“Throughout their sojourn in America, Africans were quite unimpressed with the culture and achievements of the slaveholder. As Ball reported in the nineteenth century, the ‘Native Africans are revengeful, and unforgiving in their tempers, easily provoked, and cruel in their designs. They generally place little, or even no value, upon the fine houses, and superb furniture of their masters; and discover no beauty in the fair complexions, and delicate forms of their mistresses. They feel indignant at the servitude that is imposed upon them, and only want power to inflict the most cruel retribution upon their oppressors; but they desire only the means of subsistence, and temporary gratification in this country, during their abode here.’ “That is, many Africans responded to their new environment by rejecting the acculturative process. Although there were surely those who acquiesced to their enslavement to the point of obsequity [obedient], it is important to note that the overwhelming characterization of the African-born was consistently one of defiance.” Michael A. Gomez “Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South” Page 186
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:25:54 +0000
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