It's Not All The White Guy's Fault

Through the very interesting documentary that we have witnessed in class, quite a few interesting and profound subjects come up.  In my American Literature class, we have just read the short passage about certain slaves being upon a slave ship and the absolutely terrible horrors they had to endure while spending time on the ship.  However, from the reading, I now understand that it was not only the fault of the white men for the enslavement of many of the Africans.  Indeed the white people conjured up the idea and without them even coming to Africa the Africans could still be at peace in their homes in Africa today.  The white people were the ones who treated the Africans like dirt or even less then dirt and it still remains their entire responsibility to what actions they took so many years ago.  The Africans, however, played a great deal in the slave trade as well.  The king in the passage we read was selling Africans willingly to the Europeans for different goods.  The Europeans probably did not want a fight with the slaves and they did not want to lose some of their own "product" so they went to the king and offered him goods in exchange for strong young men and women.  In conclusion, it still strongly remains the fault of the white people for enslaving these Africans but not all of the blame rests on the shoulders of the white people.  As I have said before, it definitely could never happened if the white people had not gone to such lengths, but the Africans did in fact play a part in the enslavement of their own people.

Ms. Adams was Strong

We have learned about the liberties that certain colonialists had to encounter and wished that they could encounter while in the early United States.  Ms. Adams talked of how she thought of liberties so that she could just sustain herself and her children.  Ms Adams also mentioned in a letter to her husband of the importance of women's rights.  I think Ms. Adams was a strong women for having the tenacity to stand up to men and ask for her own rights and the rights of her gender.  She was obviously a very caring person if she risked the chance of infection of her children while giving them inoculation.  My essay is now basically formed on the same principals that I originally hoped it would be.  Now, however, I am building my road map on judging too quickly, savagery, and conformity.  This meaning that Rowlandson and Equiano thought that their captors were savages, they judged them too quickly and the only way for Rowlandson of the white men to accept anyone was for those people to conform to their way of life.  This essay then suggests the American ideal that if someone does something American does not like their whole civilization is shunned.  This is basically true for all human nature in my opinion but that does not mean it cannot be an American ideal.

Equiano and War and Captavity the same?

Alex Cvercko
American Studies
Hoffman 4A



In the reading we received on War and Captivity, we noticed how a woman with a family was abducted and she lived with the native Indians of the area.  Throughout here kidnapping she would commonly refer to the Indians as savage like creatures or refer to their actions to be of savage like nature.  She says the way that they eat and fight depict them as savages.  In the reading of Equiano, we see how a young African boy is deported from his home land and enslaved by white men.  At first he is very scared by the white men and even thinks that they will try to eat him.  His approach on these Europeans was almost the exact same as in War and Captivity.  Equiano saw these white men as savages who used magic and would easily eat him if they became low on food.  These two separate accounts show how the people in these situations are just so ignorant of each other and immediately hone onto the word savage.  The individuals in these stories were quick to judge without much to go on.  The stories mirror each other almost.  In both stories, the main character is stolen from his\her home land and thrown into many different new people who did not spake their language and who they instantly supposed as savage like people or capable of savage like actions.