The Black Atlantic Summary

The documentary on The Black Atlantic was very informative documentary. It described the lives of African Americans from the 1500s to the 1800s.It told the stories of the first Africans in North America and the struggles they went through as slaves. They are big part of what the country is today thanks to their hard work and contributions.

The documentary started off by telling the story of the first African Americans and their arrival in America through the Atlantic Ocean, Juan Garrido arrived with Spanish explorers in the year 1513 in Florida. He helped Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortes take over Mexico and later went off to California in search of gold. Then in 1534 Esteban the Moor crossed a dessert of Texas after a Spanish expedition

failed and only four people survived. He helped the other three people by guiding them and translating in order to get to safety. Two years later they had walked more than15, 000 miles discovering more of North America than anyone else at the time.
In 1619, when Jamestown the first British colony was established, a ship arrived carrying the first African slaves in Point comfort.

A man named Anthony Johnson was a slave who thrived by forging a bond with his owner based on necessity he earned his way to freedom by doing a lot of manual labor. His owner even granted him some land, but then Virginia strengthened their slavery rules, and this land was taken away. Other people like the English believed slave labor was creating wealth for those countries who had them. From the 1600s to the 1700s slavery was very popular amongst the English colonies. African Americans of all ages were captured and separated from families .Many underwent horrible situations where white men could do anything they wanted with them with no consequences. Then they had to drop their last names to erase their family connections. They also worked in dangerous environments such as the rice fields where many of them died due to snakes and diseases from malarial mosquitos. If slaves tried to run away and where caught there were serious consequences. The first time you were caught two toes would be amputated, then the second time your ears would be amputated, and then the third time would result in castration. A lot of what is America today was built by slaves they made the roads, bridges, factories, farms, town, and cities. Above all they created a culture no one could take away them from their food to their music, dances, and

religion.
Saint Augustine Florida built by the Spanish was declared a place that runaway slaves could come and have freedom.

However, there were some conditions which include slaves converting to Catholicism, loyalty to the Spanish crown, and serve in the colonial militia to help with their battle against colonial England. Throughout the British colonies there were slave revolts against their owners that resulted in their deaths. In 1791 A French colony known as San-Domingue had twice as many slaves as the United States. The African people rose up and fought the European army. They succeeded and founded a new nation called Haiti. They were the first to create a Black Republic and the first time slaves overthrew their masters. Haiti symbolized a source of pride and success for Africans even if people in the United States had to wait almost a century for their

freedom.
Overall, the video informed me a little bit more than the lectures because the main focus of the video was African Americans. What stood out to me the most was all the hard work African people did for this country and other places. Also that people who were enslaved knew the harsh consequences of running away yet still chose to try it from how bad their lives as slaves were. If people who owned slaves wanted to grow their business or money they should have worked for it themselves not forced other people into working for it with no pay and bad treatment. They were the reason for the wealth of their owners the slaves were the ones who were out on the fields planting crops, and doing all the labor in the house too. It frustrates me that they were treated as property not people considering the fact that all they wanted was to pursue their dreams and have freedom to live their lives as they wished. Instead they had everything taken away from them they had no say in what happened in their own lives since everything was decided for them. Many white people disregarded that Africans have families who they would never see again because of slavery. Slavery was a very inhumane event in history it was based on racism, violence, and exploitation. While watching this documentary I learned about the experiences Africans went through more in depth. Most importantly, I learned that regardless of what they went through they had dreams and created a culture that couldn’t be taken away.