In 1974 Toni Morrison edited an often overlooked publication called The Black Book. This collection of memorabilia represents 300 years of black history, and not only records the material conditions of black life from slavery to freedom, but also exhibits the black cultural production that grew out of and in spite of these conditions.
Other Interesting Links
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History can be seen by many eyes, told by many voices, and heard by many hearts. In order to consider what might be thought of as true history we should be willing to listen to all the voices. For a possible voice to be heard as your consider the history of slavery and its effects, visit this site. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr4_txt.html
History can give us multiple versions of what has taken place in the past. We need to investigate all theories of what might have happened before we decide on the truth. According to Melvin Sylvester:
The Middle Passage has been defined in several ways. Some authors refer to these routes as the "triangle trade" or "circuit trade," "three cornered," "round about," and "transatlantic trade" routes. The typical voyage for slaves taken by the British went south down the coast of Africa into the area adjacent to the Gulf of Guinea. These English slavers brought cargoes of rum, brandy, glass, cloths, beads, guns, and other appealing goods from Europe. They bargained with African traders for their tribal captives. Some slavers entered the shores and kidnapped the unsuspecting natives and took them aboard their slave ships or kept them in waiting areas near the shore called "barracoons" or slave barracks. When the desired number of African slaves was met for shipping, the voyage of middle passage continued from Africa on the slave ships going across the Atlantic Ocean with a destination in one of several ports in the West Indies and Caribbean (including: Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and the islands of St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix, and Barbados). In the West Indies and Caribbean, some slaves were off-loaded and sold to work at the sugar plantations, also called the "Sugar Islands." The raw molasses was taken aboard the ships; then they sailed up the coast northbound for Newport or Bristol, Rhode Island's distilleries, to make rum from the molasses. Other stops along the Atlantic coast where slaves were exchanged for goods or cash were Charleston, South Carolina and Boston, Massachusetts. The goods produced by cheap slave labor were loaded aboard the now empty slave ships along with sugar, tobacco, or cotton for the trip back to England. The rum from the rum distillers went directly back to Africa for more slaves, bartering on this, the Triangular Trade Routes. By 1768, the English slave trade had a figure of 53,000 slaves a year being shipped to the North American continent. Other slave traders included the French at 23,000, the Dutch at 11,000, and the Portuguese at 8,700 slaves being transported yearly from Africa. Estimates of up to 10 million slaves took the Middle Passage Voyage to reach the Americas" (Sylvester). The book Beloved is based on a published story about a slave, Margaret Garner, who in 1851 escaped with her children to Ohio from her master in Kentucky. When she was about to be re-captured, she tried to kill her children rather than return them to life of slavery. Only one of her children died and Margaret was imprisoned for her deed. She refused to show remorse, saying she was unwilling to have her children suffer as she had done. Beloved was published in 1987 and was a bestseller. In 1988 it won the Pulitzer prize for fiction" (Bois). The fictional account of a true story, set in the midst of the end of slavery, may set it within the boundaries of Historical Fiction. The book gives the implied reader a glimpse into what might have happened and how. The story of Beloved is not only a fictional story of a child's murder; rather, it can also be read as a possible account of what happened, how people reacted, and what outcomes occurred during the period of time during and shortly after slavery existed. The author first read the account of Margaret Garner and her killing of her own child to protect it from a return to slavery. Trine Malchow-Moller writes that the story, "led her to rewrite a period of African American history from the perspective of the (formerly) enslaved in order to explore historical traumas of slavery which can only be cured by being "re-memoried," imagined, and retold." The story Morrison writes is set in a turbulent time. Only one year before Sethe and her children are set to be captured, "The Fugitive Slave Act (1850) had been passed. This act stated that any slave who escaped and crossed state lines could legally be apprehended and returned to their owner. (Halsall). In his essay that is based on newspaper accounts of the escape and capture of Margaret Garner Samuel J. May writes, "About ten o'clock on Sunday, 27th January, 1856, a party of eight slaves-belonging to Archibald K. Gaines and John Marshall of Richwood Station, Boone, County, Kentucky, about sixteen miles from Covington, escaped from their owners" (25). This gives us a starting point of the action that Morrison follows in her novel. Its wording gives the reader the sense that the slaves were, at that time, considered property rather than human beings. After being captured, Garner killed one of her own children. One of the newspaper accounts of the scene contains the following description, "The woman avowed herself the mother of the children, and said that she had killed one and would like to kill the three others, rather than see them again reduced to slavery" (qtd. in May 26). This statement by Garner shows the terror of the "re-memories" that she must have felt concerning slavery. This single phrase may show the reader why the novel and its theme are so dark and forbidding. The following links offer information regarding the history of African-Americans, and a timeline of the novel itself: "Beloved Timeline" [pdf format]. From teachit.co.uk - English Teaching Online, 2001: http://www.teachit.co.uk/pdf/timeline.pdf
"Beloved
Quotes & Events" [.pdf format]. From teachit.co.uk -
English Teaching Online, 2001:
A web page disccusing a synopsis of Beloved along with themes and issues. http://www.teachit.co.uk/pdf/ptbel.pdf
"Chronology on the History of Slavery: 1619-1789." Compiled by Eddie Becker, 1999: http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html
Hum 211 MIC/WIC - Cora Agatucci Culture(s) & Literature(s) of Africa 6 October 1998 http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/hum211/timelines
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Last Updated: 21 July 2002
© COCC Humanities Department
This webpage was created by a student enrolled in Oregon State
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