Essays on Underground Railroad

1. Douglass’s main point stated that Independence Day cannot be considered a holiday as the problem of slavery has not yet been solved. This speech discovers the conflict between the slave mentality and human formation, between the state of mental, spiritual emptiness and longing for freedom. I agree with his speech because Douglas preached the idea of unity and indivisibility of the country, which is necessary for a true patriot and a loyal citizen. He believed that every citizen should be interested primarily in the development of the nation and the state as a whole which is incompatible ...

Anderson, J. “Letter from a Freedman to his Old Master,” New York Daily Tribune, 22 August 1865, p. 7. After the Civil War, numerous former slave owners tried to contact their slaves and convince them to return and work on the plantation as tenant farmers. In 1865, Jourdan Anderson received such invitation and decided to write a letter back to his former master where he explains the terms on which the ex-slave would return. At that time, Jourdan was residing in Ohio, working on a decent job, free and quite independent. Anderson writes a remarkable and brilliant letter, which ...

Abstract

The slaves in the Southern part of US faced inhuman treatment where they were by law, the property of their owners. The slaves were subjected to harsh treatments including working for long hours in the fields while returning at night only to be met by meager food to fulfill their hunger needs. The husbands were taken from their wives with professional slave catchers tasked with tracking the runaway slaves and torturing those who were suspected to have the intentions of escaping. To be able to save the slaves and make them see the light of freedom, it was necessary ...

Annotated Bibliography: African American History

Mayer, R. (2000). "Africa As an Alien Future": The Middle Passage, Afrofuturism, and Postcolonial Waterworlds. Amerikastudien / American Studies, 45(4), 555-566. Palmer, C. A. (1995). From Africa to the Americas: Ethnicity in the Early Black Communities of the Americas. Journal of World History, 6(2), 223-236. According to Ruth Mayer’s Africa as an Alien Future (2000), there remains a connection between the African Diaspora community and the motherland. In the author’s words, African culture remains evident even in contemporary works such as “literature, installation art, [and] pop music” in which the passages between Africa and ...

McKissack P C & Mckissac F (1995) “ The Royal Kingdoms of Ghana, Mali and Songhay: Life in Medieval Africa” and The Gale Group Inc (2003) “Middle Passage”. Dictionary of American History In the first article by the McKissacks, the authors illuminate important aspects of the African American heritage by introducing three main kingdoms of medieval Africa. Songhay, Mali and Ghana were the main countries. Based on contemporaneous accounts, folklore and modern scholarly research, the authors’ discussions covers the customs, people, political history and origins of these civilizations. The authors provide insightful information about the world history and also Africans particularly ...

When a person does a thing that can help many people, he or she is remembered even after he or she is dead. Many people like Harriet Tubman are always remembered for what they did when they were alive. To those who do not have a clue as to who Harriet Tubman was, she was a woman who faced many challenges from when she was a child to the point when she was an adult; however, she helped many people despite the challenges. Araminta Ross was the name that Tubman was given just after she was born. She was ...

Introduction

The real name of Harriet Tubman at birth was Araminta Ross. She was one of the eleven children of Benjamin and Harriet. She was “hired out” as a nurse of a small child by one of the masters. She used to stay awake throughout the night to ensure that the small baby did not cry and wake the mother. When Ross fell asleep, the master would whip her. The brutal suffering she went through since young made her determined to gain freedom. She is remembered as one of the conductors who freed many slaves through the "Underground Railroad." In ...

The Name of the School

My Life as a Slave My name is Elijah Johnson and I was born a slave. I say I was born a slave because that was what became my identity for the first fifteen years of my life. It did not matter that I was a boy, a child, a brother or a son. I was looked upon as a slave and treated like one all through my formative years. I was born in the year 1850, on the 23rd of October. I know because like every other child born on the plantation my birth was recorded too. Even ...