African Americans (Essay Sample)

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What legal, political, social and cultural circumstances in American society shaped the lives of African Americans both before and after the Civil War?
The enslaving of African American has its beginning in early mid-17th century. The courts and legislation unlike their white counterparts served their masters for their life time and this status of slavery was inherited by their children. Slavery in the United States ended in the mid-19th century. Abraham Lincoln liberation announcement proclaimed this freedom starting from the freedom of those slaves outside the control of the government. The slavery legally ended after the approval of the thirteenth amendment in U.S. Constitution.
The African American slavery in the United States was first reported in the colonial period between the mid-17th century to late 18th century and the period of the independence through the civil war of eighteenth century to mid nineteenth century. Before independence slavery existed in all American colonies and this was not debatable. Independence enabled the states in the north New England, New york and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to see that slavery was inconsistent to the principles of the uprising and institutes programs of regular freedom. By the early 19th century the north had three thousand slaves working in large plantations in New Jersey. In the North it was easy to abolish slavery because the few number of slaves. The motivation for the abolition was the white working class who did not want to be rivaled by the slaves for the jobs.
The southern states the populace of the African American including the freed and the slaves were more in Virginia and South Carolina most being from African descent. Because the ignorance to the African culture the whites felt threatened and had a belief they were savages and could be a threat to the survival of the white. The southerners believed slavery was a means of control. The blacks in the south were important for the economy. After independence the southerners resisted abolishing slavery by creating divisions of Free states and slave states leading to civil war. The evolution of slavery is in the stages of developmental, high-profit and decadent according to historians. The development stage there was clearing of forests and building of plantations and places were unknown and dangerous and the slaves faced challenges diseases and hostile inhabitants. In high profit slave owners earned vast income from the cash crops for export in the stage the slaves were forced to plant, cultivate and harvest the crops for the market. In decadent phase of slavery reached because the soils nutrients were exhausted there was no labor intensity.
The southern slavery passed through the developmental and high profit stages and this were upper South Delaware, Maryland and Virginia before the independence and the process varied from state to state. The depleted lands in Maryland and Virginia planters in the late 18th century caused the owners to release their slaves. The releasing of slaves was because others believed in human freedom, some could not feed the surplus slaves and the old and feeble were not of much help to the slavery. A law was passed in Virginia to protect the slaves. The owners were denied the right to free valueless slaves. The slaves' owners in the south believed slavery will gradually die out.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl describes some of the challenges faced by slave women. What are some of the challenges depicted in the book, and how did Linda struggle to maintain her dignity in the face of these challenges? Do you think she succeeded?
Treatment of slaves was dependent on the owners and if the owners were kind they were treated well like members of the household. In areas where the mistress was cruel the slaves could miss food and no self-worth was provided for them. In the issue of Linda in the household of Dr. Flint...