Author Question: Discuss the importance and origin of music, language and folk literature for the slaves. How can ... (Read 59 times)

formula1 · **on:** Aug 9, 2018

Discuss the importance and origin of music, language and folk literature for the slaves. How can these be seen as elements of resistance?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

How did slaves resist their situation and the oppression of slavery? What groups were more likely to resist? Why?

What will be an ideal response?

Melissahxx · **Reply #1 on:** Aug 9, 2018

Answer to Question 1

Ideal Answer: The ideal answer should:
1. Describe the African origin of African American cultural forms in music, language, and literature: the banjo, Creole and pidgin languages, and Br'er Rabbit stories.
2. Explain the importance of African cultural forms within African American culture as a continuation of identity and resistance within the confines and dehumanization of slavery.
3. Explain that whites expected blacks to assimilate to American culture; any preservation of African culture was viewed as a potential threat to discipline and efficiency, though some African practices were allowed by the master class.

Answer to Question 2

Ideal Answer: The ideal answer should:
1. Comment on the commonality of resistance in multiple forms on a daily basis in most circumstances regarding slavery.
2. Define resistance as passive vs. active or direct vs. indirect. Slaves faked happiness, sickness, injury, and love for their masters. They actively broke tools, ran away, and sometimes fought back violently alone or in small groups, as in the Stono rebellion in 1739 in South Carolina.
3. Explain that resistance took place in the northern colonies primarily through arson attacks.
4. Define groups who resisted more than others: New Africans who had just arrived were the most likely to resist the regime before they had become seasoned to plantation work and assimilated to slave and European society in North America.