African Women
The second largest continent in the world, Africa is huge, complex land mass occupied by thousands of tribes and nations. West Africa, from which most slaves came, contains tremendous differences in culture, language, and political and economic structure. An African woman could have expected to participate to participate in the economic life of the community out side her own home. Along the coast of West Africa, which most slaves came, women were often traders, an especially important role in an area where the economy was still primarily mercantile rather than industrial. An African woman could also have expected to own and control some of her own property after marriage without having to get permission from her husband. In many areas women could buy land or goods. Women in all parts of the world had an affect through their husband and sons but African women had formal structure through which to work, making decisions and effecting changes that have an impact on the entire tribe or nation. In those days, African women had somewhat more power and autonomy than women in European countries. But how far did their power reach? (Shining Thread Of Hope Pg 10)Women in Africa could trade, own property, and sometimes collectively influe
She believed that, somehow, education would lead her to freedom. Slavery would be inherited, and through the mother. To be s slave was to be human being under conditions in which that humanity that was denied. This kind of training was certainly needed, but to limit black Americans to vocational education would have been grossly unfair and dangerous. And resistance was crucial to the survival of the spirit. " She got up and gave it something out of a bottle and pretty soon it was dead. When a slave cried out to turn back, she did not hesitate to point a gun at him. The entire sum was allotted to repairs of existing buildings. (SHT p16)The full implications for black women of 1662 law were not immediately apparent, however, because in the second half of the 1600s and the first half of the 1700s, the African slave trade was thriving. " Slave traders prided themselves on the numbers of such women they had for sale and on the high prices commanded by their physical appearance. There was little or no actual prenatal care for enslaved women, although midwives in the community may have given advice and some medication. " children born to free women would be free, but children born to slave women would be slave and, of course, the property of the woman's owner. She told jokes and sang with them, trying to make them forget how frightened they were.
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