Please review the readings on Equiano and Diallo of Bondu featured in your text. Take a moment to consider how these personal histories inform your perceptions of the Middle Passage and Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Then take a moment to consider how race and class complicate the norms and assumptions of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
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| from http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/assessment/essays-solomon.faces |
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| from http://dcc.newberry.org/collections/olaudah-equiano |
Although the two accounts do not go into great detail about the Middle Passage and Transatlantic Slave Trade, they do alter my assumptions about the Middle Passage and Transatlantic Slave Trade. After reading the two accounts, I realize that not all Africans who were captured and sold into slavery were illiterate or had a harsh life when enslaved. In fact many slaves like Equiano and Diallo of Bondu were able to buy their freedom and either return home or live comfortably in America. Also from the reading I saw how educated Africans were treated better than ignorant or uneducated Africans. Part of this may come from the fact that it was rare to come across an educated African who could speak multiple languages. Race and class helped to complicate the norms, because if you were an educated African you were more valued and considered a "human". This in turn made it harder for Europeans to keep educated Africans enslaved, thus resulting in profit lost.
ReplyDeleteMany people seem to wrongly assume that all slaves brought from Africa were all illiterate and uneducated. But these people seemed to have risen up in society and have gained pretty large positions considering they were slaves. These slaves look educated and it was interesting to learn that ex slaves used to own slaves as well. The slaves also spoke many different religions and had many different cultures and languages. There was lots of diversity among the passengers heading outbound from Africa.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that whenever the topic of slavery is brought up we are taught that they are literate, but in these two stories of these young men, Equiano and Diallo of Bondu , we see that this was not always the case. Both of these stories show how class complicates the norms of slavery and the Transatlantic Slave trade. It complicates the things because knowledge is power and in these cases knowledge may have meant buying your own freedom, which wouldn't be very profitable for the slave traders. We also see how educated slaves were treated better than the average slave.
ReplyDeleteI was able to draw a connection between Diallo's experience in the slave trade Nikky Finney's National Book award speech as it relates to literacy. As shown by Diallo's ability to get himself out of manual labor by proving his ability to write, Africans who were illiterate lacked the ability to better their living situation. This meant that slave masters had an incentive to keep their slaves illiterate, something highlighted in Finney's speech.
ReplyDeleteIn drawing my opinions of slaves being able to read from the various slave motion pictures we've seen in American Culture, I'm surprised that we did not learn about Equiano until we got into this class. Granted that he may not be fully apart of American History but as an African American I feel like he should have been brought up more to us for a sense of African American history. These gentlemen being able to read and write makes me wonder if they were apart of the causation to have literate slaves executed for their knowledge because no one wanted a smart slave to be able to wager in their own freedoms. I am even more shocked that Equiano was allowed to write a book on abolishing slavery and was not brought up on charges about it. Although the British weren't big on slaves their trade partners( Spain, Portugal and Brazil) were. One of the sites said that he was undermined by supporters of slaves for his credibility to be related to Africa, which makes me inquire why did the supporters not try to cause him any harm because of his endeavors in trying to abolish slavery.
ReplyDeleteMy viewpoint of the Middle Passage and Transatlantic slave trade did change significantly after reading these two accounts. I believed that most slaves traded were those from primordial tribes and those who have never seen anyone that looked different from them before. It's sort of weird to find out that those captured into slavery were never meant to be slaves themselves, but to sell slaves for their benefit. Going back to Nikki Finney's video speech in class, we don't recognize how many slaves brought here were able to read and write and possibly speak different languages. Were the educated slaves a greater commodity than those stripped from the primitive regions? From the reading we know they were treated better because they were able to communicate their freedom but How much were they worth in comparison to those who couldn't read or write?
ReplyDeleteIn reading the passages on Equiano and Diallo of Bondu it really made me realized that our modern American views and perceptions on anything slave related are so distorted. Through movies, reenactments, and accounts in American History books we have become normalized to the idea that all slaves were low class illiterate people who had no hope. In reading the accounts of these two people i've learned that in fact slaves could climb up the economical ladder and not only buy their own freedom but in some instances they even owned slaves. Imagine what we could uncover if we didn't just take that brief synopsis in an American History book as "law". What if we dug deep to find our true roots instead of brushing the task off?
ReplyDeleteThese readings had an effect on my viewpoint of the Middle Passage and Transatlantic Slave Trade; my thought has typically been that slave were traded, mistreated, and used as commodity. With Equiano, he was able to educate enough and be close to the British and with Diallo of Bondu he was able to become literate in English as he fought for his lost freedom. Race and class plays a major part in complicating things along the Transatlantic because of the biological blackness it is assumed that you're a slave. Diallo was not a slave, but trading them when he himself was captured and traded as such. Literacy plays a role as well because Equiano was educated enough to write his own book, while Diallo could speak, read, and write two languages. Seems as if the smarter you were the higher class you could gain and more importantly freedom.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading I was able to understand that Equiano Was able to get close to the British and learn English and he mastered it. I thought Equiano was a slave but aftere reading I saw that he was actually a free man and he gained that freedom because of his education.
ReplyDeleteAn assumption that the trans-atlantic slave trade made was that Africans as a race were subject to commodification. The very alleged fact this assumption is based upon is shown to not really matter by Equiano and Diallo. The reason why they rose to freedom was because they had skills that allowed them to fill roles reserved for europeans. I was surprised to see that these men were able to get free though. I really think that there were a lot more Equiano's and Diallo's out there, but it was the hands that they fell into that allowed them to rise out of slavery. Please correct my perspective if you don't agree.
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