Mary Prince Reflection:

            Mary Prince's narrative is by far my favorite so far. I know I have not read Harriet Jacobs yet, so I can't really say for sure, but right now it is my favorite. One reason I really liked this narrative is because I was able to connect to her more. I am not sure if it was because she is a woman or if her story was more captivating. I do think her being a woman is a big reason I liked it more. She is a woman and I am a woman so we already have that in common. I can relate to her on that level. I know more about woman's place during slavery than what the men's place was. I also think I understood her story a lot better than Equiano's story. He talked a lot about ships and about what he had to do on the ships. He focused quite a bit on the names of parts of the ship when he talked about his time on the ships. I do not know or really want to know about ships, or what different parts of the ship is called or do. That really turned me off with the ship talk, it made it more difficult to read. Mary Prince's story is so much more captivating. To me at least. She also focused more on the terrible things that happened. Yes, Equiano talked about the bad things as well, but Mary Prince was not afraid to call out her masters for being terrible masters. Equiano was afraid to talk badly about his masters. He was afraid that he would not be able to get his book published if he talk poorly of his masters. I also think that their audiences were very different as well. Equiano mainly focuses on English people in general while Mary Prince focuses her narratives on the English women.

            This narrative also made me think of season three of American Horror Story. When Prince was talking about when a slave did something that the white masters did not like, they would be taken and hung up on a tree outside and beaten until the masters were tired. Season three of American Story dealt with witches, and there was a rivalry going on between the white witches and the black witches. We are shown why there is rivalry and they flash us back to the early 1800's where we see Madame Delphine, a rich white woman who has many slaves. She accuses one of her slaves of raping her daughter and takes him up to her slave torture chamber in her attic. When we see this room, there are many slaves who are kept in little cages, some with their mouth and eyes sewn shut. When one of her slaves would do something she did not approve of she would torture them. With the slave she was currently about to torture for apparently 'raping' her daughter, she had him chained to the wall and stabbed him in the side, all while she placed a boar's head on his head. She said that if he was going to act like a beast, then he should look like a beast. I found it so very interesting that I could make a connection from what we had been reading to one of my favorite television shows. 

Equiano Reflection 2:

         The most important thing I learned from our class discussion this morning was how some slaves were put in a  position of power. Equiano was put in the position of an overseer, or in this case a driver. An driver means the same as an overseer except an overseer was a white man in charge of the slaves, and the driver was an enslaved black man who was in charge of the slaves. An overseer and a driver had to make sure that the slaves were doing their jobs to their fullest capacity. If they were doing everything to the overseer or the drivers liking then they would be beat by the overseer and/ or driver respectively. The drivers were given this position of power over their fellow slaves so try and increase productivity. The white men thought that if the slaves were being watched over by one of their fellow slaves then they would be more willing to work harder. It was a form of encouragement and incentive. The white men put in their heads that if they continued to work really hard then they could maybe become a driver one day. It was a sense of false hope. And to raise the stakes of the driver, they were also given a gun. The ultimate form of power.

            This really interested me. Why would the white men give certain slaves a gun. Were they not afraid that the slave would turn on them and kill them? One would think that when a slave would be handed a gun, he would want to get revenge on the people who were beating and torturing them. The slave would want to get out of there as soon as possible. But they don't. They follow the orders of the white people to watch over the slaves for them, and they do it without hesitation. Why would they do this? It was brought up in class that it could possibly be a form Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is when a person starts feeling sympathy and/ or empathy for their kidnappers. In this case it would be sympathy and/ or empathy for their masters. They feel as though their masters are their family now. They don't want to harm them or leave. This is all that they know at this point. They would not know how to cope with life if they were out on their own.

            There was a question that was asked, or more like a question someone still had, that is still in my head. We had been talking about how we may not have slavery any more, but there is still racism everywhere. The question is how do we change and how do we start to change? This immediately sparked an answer. One student said that people would simply need to get their shit together and work towards equality. A start, I think, would be to correctly teach history in high school. I was told that Texas school system wants to only teach about the happy things that happened in history. That means they wouldn't teach about slavery, the Holocaust, or any other terrible events that happened. It is important to learn about these events so we can more easily understand certain people so we can see where they are coming from. If you delete someone's history, then there can never be an equality.

Equiano Reflection 1:

            Something I found very interesting about the discussion we had dealing with the first section of Equiano was learning about some items we take for granted now was the product of the slave trades. I always knew that cotton was a material that was big during slavery, but I did not know that chocolate, coffee, sugar, and more was also big during slavery and the slave trade. It really makes me think about what items I take for granted and not even think about what people went through at one point to have these said items. It is absolutely terrible. I also didn't know that some slaves were turned into fighters. Equiano many times had to man the cannons on the ship to fight off other ships to help out his ship mates. It definitely makes sense that he would have to do this, but it just never occurred to me. I guess it never occurred to me that being a slave, he would be allowed on the deck of the ship. I thought he would have to always stay below the decks. Whenever I was taught about slaves and ships I always heard that they were never allowed on deck unless they were leaving. And by leaving I mean being escorted off the ship and sold. It is really interesting to me that some of these slaves were trusted to kind of become about of the ships team. I didn't actually think this was ever a thing. I guess I learn something new every day.

            Another thing I noticed was that the way Equiano narratives this story reminds me of another book I have read, Night. The way he talks about the time before he was captured and sold and traded is really similar. Well, obviously Equiano wrote this narrative before the Holocaust ever happened, but I read Wiesel's book first. One big similarity was the death of both Equiano and Wiesel's friend. Equiano is really good friends with a boy named Dick. They play a lot on board the ships that they are on. It's not until Equiano and his master change ships that him and Dick are separated. A similar thing happens in Night. Wiesel becomes a friend a boy named Juliek who plays the violin. They met in a concentration camp and quickly became friends. They were about the same age and size so they were always put together when they would be sent to do certain jobs. Both Equiano and Wiesel are separated from their friend and later find out that they are both dead. Dick died while they were separated at sea, and Juliek died when he passed out due to exhaustion and was trampled. Both are terrible narratives. I find it very interesting about so many similarities between the two.

Week 9: International Slavery Museum

Hey everyone! Here is my latest blog post! I hope you all enjoy!

            On October 31, our class traveled to Liverpool to view the International Slavery Museum. At first I was skeptical about this museum because I thought that I had seen all of this material before. We learned a lot about slavery in high school and I even learned about slavery in some of the classes I took at Millikin this past year. I was curious to see how this was going to be different from what I had already learned. After visiting the museum, my eyes have been opened. It was not at all like I had imagined. I actually loved the museum, and that's saying a lot because I don't really like museum to begin with. There was so much to see at this museum, and somehow I saw all of it.

            We were told that the third floor was where the actual slave museum was, and everything else was not necessarily strictly about slavery but other things as well. On the first floor, it was all about child immigrants. We were able to read about some of the children's stories and how they were taken to, mostly, Australia and Canada so they could try to have a better life. It was so sad to see how young these kids were. The youngest I saw was about four years old all the way up to around fifteen years old. Their families sent them to homes in Australia and Canada where they were taught various things such as typical school work, and if you were a girl you were taught domestic work and if you were a boy you were taught outside labor. This floor tied in to the basement floors theme, which was also child immigration. However, the basement had a section which was a semi-replica of the streets you would walk down to get to the ships entrance. When you entered, everything was immediately darker. Lanterns were the only light source. You walked down this cobblestone road to where you found a bar on the ship. There were figures representing the people in the bars and they also had what bed would have looked like there as well. When you kept on walking, you entered another part of the ship where it looked like where the storage would go. This was the last part of the venture. It was so interesting to see what it would be like entering a ship that you would be on for potentially months.

            The second floor was all about ships. It talked about different parts of ships and what they did. It talked about Liverpool's harbor and how lots and lots of ships use this harbor constantly. We got to see different painting of ships that dated back to the 1600's all the way to the Titanic. The Titanic exhibit was closed, which was a big bummer. But it was cool to see these ships, because without ships there would not be any trading of slaves. Personally, the coolest part of the ship section was seeing all of the advertisements that were made for the ships. It was interesting to see what tactics people used to get others to get of the ships for cruises and travel. This isn't really something you see every day.

            The third floor was where the actual slavery museum was. As I walked up, I saw that there was tribal painting along the wall leading to a part of the museum. I followed this to find a video of different tribes dancing and celebrating. It showed how they celebrate and was really cool. Next I came across this interactive video on this computer of sorts. I put on the headphones that were connected and the narrator told me about an Ibago camp. I was about to learn about the different huts and who lives where. The man has the center hut where he lives by himself. This is the biggest hut directly across from the entrance into the camp. He is the center being in the camp. He will usually have multiple wives who each have their own smaller hut where they will raise their children. There will usually be three other huts sectioned off with a rock wall. Each wife will have a small farm with chickens and pigs to tend to as well. It was great to learn about this tribe of people, and to see how they lived their lives compared to mine. It was so completely different, and I loved it. As I followed the wall it led me into a room with drawers and different television screens showing different material. Some talked about different countries and what they were known for. One talked about of coffee was made and how the beans were grown. It was very interesting. While I was looking around I decided to look in the different drawers. In one I came across the Equiano's original book. I was skeptical at first, I thought it was a really good replica, you can never be too sure these days. But low and behold it was the actual original. It was so cool to see the book that we are currently reading in its original form. I spent some time just looking at it. It was very tattered, but was in great condition. As I moved on, I came across an enclosed video. I wasn't quite sure what it was, so I took a look. I was not prepared for what I was about to see. The video was what you would see if you rode with the slaves on the slave ship. I saw hundreds and hundreds of people chained together, vomiting, groaning, and the video went on and on. I was on repeat so you could watch the gruesome footage and really take it all in. I was horrified. I kept thinking,, ' How could people treat others like this. It is horrendous.' As I made my final sweep, I discovered another couple rooms all on the Congo. I learned a little bit about the Congo in the African American Drama class when we were discussing the play Ruined. All I can remember from this section was the lecture. The lecture talked about how if a family couldn't get what they needed to get by a certain time, then their version of law enforcement would cut a body part off of one of the children. That's how they would teach them to make sure they had everything they needed for next time. This made me sick. That's all I'm going to say about this section. Just terrible.

            This museum was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. I actually enjoyed learning more about the culture and of the slavery era. It really got me to think about how lucky I am. About how lucky I am to not live in that era, and to not live in the Congo. It made me realize that we take need to be grateful for the time we live in now. Yes, there is still racism, but there is no more slavery. And that is something to be grateful for.