Africans in America; 101; The Terrible Transformation; Interview with Norrece T. Jones, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University. 1 of 4

and i think it's it's actually vital when one considers the contribution in terms of the very survival in terms of agricultural production arm with the early colonies the ability to get currency and any kind of foreign trade from the labor whether we're talking about race production eventually tobacco and so many of the goods that this country produces no worries slavery is the complete domination and power over another human being i'm betting caucuses are all manner of physical and psychological aspects of it mundane

or europe so this is well as a descendant of africans who were enslaved in this land and historian who's devoted his professional career to the study of slavery is that right as the descendents of africans who were enslaved in this land seems to me there is a particular interest and as a historian i'm a commitment to understanding that oppression from the perspective of those who were oppressed and i

think by definition how a slave i understood or understand understands his error oppression will be different from how the person who is extracting by force that labor and all the matters of psychological and physical characteristics from from an individual so how is this well i think that the hit the mere presence of this enormous force of dependent laborers for life creates among those who are free are a particular identification and valuing of that freedom that i think's individuals who are not constantly around a group of people who are

denied all liberties would appreciate and so i think that's it's for that reason why it's so vital to really understand what it meant to fund that slaves perspective about this is serious was one million or so soldiers why fix unlike any other list of practice unlike any other slavery that existed only half of the earliest records that slavery whether i'm chinese and slaven chinese europeans and slaven europeans africans enslaved africans in no place in the world but anytime except maybe to sue

did their evolve and are the new world slavery did evolve a system where one's enslavement is intimately connected of eventually on the in the thinking of these flavors with race so that what evolves in north america is the belief system where to be black men to be a slave and the beast the slaves meant to be black and that kind of identification on has a lasting legacy that i think we still feel on experience today in american society what a surprise there is they are rollers

major dj key issue an understanding of american slavery and the issue of race is that first and foremost this concept of race as a can is a creation it's not something that you it's not something that either the europeans coming to this plan or the africans mom in this earliest period and that in the seventeenth century and even early in the eighteenth century has established itself that you have all kinds of dependent laborers you have europeans from various countries who are indentured servants you have indians who are also

both serving as as slaves are various forms of indiana gov dependent labor and we know that these various dependent laborers buy the records of individuals who are running away by the accounts that we have on the diaries and letters of those who controlled her labor that there'd been a fight with each other on the basis of that common oppression and what happens when people faced this realization and as through a very systematic and conscious effort on the part of the owners of labor to make these divisions that it's a whole new confrontation an added dimension of the brutality that they're experiencing and i would argue that it's a brutality that people of color and this land have continuously had to deal with because the stark simple brutal reality

of this culture of racism in american society is simply that one is despised as oppressed and has brutalized simply because one is not white and so the challenge that people ahmed faced both during slavery and much later is it as a parent for example what do you tell your child that you know you're fresh you're forced to labor for others that you can be killed if you disobey you can be killed or severely beaten because you failed to give the proper deference by this this other this person who has no blood link or any kind of connection with your own and i think that the kinds of ideas that the vote from this is first and foremost i think is that whites by this very very dangerous group and that the kinds of ideas that before that allowed for the kind of mutual desertion and

identification work on each other's a common kind of oppression on fleets dangerously into the back room fb he's been what is this i think from the sixteenth century where there's this first contact between traders on the europeans on the african

coast and the very beginnings of any kind of trade are slaves or taken lars the three kidnappings of those fleeing what evolves within this trade is a gathering of human labor is deeper and deeper into the interior of the continent and as this happens on for africans who are learning about this alien people you seem to have an insatiable desire for black bodies the belief came about among many that these europeans were cannibals and it makes sense i mean they would never see the people were taken away from their communities again there seems to be armed just an unrelenting desire and a quest for more more bodies so for the africans who first coming to the slave coast and are being held not only are the

confronting the reality of perhaps having witnessed family members in love once were killed i think that the africans that are march to the coast have invariably experience either among themselves the deaths may means beatings of family members and if that on their own blood can they invariably have witnessed the kinds of atrocities that are inevitable and any kind of slave system so does that trauma that they're experiencing once they get to the african coast on with different ethnic group some of whom they know diet considered enemies some of whom they have no familiarity with it are no ability to communicate with the kinds of different languages on these thoughts are many

many have never seen the ocean before so there's no familiarity you know love of what awaits them and we consider also that as we progress into the seventeenth century with the ever increasing demand for the transatlantic slave trade that there individuals who our larger numbers believe that the europeans are cannibals so in addition to all the other incredible theories and suspicions and apprehensions this possibility in their thinking and they're going to be eaten but he's your appearance what they were talking about his slaves ages on actually on when he sees the meat on the ship things that these are parts of a body on one some slaves save wine drinking on the part of the europeans to believe that the

drinking blood so all these things and this is before even they're forced into the wretchedness of the holds of slave ships businesses what is that well i think the the most important or what would have been the most shocking acts that would've been in addition to the chain the cramps quarters of ships being passed in such a way that a slave will be between the legs of another slave and change and having to lie in the feces the lack of air as though the longest trip takes on them or suffocating yeah the

environment and the disease in the possibility of people hold on we have to face an acknowledged there no doubt people want met connor shrieking the kind of are the inability to communicate decisions having to be made with someone a complete stranger someone he possibly have been from an ethnic group that had been in an enemy and this person is suffering as yourself there's one helped as one simply trying to make it the best that one can alone and i think this is one of the most fascinating aspects of this middle passage is that we have the beginnings of different ethnic groups who i am joey would've seen themselves as being very distinct that are now beginning a process of african opposition or they're saying each other and finding means of communicating with each other like that can create a sense of the people and in the very beginnings of that that process is

there we know for example as well the presence of rats of lice when you consider that people are medical orders well the ability to have to feel different parts of the body would've been very limited own home being forced to each despicable kinds of food are all things that people would have been experiencing and you know not knowing where my being taken what is my think him for weeks months depending what the point of origin or there's the years the

national mall's in people kerry says i don't know is there a process of african eyes edition that's going on in the ship's but part in parcel of that process is something that i think scholars have have not paid in any adequate attention to and that is the idea is that these various ethnic groups brought with them about what it meant to be a man what it meant to be a woman so how

did you forgive me for me relapse and i think the league the concepts of what it meant to be a man and what it meant to be a woman is being reevaluated then most traditional african societies as societies everywhere in the world of beer and difficult used of all these ideas about manhood and womanhood own traditionally in these societies that the kinds of gender roles which are being played broadly speaking because each group has their own particular particular reality but broadly speaking amen of playing this role militarily that women collectively in traditional african societies are applying primary role agriculturally ben in the

reality that on slave ships that if any slaves or any people were allowed on the deck and obviously they are for the greater ability to observe what these characters are doing and any possible access to weapons on and consequently to negotiate and to try to plan and plot for any kinds of names of of revolt om and to regain their freedom is going to be to provide an opportunity i'm morrison an opportunity an essential role for women in terms of this on military opportunity or our desire and ambition and so men and women are any men and had ideas of what the proper role of all women might have been arm across this is changing because we know that in the vaults that are taking place that all

women often are the individuals who are able to obtain the arms and to arm up a system in the conch trouble for for freedom on these on the slave ships and i think that that process of reevaluating and changing attitudes that they would've had about the proper role or the idea of of their role militarily versus the role of women at all to be altered and the whole situation is there and i'm waiting to be calm expected

hatred all of people will have armed force them from airline and the suspicion anger and fear of people again you maybe expecting a believer going to eat you and the fact that women on the ship that we have documentation of clearly are being raped by sailors and so the new dimensions of the brutality and the mr elsey and evil of these characters are going to be filtering through the dea the slave ship and so i think that that kind of desperation i think that how does one deal with it as well increasing numbers of deaths and those who

had any mental trauma at the beginning of the journal journey weeks into a bomb or even when the mortgage fraud problem and how long is this journey going to last and all these questions is fear of the unknown is simply going to hate him each day each line each week each month of this journey there are where his house it's big i think if we can imagine the kinds of

thoughts of a people who are in this unbelievably horrific physical situation that what would people rely on and i think that the idea is that people had about their guide about their ancestors are increasingly questions that they may very well i've been posing to themselves eventually what have i done was there some crime is there somebody there could have been responsible for me being in this unbelievably barbaric and savage kind of environment some may have left some may have some did conclude that whatever the reasons for this it was not worth going on and hence people i'm starving themselves to death i am if given the opportunity to have any kind of mobility of jumping

overboard on drowning themselves and for others we can never really know i think it's amazing that people were able to somehow hold on and maybe this is just as natural situation of this quest for survival and i think it's very hard for it would be very hard for people however desperate situation and make that decision to take one's life was an extraordinary thing for someone to make a decision to do to come to the mock the mindset that it would be better to die than to continue on in this way and then once the signing it's better to die to then take action to do that whether through starvation or jumping overboard or

maiming oneself or whatever to have to bring when sold to an end there is and that is where are the cds israel i think they

do it would have to be i think they're people i think that trying to understand the conditions and circumstances on this slave ship and understanding trying to understand the people who'll have captured your arm observing how they treat each other how these europeans the strange looking people was those who've recorded their experiences about their first encounters with europeans when they see the kind of brutality that these europeans are inflicting upon each other those the captains to ship shipboard people in authority would have made people i think even more terrified because this sense of people of a particular group that would perhaps engaging in search brutality to each other again i think back to the narrative of all on attack we are now who talks about i'm seeing the

flooding of sailors and yet he expresses even greater all and terror that these people or so brutal to each other so i think all these factors are playing a role and again trying to understand what does it mean and who these people are and what they're going to do to me apology so in sixteen years

why think that the in early virginia on this new land this one trying to understand again still what their fate will be in in this new system on there are going to be encountering a greater fluidity of possibilities within that early on colony we know for example we we know we dont know exactly what the status is of many of these individuals but there is evidence from early last years of the virginia population that whereas european indentured servants are on the list given marital status mrs whoever in the case of africans the no sermons does know marital status and there are

no dates there and what the dates men and why they're so important is that if one were an indentured servant the date of a rival was absolutely crucial because that begins the counter clock ticking we might say of how long lines going out the status of of love being an indentured are dependent labor the fact that we don't have this on these early on accounts of the population for africans suggested already there is a distinction between these two different types of dependent labor we also know that for some africans some blacks within the society that they do look tame by the end the first quarter of the seventeenth century free status and thinking critically of anthony johnson and the eastern shore well who

i know it's been like the only opportunity that a slave is going to be most concerned about during his or her enslavement is how the game freedom and i think that for those observing in the society are going to pay close attention to what are the possibilities once free for survival on whether that is in forming on and of course therefore this early colonial society the importance of acquiring land

is vital and for these earliest blacks and a con a virginia that there were opportunities clearly and we have records of people having acquired land owned and so the hope all be able to obtain freedom and once in the freedom to survive and to prosper one of the major concern on the end of one has a family the kinds of very human desires that people over time throughout all cultures in helmand interested in the well being and the future of these children and again within the colonial context the acquisition of the land and the ability to form a market on goods from atlanta going to be very important and i think it's important to note again dead the consciousness of race and

whiteness and tom has not taken root in this a saudi yet to the kind of rigidity that eventually of evolves and so there are cases where individuals who do have land to blacks who've gained freedom to see their acquisition of dependent laborers is well to out work that way no matter what one's status or a position in the society society you cannot ignore what the prevailing economic social and cultural mores and traditions are and for many of these are some of these plaques and they're very limited record so it's hard to sell it to say definitively what we do know that there are people who decide for mobility in the society than on the act was session of laborers on whether indentured or slave to work this land was

something that these some of these earliest black arrivals considered and then self her on the bottom as in your other comedies that there's this constant infusion of africans and they're with each new group means had to be made are our other those africans who had been here and a growing creole population of people were actually born in the new world and self confidence self taught in particular they're making decisions about how best to survive this very brutal system of of enslavement and their slave owners in a very shrewd man there are

observant and perceptive and off to note the role that africans who have been here in the creel population the concern that they demonstrated for these new people coming into the system that they would place new africans into creole families and there apparently was a certain pride among many of these creole home populations of second generation or first generation of african americans to have these africans among them and i think that there is this throughout the period of slavery in north america oh i'm a process of african opposition an african american as a shame that are taking place parallel to each other you remember he

says he's upset so did the survival of africans on the middle passage that we know that there are crosses sees that began in which those slaves on the same ship if they are home place with each other on plantations on farms in the new world have created new rules of incest the baby the process by which people believe that they were in first from dainty bows or art shanty or whatever ethnic group into being africans not only does that take place on a slave ship but sometimes on the same journey that the sense of each one of those individuals is baying

africans but brothers and sisters and that sense of family and that link with each other home of such a depth and and personal level that these individuals and cases that we have a council refused to have any sexual marital relations with each other because they saw each other from their experience on the slave ship as now being i'm all linked in a familial kind of way so deep that there are rules of princess diana becomes incestuous in their thinking to have any kind of relations with each other yes indeed

there are colonial soccer on of that be on these earliest communities to one of the central themes that generation after generation is instilling in each other is this quest for freedom and the sense that regardless of what the external reality of being enslaved is that one day we will be free and that they're on is a legitimizing an admiration for individuals who do make that leap our recall status and after whether we're talking about the stonewall rebellion in sensing and thirty nine any of these other quest for freedom the repercussions after woods are devastating and i think it's significant that despite that devastation that within the oral history there's enough

positive and admiring preservation of ideas about these individuals that they lay a foundation generation after generation for other strikes toward freedom in this new kansas there is west africans or in the colonial south carolina and regardless of where one is enslaved the brutality and the horror of that dependence is essential in pivotal but i think in those

environments physically that are more similar to the environments from which they came home but there's one aspect to make that adjustment are less challenging and problematic we know for example in these communities early on the familiarity of various plants and some larger plants in a bowl these early years of africans and their descendents to devise means for curing various palaces on the belief that these would handle in and help one in various sickness is and so that poem there are the similarities that we know for example that many of the africans coming to the colonial south carolina have a familiarity with rice production in fact it's that familiarity that inspires colonial south carolinian slave whole orders to request specifically

africans from these regions because that familiarity and a concept of epidemiological regional ism own words the two different populations the more similar declines of disease patterns that they're coming from on the less likely that they will succumb to diseases in a new environment and because many africans in the west african coast have had exposure to malaria better enable them in the law larry or swamps of south carolina to survive this is of course that they were immune which wasn't the case they were dying being great numbers they simply were not dying as rapidly or is as high numbers as as europeans a decision came

this is it kind of oppression that darrell issa africans are encountering on that there is a interaction and a mutual exchange of ideas very often because them things in and buy a season a quarter of racism in my thinking that always assumes that any ideas are changes in the thinking of black people come in the early retirement and later

had have come from europeans had to come from once where is in any environment interaction with human beings mom no idea can be that isolated on much to the chagrin of slave owners and i might add here and for africans who again for those who are enslaved their story this question is freedom but people also have to deal with if they are successful and fulfilling and realizing their greatest ambition how are they going to survive afterwards home and i think if we look again use an example someone like oh i don't actually know that he sees merchant at acting as a merchant in and acquired the spill and he sees bahrain as as one of these opportunities and i think that other africans as well on what's going game in colonial south carolina

or colonial virginia were ever on how are the people who are most successful securing that success and can i as a newly freed black man or black woman arm what are the possibilities for me in realizing or achieving that same kind of success and early on there are seemingly are a lot of opportunities that with the establishment of a racial slavery armed these blacks are on their opportunities are increasingly limited we can it would with each incoming group of africans would have perhaps nothing more than perhaps would've

unbearably reminded the africans who had been here how long that they had been here reminding them of the kinds of it ms and opportunities pitifully the issue of personal liberty in the on the african continent i wonder they get again because we we can't know definitively i am at what point do africans begin to think that there's no hope of ever returning to africa and i think if one records of love slaves who are born here in oral traditions on going much after the colonial period but they're still africans who just thought of maybe somehow giving back and i think what's important to try to capture a trying to understand or at least imagine is what was the process by which they concluded were never get back to africa and once that

decision is made then how the us should we are maneuver or think about this is a radically different issue them if one's aim is to find a way to get back to the continent versus we're here and we will always be here our children will be here a home what are the possibilities for us to survive in this particular society at this time or are these the world is with us

and he's you know on the middle passage man beginnings of a process that explains the presence of african americans in society today and this choice in this decision of the desire both to survive and be free some people decided that if there was no means of obtaining that freedom it would be better to die and others on them a jarring clearly decided that all whatever means to talk to survive that they would make that effort to tij to do so and i think that for particularly for descendants of those earliest africans as myself

dead a great deal that narration own should be there because these were own and again that i have to emphasize complete lack of knowledge of what awaited them its simply their faith and a desire to live because really there there is no way of knowing exactly what that life would be like how long it will last but nonetheless there is that that's trouble and think that the early years kinds of means of communicating with each other no doubt one of the intel discussions are trying to communicate what does this future hold for us then should we tried to do is there a point in trying to escape or to rebel

home different religious beliefs i think would have no doubt that in exchange or some kind of communication and make sense of this madness and the madness that's reinforced by the reality of people literally going there because of it so the kinds of ideas that would've been contemplated deserve i think all our respect as much our reverence for those efforts oh yeah those they believed in the concept of freedom and the current then the reality of slavery

i'm present two very distinct intellectual history for africans who are enslaved their understanding of freedom is radically different from the idea of freedom helped by the people holding other human beings as their absolute property and every opportunity that africans head from the very beginning to force the best definition the most humane definition of freedom home these africans took for europeans who begin to articulate their sense of freedom by other kinds of laws from the very scarily the earliest laws that we have that essential aspect of that freedom

is to write the whole property whether it is in human beings and flesh and blood or a piece of a lion the sanctity of property in the society is such a central and ignored i might add aspect of freedom but for africans there was a moral issue from the very beginning about what freedom meant that the ownership and within this this new land the kind of evolving ideas that they have at home the enslavement of other human beings of the right in that kind of property was immoral in this conflict between these two people on that is eventually eventually the black concept of freedom the concert that evolves from people and slaves and the concept of freedom by people who owned slaves of eventually come together in this town glorified fuel from american

democracy but the hypocrisy and d the law that this was always the case i think that distorts enormously the earliest grounding and foundation of this nation