Stereotypes of the Africans were not just impressed upon the minds of the slaves... but also the minds of the slave owners. As this "flyer" indicates, this would be a show to go to see as entertainment. It reminds me of the Roman tactic of using live plays to influence public opinion on social issues. "Naked terror. Sex-crazed natives on the rampage." There is no doubt that various forms of mainstream media were used to promote a certain negative view of the African slaves as both barbarous and sexually deviant. It probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume that... in order to keep public opinion of the use of slavery positive... there would need to be a concentrated effort portraying the slaves as less than human. A form of (distorted) moral justification. [i.e. They're not really human. Not totally. They need us, and our Christianity to humanize them. To give them stability and order. Look how they act on their own. That is their nature. Barbarians. Slavery is good for them. A way to bring civility.]
For anyone who hasn't read Federalist Paper 54, I implore you to do so. The Federalist Papers were short essays written mostly by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. I guess they could be considered Op-Ed pieces promoting the federal view of a democratic government, compared to the confederacy model, where the central government is weak and the majority of the power lies within the individual states. Federalist Paper 54 is written by James Madison, and in it, he speaks about taxation and the topic of slaves come up. He attempts to walk this tight-rope of intellectual logic mentioning on some level the humanity of the slaves, yet also acknowledging their existence as the property of others. And though they are human, there is a tax on property, and so, on some level, the Africans must be treated as goods. And in so doing, they "lose 2/5's of a person." I believe this is the first mention of the 3/5's of a person theory that the US government would later adopt; as also related to representation of the general populace.
Can anyone imagine having their government tell them that they are a little bit more than half of a human, but not quite completely: sub-human. Should solace be taken in the fact that the slaves were considered domesticatable, compared to the Native Americans, who were exterminated? The Federalist Papers were (again) popular essays circulating around the colonies promoting a certain view of which direction our government should go. There would have been many a white American reading and considering this sub-human thesis by Madison. Again, when it comes to African-American history, the goal was not just the deprecation of the Africans, but to also legitimize the practice of human ownership in the minds of the white Americans by questioning African humanity.
And, it would also cheapen the life of the slave/property... adding to the physical brutality. One important goal that was enforced rigorously was the illegality of literacy. One would be beaten, and could even be killed... for learning. Just... consider that for a moment. From the day we are born, our minds are growing and constantly processing new information. However, in the eyes of America, blacks learning how to read WORDS was not going to be allowed. Though many down play its importance in life, knowledge is truly power, and a thinking african was not to be desired by the European settlers. So, from the inception of America, the goal was to keep the african as ignorant as possible (something that will be revisited later)... and the slave owners went to great lengths to keep it that way. Even in the North, which would eventually be seen as more progressive, the teaching of blacks was opposed.
Education would lead to questioning, growth, organization, and eventually rebellion, and the European settlers were looking for mules. Dumb strong animals to do... not think. America was large. Compared to individual countries like England, Spain or France, the original thirteen colonies alone were huge. Not only that, it was uncultivated land in America. From an economic standpoint, there is no question that the settlers saw the large monetary benefit of free labor. It was that advantage with such things as the creation of the railroad systems and US agriculture which would help America start to compete with Europe, even at such an early age. Indeed, much of America was originally built on the backs of Africans who would never reap the financial benefits of their free labor. Similar to IBM's profiteering off of the holocaust (if you dont know... go look it up), there is no doubting that there were a lot of businesses that built from the ground up with slave labor. And with "manifest destiny," the more the country expanded westward, the more "docile" slaves were to be required. Denial of education, even to former slaves, was perhaps seen as vital to the expansion of the nation and the status quo. One former slave turned intellectual being the great Frederick Douglas (click here). America would do everything it could to keep these type of dissenting voices to a minimum.
After the civil war, in the 1860's, African-Americans were no longer slaves. They were free. They were 5/5's of a person. How free were they really? What opportunities were they given to excel? Though, the former slaves were legally allowed to vote (something white women wouldn't get for another 60 years!), there was no practical enforcement of that law, or protection against those who would try to prevent blacks from doing so. It had been illegal for slaves to read, and many states started to adopt compentency tests for voting, now infamous for their success in preventing newly freed blacks from voting. No education... no civil liberties... no protection... where could they go? Many became share croppers. Even in my personal life, though my father's family is from Africa, my mother's grandparents were sharecroppers. Share croppers were like indentured servants. It was barely an existence. You were paid just enough to survive. You lived on the plantation, worked long hours, and did just enough to survive, with not enough time, money, or opportunity to find better. But then again, what were the other prospects for a black man in the 1870's to find work? Just surviving in America, particularly in the South, was a successful battle... all its on.
But the point is that there were little practical successes after freedom was won. Share cropping was like a secondary... lighter form of slavery. Wage slavery of the harshest kind. Long brutal hours in the field just in order to ascend to very very poor. There were nice quotes, good speeches and a few legal documents, but in the daily lives of blacks in the 1870's... there was very little real change. Though not legally slaves, blacks would still be purposely kept poor and uneducated by the white community for a very long time.
Literature had always been used to instill in whites a negative stereotypical view of blacks, and novels would be a new and powerful way to promote this negative view of black masculinity. A new leisurely form of entertainment that told numerous dramatic stories about aggressive black men (known for their uncontrollable animalistic sexual desires!) terrorizing pure innocent white women. Sex crazed natives are on the rampage... white women... please watch out.
The vicious irony of course being that, since the first slave ships washed up on the Eastern shores of this country, since the inception of slavery in America, there has been one victimizer, and he has been the white male. There is no debate among historians about the prevelance of rape of black women throughout the time period of slavery. There are now a lot of different shades of African-American in this country today and I can guarantee you that it did not start with a bunch of white mothers in the 17 and 1800's. Of that much, you can be certain.
Because of the barrier of the Sahara desert, sub-Saharan africans are distinctively darker than North Africans. Interaction between Rome and Carthage... Egypt and the Middle East... Morocco and Spain... these opportunities for engagements would create interracial children that began to lighten the skin complexion of North Africa. You have many shades of black in America today, but, were they created from mutual consenting adults or forced sexual aggression?
(raises hand as if confused) "Um... Im just curious... can someone tell me... what exactly is... tragic hunger?" Is that rape slang? I dont know if it springs forth from the guilt of white sexual assaults against black women for more than a hundred years, or fear of Nat Turner-esque retaliation (click here) for past sins against blacks, but more than half a century BEFORE the brutal murder of Emmitt Till for saying "baby" to a white woman (click here)... with pictures so disturbing, I will not put them here or send links to them... CLEARLY... there was already a deliberate attempt to scare white America into a negative perception of the humanity of their black counterparts. That... we will see in greater detail...
(end part II)
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