Exodus: Themes Of Self-Determination And Freedom

Coming to America was very scary and dangerous. Children had to leave their leave moms and dad and ride on boats alone. They faced many challenges such as sickness. People on the boat got sea sick or got the flu. They were contagious so they gave it to others. The sea was rough, some boats never made it to the New World. Many people died on the way to the New World. They survived on very little food and water they could only store as much as what would fit on the boat. They couldn’t drink sea water because it would dehydrate them even more and when they got to America they would have to find money to get a house and food. Life was very difficult because parents had to find a job. By the time some of the kids reached the New World the parents

There was once a time in the south where there was slavery. SLAVERY. But, the U.S.A finally got rid of it after the Great American Civil War. So then all blacks were free, but were they really free? They often asked themselves this question as they found themselves sharecropping, in debt or hung up in Klan violence. But then God offered a way out, Kansas, where the deer and the antelope play. Blacks would be truly free and have a chance at a normal life. Then that’s when the blacks started migration, an exodus like Moses’, The Black Exodus.

But, in order to get here, they had to go through the voyage. It was full of dreadful conditions, from eating “old and sharply-salted food and meat” to disease and death at a high rate. He explains that some women had to die because they, “could not give birth under the circumstances, was pushed through a loophole (porthole) in the ship and dropped into the sea.” This was horrible but that’s not it, children had to see their parents die or vice versa. These conditions explain that coming to the American colonies was not that simple but rather difficult due to the horrifying conditions one had to face during the voyage and then when they had

By sailing the Atlantic Ocean in the late 1500s, Christopher Columbus publicized and popularized the area known as North America. The area soon began to be known as the area of new beginning, thus sparking a fervor of immigration to the new land. While many used the area to spread religious ideals, the primary reason most people left the land to have a new start in life. Specifically, the New World was settled primarily because of the desire to find gold and the importance of trading, while religion was used as a means of self-justification for their means of reaching their goal.

With the discovery of the New World, a wave of settlers from various European nations crossed the Atlantic with unique motivations for their voyage. Whether they migrated for personal prosperity, or aimed to garner wealth and glory for their country, each individual was met with the marvels and trials of relocating thousands of miles from their birthplace. Spanish conquistadors were among the first to settle the Americas, in current day Mexico and the American Southwest. English pioneers and settlers followed shortly, colonizing the Southern Atlantic coast of America. However, geography was not the only distinction between the Spanish and English colonies.

wealthy and were swindled into years of free labor in the freshly colonized America, by offering them “an all-expenses paid trip” to the New World.

With economic conditions in England worsening, European immigrants travelled to the New World in pursuit of a better life. From 1607 to 1700, over half a million Europeans emigrated to the New World. Some set their sights on the West Indies, looking to build their fortune on sugar cane once they acquired land. The vast majority of settlers came as indentured servants, packed like cattle on ships to the Americas. Indentured servants were similar to slaves, they could be bought and sold, whipped, and subject to punishment from their masters. However, indentured servants earn their freedom after serving several years. On the contrary, some settlers were able to pay their way into the New World; although the process to the Americas was difficult

Natives on the other hand were very difficult to enslave because many died due to diseases and lack of immunity to them and they were very knowledgeable with the surrounding terrain if they were to ever escape. To comply with the demand for cultivation of cash crops, a shipping route that imported Africans to the new world was the famous “horrendous six-to eight- week long ocean voyage known as the Middle Passage” (Goldfield, The American Jorney, 55). The European powers traded these slaves for guns, rum and other textiles. But in order to get these slaves, Africans kidnapped and traded other Africans for these resources. The African kingdom traded slaves who have done punishable crimes in their country for valuable resources that could help protect the kingdom from other rulers in Africa. Once the Africans were enslaved, they now begin their long journey to the New World on the compacted ships. Similar to indentured servants on their long voyage to the New World, the living conditions for the slaves on board were disgusting and unimaginable, they lived in their own filth struggling to barely survive the week long passages and slaves were often tightly packed below the deck. The slaves who did survive were then bought and sold just like cattle, often being separated from loved ones

When crossing to go to the new world it was no luxury boat ride servants endured

In the book Faith in Exile: Seeking Hopes in Times of Doubt by Joseph T. Kelley, this book focuses on an individual’s quest for meaning and spirituality in our lives. In the beginning of the book Joseph T. Kelley describes how every year there are millions of people who take a journey to a place that is considered to be a holy or sacred place (FIE 8-9). In the book Kelley discusses how for Holy Celebrations include fasting and feasting, which relates to my Catholic religion because during Lent, we are supposed to fast, which is for remembrance that God could not eat or drink for forty days and forty nights (FIE 9). In order for individuals to be able to experience the spiritual life, you must be able to find a place that is considered scared and holy to you (FIE

The taking of Africans and the transportation to the “New World” is called the Middle Passage. This was the most cruel and tortuous trip anyone could imagine. Africans would be forced to march up to one thousand miles to the coast line. There was a fifty percent survival on this march. Once on the ships the slaves would be bound together, made to lie side by side. Disease was rampant aboard the ships, because of the vomit, feces and death. If you were fortunate enough you would receive two meals a day which would include rice beans and maybe a piece of meat. Slaves were forced to exercise so they would appear to be healthy when

Exodus, by Leon Uris, is a novel of genuine Affirmation. One of the most prevalent of the affirmative themes is the idea of growth. Many of the characters learn a lot about themselves, and change tremendously in a positive way. Earlier in their lives, these characters decided to live their life one way, but throughout the book they change, and join each other to unite. Fighting for their common religion and fundamental rights brought them together in a way that is barely imaginable.

Meanwhile in the Americas, European empires were growing, and they realized that they needed a more efficient work force. They had tried using Native Americans, but they usually died from European diseases. Europeans couldn’t work because of the diseases that the tropical climate gave them. It seemed like Africans would be the perfect solution to their problems. They were used to the tropical climate and immune to its diseases, had experience in agriculture, and there was already a market for them. This introduced the slave trade to North America, and in 1619 the first New World slaves were brought to Jamestown, Virginia. Most of the earlier slaves to journey the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade were from Windward Coast and Senegambia (Present-day Mauritania), but later expanded all along the coast of Africa. The Atlantic Slave Trade was also given the name “Middle Passage”, since it was the middle leg in the Triangular trade.

Columbus’s big plan for Hispaniola since the beginning was to take advantage of the natives and take their land, and the gold he believed was located there. He built the first fort in the Western Hemisphere, and left some of his men to find and store gold there. Columbus had to ask for a little more help from their majesties, he convinced them by saying he would take them “as much gold as they need ... and as many slaves as they ask” (Zinn,6 ) Columbus’s plans affected the natives, in many ways; first of all they were going to lose their land, and also they were going to be taken captive for slave labor.

The thick and dense San Francisco fog twists and turns between the magnificent arches of the Golden Gate Bridge; my father’s old 4RUNNER cuts through the intimidating fog like a hot knife through butter. It is August 28th, 2012; the first day at my new school, Stuart Hall for Boys. My heart flutters as the pistons of my father's car drive me into the unknown. That day the Golden Gate Bridge was my desert, my limbo, my passage from Pharaoh’s reign into The Promise Land. But, who knows, across the grand bridge could lie another Pharaoh, another escape, another long journey across the unknown desert.