Slavery: Letters from Descendants 1932

Came across this...

Slavery As We Heard It:

(from the page →)In the Fall of 1932 the students at Jonesboro Elementary School, Greensboro, N.C., under the direction of Mr. Abraham H. Peeler, undertook an oral history project to document the memories of their parents, grandparents, or relatives. They captured these memories in brief compositions, which were placed in a folder "Slavery As We’Ve Heard It."

Facts: Twisted Perspective

Fact I came across lately:

- Cowrie shells were used as currency up until the late 1800's in some parts of the world.

Perspective change > Many enslaved transported to this continent, had cowrie shells hidden on on their persons... They came here with currency. Meaning they were active in lives, selling, trading... living. Of course this is the case, but it is imprinted on some memory of mine, by years of societal teaching, that my ancestors were just running around with no clothes on, savages, doing nothing of importance on the African Continent... so it was okay and really to their betterment to be taken and taught "something". You know, I am by no means uneducated or unfamiliar to Tru African, American history, but there are still these little "triggers" or "keys" embedded in my mind/memory that act of their own accord, involuntarily. Self induced restraints/racism put there by this society's collective mind.

- Wars were occurring on the African Continent while The [En]Slave[d] Trade was going on.

This is something that I did not know up until earlier this year. I learned this from a Spanish friend who was taught this in school. I was never taught this in school.

Perspective change > Okay so here goes another one... I always had the impression there was no fight put up on the part of my ancestors... now that I think of it, the image in my head was of some simpletons just accidently being caught and not know what was going on or being tricked... poor pititul fools. Wow that is really a sick thing to think about one ancestors (about one's self?), especially when it is not the Truth! and to not know or realize or understand why that deep dark feeling is there or to even be to ashamed to admit that feeling is there... wow, what a mind u-know-what! And how does this believing this self-deprecating notion/non-sense affect who you believe you are and what you believe you can do? Another self-induced restraint.

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I remember seeing on PBS about 20 some years ago that documents were found in Charlotte, North Carolina (? I believe that's were it was) written by the cities founders about how with the end of the Civil War, the chains needed to be invisible ones of... psychological chains. I wish I could find something about these documents on the net, but I have not been able to as of yet.

Why not now?

Why not have slave festivals now? Okay we are not technically enslaved any longer, but was that all the slave festivals were about? I can't rightly say... but what I feel was, it was the desire to come together, celebrate, commune with others who shared similar traditions, sing, dance, taking the advantage to have some semblance of fun in the horror of their circumstance. I would greatly enjoy attending one of these now. And the reasons to have one has not greatly changed. As matter of fact, it seems to me we need one now more than ever... with community disappearing, traditions vanishing.

What would it take to put one of these on?

Slave Festivals

http://books.google.com/books?id=DhlT0z9DX3cC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=
slave+festivals&source=web&ots
=sP4Sq9y-Rw&sig=ghDoHVVV0Rvzcwl9OYQya8ZFg4s

Never heard of slave festivals before... Just popped in my head while cleaning the kitchen to look for them, so I typed it in Google and the above↑ is one of the links that came up... Google book/The Sounds of Slavery by Graham J. White and Stephen White.

So on the page of the link it is talking about The Pinkster Festival... A Slave Holiday originally Dutch/New Jersey-New York...

"black people gathered on a plain outside town, divided up into groups according to their different
Nations and danced to the hollow sound of a drum made from a hollow tree trunk. The grating rattling noise of pebbles or shells in a small basket and the sound of many bangers (banjos), while other blacks accompanied the dancers in song."

Hmmm... pretty interesting. From the book, these celebrations occurred from around the 1790's through the late 1800's. I don't know how to copy and paste from Google Books (and I guess it would make sense if you can't), but there is more to read there.

-King Charles, African born (en)slaved "whose authority is absolute & will is law during the festivals"

-Guinea Dance

-Jonkunnu (my note: Junkanoo in the Bahamas, were my mother's side is from) North Carolina; gumba boxes (related to goombay summer?)

-Corn Shucking Festival (pg. 10) nice part about after festival would take their enslaver and through him up in the air and carry him into the house, place him in his chair, comb his hair and cross his legs, then leave him be. Hmmm... this sounds like some type of rite... I wonder what it meant?

-Highlight of Corn Shucking Festival; singing

This book seems to be full of lots of information, previously unbeknownst to me. I will be reading this more in the future.

Wow...

What was I thinking? I guess I can romanticize if I don't tell the truth...

definition:

–verb (used with object)

1.	to make romantic; invest with a romantic character: Many people romanticize the role of an editor.

–verb (used without object)

2.	to hold romantic notions, ideas, etc.

Romantic:

-fanciful; impractical; unrealistic:

-imbued with or dominated by idealism

-imaginary, fictitious, or fabulous

So what other option could there be but to tell the truth... I guess I must've held a belief somewhere that images I saw of Europeans of the era were the truth... all posed and gentile and innocent... just as if they had simple lovely lives as if by magic or the wonderful hand of God, not by the forced labor of African & Indian peoples... silly me, eh?

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So I found out some things about clothing & lifestyle of the enslaved (still researching about free black persons), also some about sharecroppers.

Making separate future posts.

Some keywords/notes:

-Osnaburg / Negro Cloth

-Bonnets

- Patterns (http://harriets.com/workdresses.htm )

- Google search [WPA slave narratives]

- Arkansas sharecroppers http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brown/photos.htm

- Stories from Dad and Unc

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I belong to a nice enuff forum for period clothing... I joined several (?) months ago and just revisited this morn and of course what do I surf click my way onto? these words written by a young lady (not on the forum but on her off site blog)

"I like to read Mr. Doug Phillips blog on the Vision Forum website. I have learned much from what I have read there. In the first half of this year, much of what he was writing was about our nations history and what our nation is now considering our nations history. It set me to thinking:

It is a sad day when our nation rejects God’s hand as a blessing in our history. When they call the early settlers “invaders”. When they say that Pocahontas was forced to become a Christian and was actually murdered! (That is not all they say about her.) When they call Captain John Smith (a true Christian) a liar. It is sad that all these things are happening, but they are true. When all these happen one begins to ask “why”.

Why are they making up these horrible stories? Why are they trying to rewrite history? I think it is because they want to get rid of the memory of God in history as much as possible.

They have already done their best to take the LORD’s hand out of the beginning of the earth and our creation. Now they want to take His hand out of our nations history as well. Our country does not want to admit that an omnipotent God exists. If they can rewrite history without Him, they will feel more comfortable. They will not be confronted with what the LORD has done if they erase it from the history books.

Our nation needs prayer. Our world needs prayer. We as Christians must pray for our fellow man and not only must we pray - we must shine. We must be a “light” to “the world.” We must be like the city on the hill that “cannot be hid.” (Matthew 5:14) We must shine for our King. We must show the world that He does exist. He created our world and us. He does have a hand in history. He created history. History is His Story!

Praise the LORD for what He has done in HIS-story!"

When I read this, of course my stomach started hurting... so many thoughts reeling. What are kids being taught and I would have to think by WHOM? Wow... It started to mess up my morn, but you know what, this has nothing to do with the truth that IS. I feel for these children. How horrible to be raised that there is a specific group that holds the hand of God and that God belongs to them so they can do whatever they want because it is under the hand of their God.

Anyways... prime example of why I will continue to fight all the psychotic tendencies and nuances embedded in American society and be ME... all of ME which embodies all truths of my ancestors. At least that is how I see it. May not be true for all. If I will not allow myself to be seen, truth will be hidden. To quote the child above We must be a “light” to “the world.” We must be like the city on the hill that “cannot be hid.” (Matthew 5:14) ... nuff said.

Can I romanticize too?

Searching for romantic pictures of blacks in the 1800's...