The lost ones and their greatness

Throughout my academic career I have been through a series of history classes. In each we’ve discussed the slave trade and how Africans were taken from their homeland and were dehumanized as slave workers for various countries. Walking into Dr.Beatty’s class I expected to hear the same story. However, he explained slavery in a light that no one has every tried to discuss or reveal to me while growing up. I would say the three main concepts that caught my attention during this week’s lecture were dismemberment, maroons, and advancement of science and technology.

The idea of dismemberment caught my attention because I didn’t think into depth how slavery could affect an individual. Dismemberment begins when millions of Africans were taken from their homeland and forced into a new society. Most individuals during slavery lost and empty due to the fact they were separated by everything they knew and forced into a new culture. I thought that Africans were just put into these different cultures and lost everything they had. Meanwhile, they all kept their culture within their hearts and didn’t easily agree to accept these culture changes forced upon them. Many created a new culture by combining parts of their culture and wherever they were placed for slavery. This made me realize that Africans weren’t dumb and didn’t just follow rules because they didn’t know any better but they were creative, trying to keep their culture no matter the others that were forced on them.

The maroons were the most unique part of the whole lecture. I honestly never knew or was taught that Africans escaped the slaveholders and formed their own communities called maroons. Maroons existed all across the world. Many of them were in the United States; and African leaders ran all. This caught my attention the most because I honestly felt that Africans gave up when they were pulled out of their homeland. But little did I know, that they fought for their culture and independence by performing actions such as maroons.

Lastly, the most interesting was the slide on Science and Technology. The idea that countries went to countries looking for groups of Africans with certain expertise was amazing. Some Africans new how to grow rice, some knew cures to some sickness, and with this knowledge, countries went and searched for these groups of Africans. So Africans were taken captive because of their advanced skills in science and technology Instead of learning their ways, country leaders decide to rip them from their communities and force them perform these skills. Again, this gave me a more detailed explanation on why they chose Africans as slaves. Africans are an advanced group of individuals that people wanted to learn from.