Arbeitsblatt: African Americans

The plantation system In the 17th century Europeans began to establish settlements in the Americas. The division of the land into smaller units under private ownership became known as the plantation system. In the English North American colonies the system started in Virginia and spread to the other English colonies. Initially the planters relied on white indentured servants (Schuldknecht) to work their fields, which meant, that European convicts had to do some years of service (usually seven years), and then became free men and women again. Also the first Africans (approximately twenty), who landed in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619 were indentured servants, not yet slaves. But soon the colonies switched from servitude to involuntary slavery, based on race, because crops grown on the plantations such as tobacco, rice, sugar cane and cotton were very labour intensive and there was tremendous demand for labour. Planters therefore began to purchase slaves and to justify the slave status by pointing at their inferior race. Most slaves (abt 80%) were bought and later sold at slave markets in Philadelphia, Richmond, Charleston and New Orleans. Over the 17th century slavery became legal throughout the English colonies and in 1662 Virginia was the first colony to enact law of hereditary slavery, which meant, that child born to an enslaved mother inherited her slave status. After 1700, the numbers of Africans brought to America increased and continued throughout the 18th century, because more and more labour force was needed on the plantations, which grew bigger as European demand for the crops (particularly cotton) increased. African people were suitable to work on plantations, because they didnt seem to be as susceptible to European diseases as the Native Americans. Further they worked hard and were used to heat (they had to work under the hot southern sunshine). Life on the plantations in North America was hard and cruel. Large landowners would usually own well over 100 slaves and relied on overseers to run their plantations. These overseers were often very cruel and regularly punished the slaves. The most common tool of punishment was the whip. The death-rate amongst slaves was high. Hard work, bad food, regular punishments and lack of medical care shortened their life expectations considerably. To replace their losses, plantation owners encouraged the slaves to have children. Child-bearing started around the age of thirteen, and by twenty the women slaves would be expected to have four or five children. On the large plantations slaves were divided into either field hands or house servants. House servants had many different jobs such as cooks, butlers, housemaids and childrens nurses. They usually lived better than field slaves. They usually had better food and were sometimes given the family cast-off clothing. Slaves were in the fields from sunrise to sunset. They worked in all weathers. Women worked the same hours as the men and pregnant women were expected to continue until their child was born. Children began general work in the fields at about 10 years; they were quarter-hands and advanced to half-hands, three-quarter hands and full-hands when 18. It was common to separate children from their mothers at an early age; The food slaves got was monotonous and of poor quality. Slaves usually received monthly allowance of food, which most of the time didnt last very long. They lived in overcrowded huts with neither bedsteads nor furniture; sanitation was poor and breeding ground for diseases. During the 1660s slave codes were introduced in the British colonies: These codes stated how much food, how much cloth they could receive; they also stated the punishments which had to be given for certain offences, for instance running away. African Americans were deprived of their basic human rights and they had virtually no protection from their masters. They had no legal or civil rights. Segregation – The Jim Crow Laws Because of Jim Crow Laws Murders were conducted in secret and in public by white men. The blacks were harassed and abused, physically and verbally. These violent acts became part of their life. Signs were put up to separate facilities saying whites only and coloured or Negroes appearing on parks, toilets, waiting rooms, theatres, and water fountains ESCAPING SLAVERY THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD By 1850, it was commonly believed that systematic, and wellorganized Underground Railroad assisted fugitive slaves throughout the South to escape slavery. Most of these runaways, perhaps one or two thousand each year, escaped from slave states close to the North or from coastal regions where they fled by hiding on ships or boats. Few received any help from abolitionists until they made it into free state. Once there, safe houses and other African Americans often helped the fugitives from slavery to make it safely to northern cities and even to Canada. Some fugitives did escape from the Deep South, but the idea of an established Underground Railroad was more myth than fact. Abolitionists often dramatized these escapes in antislavery newspapers, and slaveholders who wanted strong fugitive slave laws enforced by the federal government also spread stories about an underground railroad with stations all over the South. The most common motivation for slaves to run was their fear of severe punishments by whipping or worse treatment by cruel slaveholders and overseers. Many runaways were actually truants who ran off to visit wives or husbands, family, and friends on neighboring plantations before returning to face the wrath of their masters. Others were habitual runaways who left every chance they got to escape, usually because someone had insulted them or affronted their dignity. Again, many of these runaways returned once the slaveholder had calmed down or sent out the word through other slaves that no punishment would occur if the fugitive returned quickly. Beginning in the 1850s, southern slaveholders, as well as northern abolitionists, referred to the escape routes used by runaways as part of system of well-traveled trails and safe houses along the way to freedom. Because the railroad captured the imagination of Americans as the technological wonder of the age, these loosely organized and haphazard escape routes and the support system runaways used became known as the Underground Railroad. Underground Railroad Code Words and Phrases Baggage Bundles of wood Canaan Drinking gourd Forwarding Freedom Train Gospel Train Heaven or Promised land Load of Potatoes Moses Parcel Preachers River Jordan Shepherds Station Station Master Stockholder Escaping slaves Fugitives to be expected Canada Big Dipper and the North star Taking fugitive slaves from station to station The Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad Canada Escaping slaves hidden under the farm produce in wagon Harriet Tubman Fugitives to be expected Leaders, speakers underground railroad The Mississippi People escorting slaves Place of safety and temporary refuge, safe-house Keeper of safe-house Donor of money, clothing, or food to the Underground Railroad The wind blows from the South today warning to Underground Railroad workers that fugitive slaves were in the area. When the sun comes back and the first particular time of year good for escaping (early quail calls spring) The river bank makes mighty good road reminder that the tracking dogs cant follow the scent through the water. The dead trees will show you the way reminder that moss grows on the NORTH side of dead trees (just in case the stars arent visible) Left foot, peg foot visual clue for escapees left by an Underground Railroad worker famous because of his wooden leg. The river ends between two hills clue for the directions to the Ohio River A friend with friends password used to signal arrival of fugitives with Underground Railroad conductor The friend of friend sent me password used by fugitives travelling alone to indicate they were sent by the Underground Railroad network Steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus (Words to song) used to alert other slaves that an escape attempt was coming up Using the Code Words and Phrases sheet decode the following messages. The wind blows from the South today and the shepherds have many bundles of wood to keep them warm. Have you seen the station master? load of potatoes need to be taken to the River Jordan and given to the shepherds. It is cloudy tonight. The baggage should be placed by the river bank for it makes mighty good road. The stockholder has arrived. Excess baggage can be forwarded by notifying the station master of its arrival. Tell the station master that Moses knows of parcel which must be forwarded. The parcel, which contains bundles of wood, should be delivered to the shepherds that watch the sheep where the river ends between two hills. The Civil Rights Movement After the war between the North and South (1861-1865), slavery was illegal in America and the blacks were free. But it took another hundred years before there were laws which guaranteed them basic civil rights like the right to live where they want, go to the same schools and universities as other people and have chance at the same jobs as everyone else. In the South, there were still separate black schools, park benches, restaurants, hotels, waiting rooms and even drinking fountains until the 1960s. This was enforced by groups like the Ku Klux Klan (founded in 1865 in Tennessee) whose policy aimed at intimidating black people from taking up any public role in society. The rebellion agianst this system took two major forms: the Niagara movement fought for desegregation, while the back-to-Africa movement advocated the return to Africa. These two movements were later to develop as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the 1950s. The Civil Rights Movement started after the 1954 decision which forbade segregation in schools. Black people were still discriminated in every day life. Laws were passed to ensure equal rights, but discrimination, especially in the South, persisted in the custom and attitudes of the people. When Rosa Parks, 43-year-old black woman in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give her seat to white man one day in 1955, the bus driver had her arrested. That same day, blacks met together in their churches and started to think of ways to fight peacefully for such basic rights as being able to sit down on bus. One of these meetings was led by young Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King. For months, blacks walked miles to work rather than take the bus. Finally, the bus company was losing so much money that they changed their rule and the Supreme Court said that discrimination on public buses was illegal. The 1960s were years of demonstrations, non-violent actions, violent reactions and riots in American cities. In 1963 the movement reached its climax. King led the March on Washington where he delivered his famous I have dream speech. As result of the Civil Rights Movement the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964: series of laws made to ensure equal rights. In 1968 Martin Luther King was shot and killed. After that, many blacks became frustrated and no longer believed that it was possible to get fair share in American society without using violence. Disillusionment about the Civil Rights movement brought about the Black Power Movement which advocated complete withdrawal from Western society as the only response to racism. Malcolm was one of the leaders of the movement. He was assassinated in Harlem in 1965. Many whites also became angry because some of the new laws said that some businesses had to hire certain number of black people and some schools and universities had to reserve certain number of places for black students. One result of the Blacks fight for civil rights has been that black people now are proud to be black and see that black is also beautiful. Black leaders in the past said that the worst thing Whitey had done was teach blacks to hate themselves and their skin colour.