding stories of the people taken, but often it is just bare stone or a tree that is all that is left of the past. She talks to chiefs of villages and recounts the history that she is familiar with, but generally comes up short on finding the voices of the captured and enslaved and she laments often for that loss. After one year in Ghana, Saidiya’s journey has her thinking that maybe this return to the past, or this idea of bringing the past into the
Chapter six of “Reversing Sail: A History of the African Diaspora” is entitled “Asserting the Right to Be”. This chapter explores the rebellion of enslaved Africans and their descendants. It stresses that fact resistance against slavery and oppression have been present from the very beginning of the slavery and it has grown and evolved over time. One point in particular that the chapter discusses is the rise in the number of slave revolts in the early 1500’s. Another important topic that is discussed is the fact that people of African descent not only had to fight against slavery but they also had to fight the concept that an african ancestry was a mark of inferiority.
The origin tale of the African American population in the American soil reveals a narrative of a diasporic faction that endeavored brutal sufferings to attain fundamental human rights. Captured and forcefully transported in unbearable conditions over the Atlantic Ocean to the New World, a staggering number of Africans were destined to barbaric slavery as a result of the increasing demand of labor in Brazil and the Caribbean. African slaves endured abominable conditions, merged various cultures to construct a blended society that pillared them through the physical and psychological hardships, and hungered for their freedom and recognition.
The Atlantic Slave Trade affected millions of lives throughout the centuries that it existed and now many years later. It was so widely and easily spread throughout four continents and with these documents we get to read about three different people with three different point of views. A story of the life as a slave from an African American slave himself, how the slave trade was just a business from the point of view from merchants and kings, and letter from King Affonso I referring to the slave trade to King Jiao of Portugal.
One of the major questions asked about the slave trade is ‘how could so Europeans enslave so many millions of Africans?” Many documents exist and show historians what the slave trade was like. We use these stories to piece together what it must have been to be a slave or a slaver. John Barbot told the story of the slave trade from the perspective of a slaver in his “A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea.” Barbot describes the life of African slaves before they entered the slave trade.
In all, Tademy does a great job in transporting her readers back to the 1800s in rural Louisiana. This book is a profound alternative to just another slave narrative. Instead of history it offers ‘herstory’. This story offers insight to the issues of slavery through a women’s perspective, something that not so many books offer. Not only does it give readers just one account or perspective of slavery but it gives readers a take on slavery through generation after generation. From the early days of slavery through the Civil War, a narrative of familial strength, pride, and culture are captured in these lines.
An estimated 8 to 15 million Africans reached the Americas between the 16th and 19th century. Only the youngest and healthiest slaves were taken for what was called the middle passage of the triangle trade, partly because they would be worth more in the Americas, and they were also the most likely to reach their destination alive. Conditions aboard the ship were very gruesome; slaves were chained to one anoth...
Chambers, Glenn A. . "From Slavery to Servitude: The African and Asian Struggle for Freedom in Latin America and the Caribbean." Herbert S. Klein and Ben Vinson III. 36.
Throughout history, it is not uncommon for stories to become silenced; especially, when such a story is being told by the voice of a slave's. Slaves were not granted the same equal rights as the free men. They also were not seen as whole individuals -- worth less than the average citizen, to be sold and traded as property. Abina Mansha was a female slave whom once lived in Asante but came to live in the British Gold Coast Colony during 1876, after being sold to Guamin Eddoo by her husband, Yawawhah. As Abina claims in her testimony, her purchase was no accident. "Slavery had been abolished throughout the British Empire, a law extended into the Gold Coast in 1874. Yet ironically, the demand for laborers on the growing palm oil plantations and in the houses of those who own them means that the trade in slaves into the Gold Coast does not dry up following the war" (Getz and Clark, 2011, p. 6). Abina And The Important Men: A Graphic History written by Trevor R. Getz and Liz Clarke, but spoken in different perspectives, helps shed light on Abina's personal lifestyle; while the date and location provides us with further insight on how the world reacted to 19th century Western culture.
Reynolds, Mary. The American Slave. Vol. 5, by Che Rawick, 236-246. Westport , Conneticut: Greenwood Press, Inc, 1972.
Klein, Herbert S. The middle passage: Comparative studies in the Atlantic slave trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press , 1978. 282. Print.
Rediker, Marcus. The Slave Ship A Human History. New York, New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.
In accordance to African American writer Margaret Walker’s quote that talks about African Americans still having their African past intact despite slavery and racism, immigration indeed affected cultural ways. The interconnection of the trans-Atlantic world brought about the rise of new cultures, music and expressions that were to be held by future generations, which is now the population of African American people. This paper will research on the middle passage and the early American slavery and how African tried to resist.
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/
Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.
The quarter has finally come to an end, and with that, I close out my internship and this class that went along with it. It was a great experience and I leave equipped with a new set of skills that are preparing me for the world ahead. As I write this reflection paper, I think back to the very first week when I set up two goals for myself to focus on and hope to achieve throughout the following weeks. My first goal was to develop a better understanding of myself within the work place, and my second was to develop a strong network to jumpstart my career. Both of my goals were achieved, however, I don’t feel that either of my goals will ever be complete. I believe that you can always formulate a better understanding of yourself, and you can always network to develop a stronger tree of connections. I know for a fact, however, that I reached satisfaction with both of my goals at this internship at MKI and know whole-heartedly that I did everything in my power to exhaust my resources in