I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at once if necessary. ‘Will they attack?’ whispered an awed voice. ‘We will be all butchered in this fog,’ murmured another. The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. The others had an alert, naturally interested expression; but their
The utilization of detail creates a vivid image of the horrific scenes the slaves experienced during being transported to england.For instance, one time on deck he says, ‘One white man in the particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast” (86). Equiano employs detail in order to establish the responses to the beating of the man. Watching the horrific scenes questioned if Equiano would he be next. To illustrate the astonishment of Equiano while on deck he says “While we stayed on the coast I was mostly on deck, and one day, to my great astonishment, I saw one of these vessels coming in with the sails up”(86). These particular details are chosen specifically because Equiano’s
When he had arrived in Buffalo, Lewis’s first reaction to when they had finally reached his Uncle Otis’s home. “When we reached my Uncle O.C’s home and Dink’s house, I couldn’t believe it, They had white people living next door to them...on BOTH sides.” (Lewis and Aydin March Book 1: 43) Segregation in the north wasn’t a big deal to people in the north than it was in the south and from that he experienced a lot during that visit in the north. Once he had returned back home, he knew what was different now, he understood what the problem and differences were while he was up in Buffalo and at home. It came to him when school time was coming back around in the fall. “ In the fall, I started right the bus to school ,which should’ve been fun. But it was just another sad reminder of how different our lives were from those of white children.” (Lewis and Aydin March Book 1: 47) Between the black and white community, Lewis saw how “degrading” it was when it had came to school. They didn’t have the nice playground, the nicest bus, roads, and the ugly, sad sight of the prison full of black men and only black men, but he had managed to get pass all of the gloominess with a positive outlook of reading. “ I realized how old it was when we finally climbed onto the paved highway, the main road running east from Troy, and passed the white children’s buses..We drove past prison work gangs almost every day the prisoner were always
Boarding the train from Chattanooga to Memphis seems like an innocent thing to do (“UMKC” par. 2). For the Scottsboro boys, boarding that train was one of the worst things they could have done. Two dozen whites and black road the train that day, and within the first
Their complexions, differing so much from ours, their long hair and the language they spoke, which was different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave of my own country. When I looked around the ship and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description
The poor Black sharecroppers were frequently browbeaten in their hard work to collect payment for their cotton crops. The whites didn’t like that the blacks were receiving a higher amount of wages than them, so the whites attacked such consolidation that was done by blacks, and the two groups swapped firing into the night. The two white men procured it upon themselves to show up, one was a deputy sheriff, and the other was a railroad employee who attended it. It was all after that, that the combat had taken place. The escorts who were standing shot one of the white men. It resulted in the death of one of the white officers. A black executor
This passage is an extract from Joseph O’ Connor’s Star of the sea which was penned in the year 2002. The passage makes use of a third person narrative view point as a result of which the readers are provided with a vivid image of passengers aboard a stormy sea ship. The passage talks about a ship afloat a stormy sea and how the passengers on the deck are caught unaware due to this storm. The author uses a descriptive style of writing with short crisp sentences that heighten the pace of the story. In the last two paragraphs however, the author uses longer sentences that signal a slower pace and show the readers that the storm has died down for the time being. The author has interspersed the action with 2 dialogues. It is interesting to
“The Book of Negroes is a master piece, daring and impressive in its geographic, historical and human reach, convincing in its narrative art and detail, necessary for imagining the real beyond the traces left by history.” I completely agree with The Globe and Mail’s interpretation of this story. One could almost see the desolate conditions of the slave boats and feel the pain of every person brought into slavery. Lawrence Hill created a compelling story that depicts the hard ships, emotional turmoil and bravery when he wrote The Book of Negroes.
Equiano’s luck soon shifted when he was once again kidnapped and sold as a slave, this time he would have to endure the notoriously dreadful journey across the sea to America. Knowing that this was a pivotal point in his life and that he would become a gudgeon to the harshness of slavery, Equiano attempted to prepare himself for what lay ahead. However, the sight of the inhumane acts he witnessed on the African coast, while being transported, were new to Equiano and instilled fear into his consciousness.
He greets them with a reserved yet cheerful, “Mr. President, Friends, and Fellow Citizens…” (117). He remains respectful of those in authority, while simultaneously conveying to his audience that he, a black man and freed slave, shares in their celebrated citizenship. Douglass, however, does not limit his correlation with the audience there; he then goes so far as to address them as “friends”. This greeting and introduction perfectly prefaces the righteous ridicule that is to come. These men, products of the free town of Rochester, are oblivious to the absurd juxtaposition that is present before
Crash! Boom! Terrified screams and rifle shots filled the air as Margaret snatched up her baby sister into her arms as she ran around frantically in search of shelter. Finally finding a safe hiding spot behind a large rock, Margaret and her little sister watched in desperation as their small shack was ransacked by John Brown and his raiders. As the sky grew black with smoke, angry tears began streaming down Margaret’s face. Why can’t the anti-slavery settlers just leave us alone? Why are they being so violent? What have we done to them? All we want is land to settle on! Margaret wondered in disheartenment. For settlers who had rushed to claim land in Kansas and Nebraska in the stormy 1850’s, facing violent clashes had become a daily
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the
I did not know what was going to happen when I boarded the large ship. I knew it was not good for I was a captive to these white people. My imagination did not even come close to how wretched a state we were all going to be a part of for the next sixty days.
Hughes’s descriptive writing prompts the reader to visualize strong images of oppression in America. The speaker provides an image of an extremely suppressed group of people in the statement: “I am the red man driven from the land” (Hughes 21). This simple phrase creates a picture of the Native Americans being driven from their lands and forced to live on undesirable land, and, as a result, this invites the reader to acknowledge their severe oppression. Similarly, the speaker mentions the people who were “torn from Black Africa’s strand” (Hughes 50). This generates an image of boats packed with a depressing amount of broken people, waiting to be sold into slavery. These visual examples portray the severity of the situation that many Americans found themselves in. These
Captain Amasa Delano is an interesting embodiment of white complacency about slavery and it's perpetuation. Delano is a human metaphor for white sentiment of the time. His deepest sensibilities of order and hierarchy make it impossible for him to see the realities of slavery. Delano's blindness to the mutiny is a metaphor for his blindness to the moral depravity of slavery. The examination of Captain Delano's views of nature, beauty, and humanity, allow us to see his often confusing system of hierarchical order which cripples his ability to see the mutiny and the injustice of slavery.
The controversy of racism scorches Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass written by Frederick Douglass himself. Douglass unveils the atrocious truth about slavery that was hidden for so many years. Every beating, every death, every malicious act was all recorded for the people of the U.S. to finally see the error of our ways. The short essay, Slavery as a Mythologized Institution, explains how people in that time period justified the disgusting behavior that was demonstrated regularly. Religion and intellectual inferiority were concepts that were used to manipulate the minds of everyone around into believing that practicing slavery was acceptable. However a very courageous man, Frederick Douglass challenges those beliefs. Douglass debunks the mythology of slavery in his narrative by rebuking the romantic image of slavery with very disturbing imagery, promotes his own views on the intellectual belief of slaves, and exposes the “system” for promoting the disloyalty among slaves.