Project Synopsis

With my research paper I am looking at the comparison and contradiction of human trafficking and Colonial slavery in Europe. There are many things that are different and then there are many things that are the same between these two different things that happened at very different time periods. Some of the things that are different are the ways that they got to the places that they are going. The things that they experienced, what the public view of the situation is, and how they were able to get out of the situation that they were placed into.

The first thing that I talked about in my paper is exactly how these slaves got to these new places to live out the rest of their lives in hell. For the colonial times there were people that took these many Africans on ships and transported them that way to these new places. There are two different slave trades that occurring during the time of African slavery and I look into both of them and how they are both very much the same and at the same time they are different in their own little ways. The Mediterranean and the Atlantic slave trade also happened in different time periods but because they are dealing with the same kind of slavery you can kind many similarities and differences. When it comes to human trafficking it is not that easy. During the colonial times slavery was considered legal for many years. But human trafficking from the beginning was considered illegal which means that many have to hide and the best way to hide your “merchandise” is to drive to these other countries from the places that you picked up the girls from.

The next thing that I talked about in my paper is the experience that the many different slaves went through. Every slave is going to have different experiences but at the same time they are going to have the same. The difference that they have is where they were, if they worked on a field, in the house, or on a ship. The other thing that is different is whether they were female or male. That made the difference if they were going to be the personal slaves of their male master or if they were just going to be the slave of their masters’ children. The things that made them the same were the kinds of punishment that they got and the way they were overall treated.

The next thing that I talked about is how they got out of this experience and live the rest of their lives. Of course the information that I am using is coming from slaves that were able to get out of the situation that they were in but many were not that lucky. There were many people that were not able to tell their story to others because they would die before they could see the better part of life once again. For all of them getting out of the situations that they were in was not easy no matter what the time period was. The most common for both of the time periods was them running away but the difference is how they ran away and got away from these people that were doing harm to them.

Another thing that is easy to compare is the way that the public views what is going on around them. During the colonial times the people were more accepting to the things that were going on around them especially if were where a white person living in Europe. When it comes to human trafficking today it is not that easy. From the beginning governments have been trying to stop human trafficking and the things that it is doing to people. Governments and even religious groups are doing everything that they can in order to stop this.

With the last thing that I talk about is how colonial slavery ended and looking at all the things that are the same and different then we can look at how people or organizations can end human trafficking forever even though it is not that easy. Colonial Slavery didn’t end in one day. It was ended over many years and after many people fought for it. When it comes to human trafficking it is very different. These people are being sold for sex which is something that is not going to go away any time soon.

Short Essay #3

Introduction

There are many things that changed over the two hundred year period of 1800 to 2000. Many things socially benefited Africans but sometimes not in the best of ways. There were many Europeans that started the social change of Africans and Africans followed after them. Then again there were some instances that Africans started the fight for this change and Europeans either followed with the whole support and others just gave in. One of the things that intrigued me the most about all the things that happened during this time period was the transition of European women not wanting anything to do with Africans to wanting to marry them and start a family with them. This change was the most interesting to me because there were still many people in Europe that were against it and would have socially segregated the whole family because of this true love between different races.

Europeans View of Africans at First

The view of Africans when they first started to mix with Europeans was this view of them being a lesser race. They were sometimes compared to being like apes. This view came out from them being slaves and with all the stories that came out of Africa. They even tried to play things off as though if you marry a African then you were going to die tragically instead of living your life to the fullest and dying peacefully of old age. Because they were black they were savage and couldn’t take care of you like a white European could. “From Othello through works by Balzac such as Le Negre and Le Vicaire des Ardemers, and indeed, right up to recent films like Jungle Fever by Spike Lee, convention dictates that sex across the racial divide invariably comes to no good, and very often ends in the violent death of one or both of the protagonists.”[1] Most mixed racial relationships didn’t actually end like this but they wouldn’t have known that unless they married them and tried to live their lives with them. If they had that mindset then they wouldn’t even try and have a relationship with them. Also Europeans usually wouldn’t even look at them as being human or even contact with them. They were not worth it in their minds. Throughout time though there were some that were different. In the essay Into the heard of empire – Black Britain written by Barbara Bush, she mentions, “But individual blacks were only deemed ‘equals’ because they were ‘cultured’ and educated and has passed the ‘civilization test.”[2] This didn’t happen everywhere in Europe and was very un-common when you think at Europe as a whole.

How the vision of Africans Changed

This very discriminating view point of Africans changed drastically many years later. Many white European males still thought of Africans as being a lower race and wouldn’t even talk to them. For white European women it was a different story. There were more and more European women that would either like to take Africans hand in marriage or already have. The only thing that they had a problem with was how they could look to others if they did. They thought that Africans were not clean and this was even shown in everyday commercials. “This seems to betray primarily a middle class obsession with cleanliness, but the girl’s impression of black people could have been reinforced by any number of soap advertisements from the time showing blacks scrubbing their skins in an effort to turn themselves white.”[3] Even though there was this problem women still went past that, found out who their African lover was really as a person, and turned the relationship to not being completely sexual but an honest relationship of love. There was even one women that had a child with an African male and even though she knew she might get discriminated she kept the child and loved him like an all-white family would love their children. “She confessed that she had been worried at first about having a coloured baby, but now that her son was four she felt able to say ‘I love him despite all the worries he has caused me. Je ne regretted rein.’”[4] Considering the time period with everything going on around these families and with all the racists views even with mixed race children mothers had a right to be worried and not want to keep their children. For this mother to keep her child and love him unconditionally was a very interesting situation.

How Africans Reacted to This Change

Africans reaction to this was mixed. With Africans getting married to white European women meant that their status overall was risen. “For some, to marry a black man and attempt to improve him would be an act of charity, a personal mission of civilize.”[5] It was not very much but just enough to not be at the complete bottom any more. Even after World War One their status changed a little just because of the hate that Europeans had for Germans. “Besides, he added, it was better for a French woman to marry a black man than a boche (German).”[6] Many other things happened because of the Great War. One of the things is that many white men died in the war so many white women said that they would marry an African because there was no one else to marry and try and start a family with. The other thing was that Africans were sometimes even better suitors than less respectable white Europeans. “Others stated that their physical repugnance at black people would soon wear off once they became used to them, and anyway, what was described as the ‘special odour’ of blacks was less disgusting than the breath of an alcoholic.”[7] Knowing that white European women would rather put up with an Africans then a drunk could be seen as bad but then again it is also showing how they are slowly moving up in class.

Conclusion

This phenomena of white European women wanting to take Africans in marriage is very interesting considering what all had happened in the past and the view of Africans from 1600 tell then. Seeing women being the one that would take that step forward to raise the status is interesting in itself because they were women. With the way that social status worked during this time period most women were not to make those kinds of decisions and would have been looked down on for a very long time because of it. Africans status was slowly changing even though it started mainly with women the thing is that it didn’t change very much and they were still considered very low on the social ladder.

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[1] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 133 – 134.

[2] Barbara Bush, “Imperialism, Race and Resistance,” (London: Routledge, 1999), 214

[3] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 137

[4] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 138

[5] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 137

[6] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 134 – 135

[7] Owen White, “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination,” in Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France (Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 06/2001) 137

Short Essay #2

Introduction

The connection between Christianity and social status was that there might be religion to help bring up their spirits but they were still the lowest on the social ladder. There were many Africans that were considered free during this time period in Europe. Even though they were free they were still prosecuted even in the churches that they went to. Religion did some good to Africans for bringing them together and masters using it to their advance. These things are connected but not by very much.

Social Status of Africans

With one of the document that I read called “Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France” written by Pierre H. Boulle, it talks a lot about the social status that Africans had but it had nothing to do with religion. With the new laws that were in France, Africans were free citizens. “Slavery, however, was meant to be exclusively contained in the colonies, and the laws in France remained unchanged, stressing that ‘slaves acquire [their] liberty by the laws of the realm as soon as they touched land.’”[1] This was very confusing for both White Europeans and Africans but it was still Africans chance at freedom. They were not equal but they were at least free. Their status in society would always be low or nothing compared to White Europeans but they still wanted that chance.

In another document called “Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France” written by Sue Peabody, it takes the same subject as in the previous document that I talked about but it went in a slightly different way. One of the interesting things was this document states that eventually the law changed so that a slave couldn’t become free when the get onto land. There was a lot more to it now and the white Europeans wanted to keep fellow whites happy by getting rid of the loop holes in the law. The other thing was the way that they look the social status of Africans and Whites and turned it to their advantage. “His case demonstrates that they judicial elite of France were willing to preserve the notion of France as the seat of liberty, while at the same time promoting the image of blacks as an inferior race.”[2] Africans were slowly becoming free but nothing was going to make them equal to white Europeans no matter what they did. Whites always had to be superior and had to have someone below them that they could control.

In “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” really puts into perspective the status of Africans as sailors compared to what you have learned in the past. In the third chapter it really goes into how much sea faring was very different for Africans compared to if they were to live on land. When you think about what you have learned in the past is that Africans lived on plantations and they would be discriminated by every white in the town. “I now thought my condition much mended, I had sails to lie on, and plenty of good victuals to eat, and everybody on board used me very kindly, quite contrary to what I had seen of any white people before, I therefore began to think that they were not all if the same disposition.”[3] On land they were not able to go anywhere without being noticed. When they were on a boat you are in a small environment, you know everyone, and you depend on others to get you through the voyage safely.[4]

In another document “Questioning Slavery” by James Walvin, he looks more at the social aspect of Africans not only in Europe but also in their colonies around the world. Africans throughout the world during this time period were still seen as an inferior race/species to everyone else. At the same time they were still depended on by many white Europeans. At first people wanted to use Native Americans for their labor force but too many were dying from diseases that were brought over from Europe. Africans became the people that they needed to make production commercialism high.[5] This document doesn’t talk about Christianity but it starts to look at how Africans started to gain their status and how people would want to start to put religion into the mixture.

Christianity Mixed In

Also in “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudan Ewuiano” in the 12^th chapter it really goes into the religion and how it plays on Africans lives. This is the last chapter in his book and it is one that really shows how religion played a big part in people’s lives. He wants to go back to his country and to liberate his people. “On these terms I consented to the governor’s proposal to go to Africa, in hope of doing good, if possible, amongst my countrymen, so, in order to have me sent out properly, we immediately wrote the following letters to the late Bishop of London: …”[6] The thing that you have to ask is does he want to change people because he thinks that they need to find religion? Will it make them feel like they are higher up in society because of this? Or did he just want to finally go home?

When it comes to religion and Africans not everything was that easy. In the document “Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic” written by Gretchen Holbrook Berzina, there were Africans that were not even slaves but even if they were members of churches they were still segregated. “He became a full member of the meeting in 1808, at a time when, despite the Quakers’ antislavery stance it was ‘the custom [for] servants – black or white – [to be] separated from the rest of any church congregation by being seated in a designated section, such as the black pews or the balcony. Blacks would have been assumed to be servants.”[7] When it comes to their status in society he was very high up. He was free, a captain, and he owns his own ship. But because he was black he couldn’t even have respect in a Quaker Church that is known for being against slavery.[8] “Whether they were enslaved or free, they became perceived as a community through the combined lenses of race, religion, and travel and ‘in the vanguard of defining a new black ethnicity for the many African peoples dispersed by Atlantic slavery.”[9] Religion helped them come together but they were still separated from the rest of the world as a race.

Some African slaves actually used religion as a way to get away from all the pain and anger that they felt towards their masters and overseers. In the document “Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade,” written by Christopher Leslie Brown, he talks about how religion was used to the masters advantage. “The promotion of Christianity, by contrast, seemed to offer the most promising way to sanctify human bondage and restrain its worse abuses without fomenting revolutionary change.”[10] The people during this time period were using Christianity to keep slavery instead of ending it. They were working on making slavery better if you want to say that but it didn’t work.[11] Slavery is always going to be slavery and Africans are always not going to like it.

Conclusion

Religion did play a major role in what went on in Europe and especially with African Americans. Religion helped many with the way that they lived their lives and then other times it just helped white Europeans. The only thing that wouldn’t change with Africans no matter where they went was their social status and the way that Europeans saw them as a race and as a species.

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[1] Pierre H. Boulle, “Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France,” The Journal of The Historical Society VI:I (March 2006): 3

[2] Sue Peabody, “Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France,” Historian, 56:3 (1994: Spring): 10

[3] Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, (Modern Library paperback Edition, 2004) 45

[4] Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, (Modern Library paperback Edition, 2004)

[5] James Walvin, Questioning Slavery, (Routledge 1996)

[6] Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, (Modern Library paperback Edition, 2004) 235

[7] Gretchen Hollbrook Gerzina, “Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 100:1, (Winter 2001): 13 - 14

[8] Gretchen Hollbrook Gerzina, “Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 100:1, (Winter 2001)

[9] Gretchen Hollbrook Gerzina, “Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 100:1, (Winter 2001): 9

[10] Christopher Leslie Brown, Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade, (Cambridge University Press, 2008) 5

[11] Christopher Leslie Brown, Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade, (Cambridge University Press, 2008)