Patriot's History: Slavery (Chapter 1-2)
Music: Original Composition
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Summary Peculiar world, this slavery, with blacks considered property, the institution lucrative enough to shape the way we live. So dance and praise in jubilee, your spirit holds your liberty. Chapter At first indentured servants, blacks became plantation slaves, and any sense of shame for this "Peculiar Institution" passed when nation-building fortunes were amassed through valued crops in fertile steaming fields. Analysis of slave tradition yields the reasons: blacks were deemed inferior; for years the African interior was raided by the Muslims and the firms of Europe, dealing only with the terms of service; and the labor scarcity would reinforce the sense that property, not manhood, made the trip across the sea. A "necessary evil," slavery became entrenched; through Christianity and dance and music blacks would come to be both "stoic and heroic" -- liberty was in the spirit. Though conspiracy by slaves occurred, and paranoia filled their owners' minds, rebelliousness was stilled as time went by, and only Quakers fought to end the ills necessity had wrought. |