Slavery:
Slavery in America began in the 1600s. The southern states has more slaves as there are many large plantations that grew cotton and other crops which require more labour from the slaves. Most of them are blacks that are brought from Western Africa to do work in the plantations. The usual owners of the slaves are whites though some of the blacks can have slaves too.
If that wasn't enough, slaves still have rules to abide to. What a lot of work!
Here's an example of rules I found......
A Summary of South Carolina Slave Laws:
Prop VI. " The slave, being personal chattel, is at all times liable to be sold absolutely, or mortgaged or leased, at the will of his master."
Prop. XI "Slaves cannot redeem themselves, nor obtain a change of masters, though cruel treatment may have rendered such change necessary for their personal safety."
Prop. X. "Slaves being objects of property, if injured by third persons, their owners, may bring suit, and recover damages for the injury."
Prop. XI "Slaves can make no contract."
Prop. XII Slavery is heriditary and perpetual."
Source: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~prael/projects/gsonnen/page3.html
Back to the novel, we can make a lot of links here. The blacks are not respected as they are seen as slaves or servants to them. They tend to be referred to as waste of space and are badly bullied by the whites. And yeah, I guess this research helped me understand the novel better(although there isn't already much understanding in the novel itself).
The US Civil War:
There are around 11 states in southern America(that is, the south of US, not the continent South America!). Here they are in this very blog to show themselves to you:
South Carolina (December 20, 1860)
Mississippi (January 9, 1861)
Florida (January 10 1861)Alabama (January 11 1861)
Georgia (January 19, 1861)
Louisiana (January 26 1861)
Texas (February 1 1861)
Virginia (April 17, 1861)
Arkansas (May 6, 1861)
North Carolina (May 20 1861)
Tennessee (June 8 1861)
The war started in 1861 and ended in 1865. During this painful 5 years, much has happened that caused United States of America to stand together today. It started when the Republican Party was formed, resulting in the formation of the Confederate States of America, which are the southern states of America. They declared succession from the Union in USA. It was also because they were angered when the Union and the rest of the USA were against slavery.
The Republican Party was led by President Abraham Lincoln(I prefer calling him Lincoln Abraham). He was greatly against the expansion of slavery and was calling on the southern states to stop the practice before suffering further action from the Republican Party. But the Confederate States refused and began their first attack. It was April 12, 1861. Lincoln responded by asking for voluntary troops to strike back.At first, the Confederate States dominated the battles in the east, but was turned down at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Republican Party and Union won battles to the west, splitting the Confederate in two. This counterattack greatly wrecked the Confederate's war-time spirit and on April 9, 1865, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee surrendered at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House.
Though he was allowed to keep his officer's saber and horse, the Confederate States was demolished and rejoined into the Union. Five days later, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and he died early next morning. Andrew Johnson became the new President and the whole five years of hardship and sufferings has thought the Americans that war is disastrous and agreed to organize peace. This is what kept America standing today.
How does it relate to the novel? Well, I don't see much things in it that has relation to the novel. The only thing which I think relates to this is the fact that the whites are the rightful owners of the American land and the rest are just immigrants. Immigrants, are just as good as slaves in the eyes of the whites.
Jim Crow's Laws:
Jim Crow is not a person's name. In fact, it is just a set of segregation laws, rules, and customs which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s. It was the name of the racial caste system. Under this laws, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism.
Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people, Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. Though the blacks were outraged and protests were made, there is nothing much they could do.
Now, we do see this kind of happenings in the novel itself. The people are often called 'niggers'(sorry for any African American reading this), and are usually discriminated by the whites. One part which surfaces this is the fact that they have different churches for different people and they even sit separately when in court.
Hmm......that's a lot of things! Especially when I decided to start adding lot more pictures to make my posts more interesting. I received complains from MYSELF that my posts are too wordy and boring, though the jokes may be there to stop from damaging your brain too much. Well, guess that's all I have for this post. But I am sure more of this will have to be done again in the future. Ugh! May more posts come your way!
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