African American Liberation: Resistance, Slavery, and Abolitionism

Africanisms, Identity, and the Ongoing Struggle for Liberation

Fossils from the Great Rift Valley offer testimony that all human beings descended from their roots in Africa. Because all humans are essentially in diaspora from our original ancestors, it can be especially fruitful to Africanize all history. Finding Africanisms in Black culture means detailing the different ways Black people have preserved identity and culture while also reconstructing identities and culture in diaspora. The Gullah culture is one of the best examples of Africanisms in Black American culture. Although African Americans had been systematically stripped of language and tradition during the process of enslavement and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, it is nevertheless possible—and necessary—to trace Africanisms to their source.

Prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, pan-African history evolved as civilizations with coherent language and culture migrated throughout the continent. The most notable of all cultural migrations was the Bantu expansion, which was in many ways the proto-civilization of most of Western, Central, and Southern Africa. Often overlooked in Eurocentric histories of the world are the key figures and facts of African history. One of the most remarkable figures in African history was Queen Njinga. Queen Njinga symbolizes the ongoing resistance to oppression that has for too long characterized African and African American societies.

Enslavement, and resistance to enslavement, are inseparable from African history and identity. The politics of slavery were complex long before the global slave trade began to thrive. In spite of the attempts by African leaders like Queen Njinga to withstand the encroachment of European capitalists, the slave trade was well underway by the 17th century. The lure of a free labor force captivated European colonialists. Enslavement's characteristics included kidnapping, physical bondage, torture, and racism. Ethnology was used to justify racism as well.

Oddly enough, African Americans have historically fought for the very nation that oppressed them. Crispus Attucks was in fact the first documented casualty of the American Revolution because he was the first American to die in the Boston Massacre (Franklin and Higginbotham 87). Attucks also happened to be Black. Resistance to oppression and slavery took on a number of different shapes and forms, with some choosing to use the creative arts as a form of protest. Phillis Wheatley, who was born in West Africa and sold into slavery at a young age, rose to prominence as a poet in colonial America. Although all African Americans were in some ways affected by slavery, not all African Americans were enslaved. Geographical, historical, and cultural differences contributed to the diversity of African American culture. In New Orleans, a free and liberated African American and Creole culture burgeoned, producing figures like Thomy Lafon and Julien Hudson.

Prominent early abolitionists like David Walker, Frederick Douglass, John Parker, and William Lloyd Garrison laid the groundwork for revolts and rebellions like those of Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad, which helped lead innumerable former slaves to freedom. Moreover, abolitionist discourse enabled the self-empowerment of African Americans and helped create a cohesive culture that was forged in opposition to slavery but evolved as an attempt to improve American society as a whole.

Compromises like the Compromise of 1850 characterized the insipid politics of the era. As America expanded westward through the policy of Manifest Destiny, legislation like the Kansas-Nebraska Act helped push the nation toward Civil War. The Dred Scott decision also symbolized how deeply racist American society had become after centuries of indoctrination into the concept of white supremacy. Yet the struggle for freedom and liberation continued, bolstered by the help of white Americans. Some of the nation's unsung heroes, like Prudence Crandall, paved the way not only for the abolition of slavery but for gender equality as well. The intersections between race, class, gender, and power became more pronounced in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In spite of legislation guaranteeing equal rights for all Americans, people of color continued to struggle for recognition and basic human rights.

The means by which oppressed people created resistance movements throughout African and African American history has varied since Queen Njinga first fought against the Portuguese. Important political figures like Jesse Jackson helped to raise awareness, but ultimately the arts have been the bastion of African American culture. The hip-hop movement combines art and politics in ever-changing ways to promote social justice. As Chuck D. put it in the 1980s, "rap music is CNN for black people" (Williams 1). The time has come for African American history to become fully integrated into the American historical narrative, rather than treating African American history and culture as divergent from a presumed white norm.

Slavery Is Not Monolithic: African and New World Models Compared

Chattel slavery is the model of slavery used by traders and plantation owners to mark all enslaved people as physical property rather than human beings. Although chattel slavery did exist in Africa prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the chattel model that evolved in the New World was unlike anything that had existed before. Like the characteristics of slavery in traditional African societies, slavery during the European age of expansion depended on the systematic dehumanization of the labor force. The enslaved person could not be considered a human being; otherwise it would be impossible to justify the practice while also ascribing to Enlightenment values of freedom and equality.

To further dehumanize the enslaved labor force, it also became necessary to justify slavery with racism—insinuating that African people and, in fact, all non-whites were inferior to Europeans and therefore not worthy of the same rights, privileges, and freedoms offered to their white counterparts. With racist rhetoric, it was easier to justify the perpetuation of the slave trade and the practice of slavery even among people who professed to be Christian. The racist underpinnings of the trans-Atlantic slave trade perpetuated slavery, justified it even to Europeans who had no contact with enslaved people or Africans, and enabled the entrenchment of racist attitudes, beliefs, and worldviews.

Prior to the racist model of slavery that emerged during the trans-Atlantic trade, slavery assumed three main forms in Africa (Franklin and Higginbotham 9–11). The first was a spoils-of-war model, in which one group would enslave members of a defeated group as a sign of dominance. Although enslavement as a spoil of war may seem akin to chattel slavery, it was not, because there were limitations on the length of time a person would remain in bondage, and the children of the enslaved were not necessarily born into bondage. Essentially, freedom was eventually possible. This model conceptualized the enslaved person as property only temporarily, viewing the enslavement as a political reward for having won a battle. Unlike chattel slavery, spoils-of-war slavery was not primarily about economics but about politics.

The second model of slavery practiced in Africa was actually a form of chattel slavery practiced by Arab traders (Franklin and Higginbotham 9–11). Arab and other Muslim traders had long practiced slavery as an economic trade. Although the similarities between the Arab trans-Saharan slave trade and the European trans-Atlantic slave trade are striking, there are some key differences. The Arab model did not become a strictly race-based system, and the use of enslaved people in Arab and other Muslim territories differed significantly from their use in the New World.

A third feature of African slavery was that it was practiced on a smaller and less systematic scale than the method used in the American South (Franklin and Higginbotham 9–11). Slavery practices were widespread in West Africa, for example, but the status of enslaved people was not quite the same as when people were bought and sold as property under the chattel model. Some African societies used slavery as a means to extract payment after a debt was owed, or as collateral. Enslaved people were also used more for domestic chores or as a symbol of social status, rather than as a massive hard-labor force calculated into the operating costs of cash-crop plantations. In fact, the scale of New World cash-crop plantations was unheard of even in the most prosperous African societies. A few domestic or status slaves cannot compare to the way chattel slaves were used in the American South.

Slavery in Africa was not unique in the sense that all slavery is brutal and dehumanizing. Moreover, slavery in Africa did sometimes reflect racist or at least ethnocentric beliefs. Yet racism played a much bigger role in the way slavery evolved in the New World. Arab slavers would not enslave other Muslims, but this did not mean that their approach to the slave trade was racial. On the contrary, African Black people who converted to Islam would not have been considered viable as slaves. Converting to Islam therefore became a kind of strategy to resist slavery in Africa, but no such option existed for enslaved people in the United States. Converting to Christianity did nothing to end oppression, and in fact, white Americans sometimes distorted Christianity to justify the practice of slavery. Slavery as it existed in the American South was exceedingly brutal, and the racial logic that undergirded it was historically unprecedented in its totality.

The Many Faces of Abolitionism

The spirit, politics, and act of abolitionism came in many forms. Some prominent abolitionists focused on building bridges and forging alliances with the white community, attempting to change minds and hearts through dialogue. Others recognized the deep-rooted racism that prevented real change and opted for a more militant approach. Because slavery was a legal system throughout the United States, resistance was often dangerous and was labeled subversive, violent, or criminal in order to delegitimize it. All types of abolitionism proved equally valid and necessary in the tapestry of Black liberation throughout the centuries.

David Walker's 1829 publication Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World has become one of the most important political treatises of the 19th century. What makes Walker's Appeal unique is its directness. Walker does not mince words or attempt to appease his racist countrymen when he calls out all who are complicit in the institution of slavery. Because of its radicalism, the Appeal did not reach as broad an audience as softer abolitionist texts like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Both a more radical and a tamer approach to abolitionism were necessary for the movement to gain traction in 19th-century America (Franklin and Higginbotham 186).

Writing from a Christian perspective, Walker interjected religious morality into the Appeal. Using a Christian point of view helped galvanize support for abolitionism in general. White women in the United States tended to support abolitionism, partly out of recognition that all forms of oppression were equally sinister. Many white men, like William Lloyd Garrison, also recognized the importance of intersectionality, as reflected in his abolitionist writings in The Liberator. Like Walker's Appeal, The Liberator did not avoid frank discussion of slavery's brutality and urged immediate emancipation.

Nat Turner acted in the spirit of Garrison and Walker by leading one of the most significant slave rebellions in American history (Franklin and Higginbotham 157). Whereas Walker and Garrison capitalized on the power of language and politics, Turner recognized the need for direct action. Even more so than Walker, Turner represented everything white Southerners feared: actual slave rebellions that would seriously undermine the institution. Because of Turner's rebellion and other forms of direct resistance, the South rallied to pressure Washington to protect its economic interests. Backlash against abolitionism persisted, as slave owners and racists perceived a distinct threat to their power (Franklin and Higginbotham 194). American government, and white supremacy in general, resisted attempts to form a more perfect union.