How Did European Culture Affect African American Society

Most of the African women and men who were forcibly taken to America came from a large west region in Africa known as Guinea. Guinea was home to a wide variety of cultures and peoples. Over half of all arrivals in the World between 1500 and 1800 were Africans, whose culture greatly affected American civilization. White Americans and Europeans came to depict the African society as uncivilized and nonindustrial when in reality, their society was developed and complex. The African society had early developments of substantial trade; trafficking crops, livestock, gold, ivory, and iron. Trade with the Mediterranean lands was ideal to their economy. The Africans produced plantation, raised livestock, and hunted. Unlike white societies, the African’s
The society had priests who were important social and political leaders and the oldest people in the tribe. Similar to other societies, Africans had a system of social ranks. Priests and nobles were at the top, followed by the large middle group of craft workers, farmers, traders and others, and at the bottom were slaves. Africans were put into the bottom rank because of criminal behavior or unpaid debts. Slavery in Africa was not permanent as they retained legal protections, and the children did not inherit their parent’s bondage condition. African slave trade began long before the European migration to the New World. West Africans began selling slaves to traders in the eighth century CE. This was in response to labor shortages and families who wanted black women and men as domestic servants. While Portuguese sailors began exploring the coast of Africa, they bought slaves and took them back to Portugal where the demand was small but steady. The market for slaves in the sixteenth century grew dramatically as a result of the demand for sugarcane. Sugar was a labor-intensive crop demanded all of the
Running away and attempts of escape were also very common. The Stono Rebellion took place on September 9, 1739 in South Carolina against the British Colony. A parade of slaves hiked down roads going south carrying banners. They were led by an Angolan named Jemmy. As they walked, slaves were recruited concluding their numbers to one hundred by the time they stopped at night for rest. The morning of the 9th, slaves gathered near the Stono River before entering a shop that sold firearms and ammunition, where they armed themselves and killed the shopkeepers managing the shop. Then they traveled to a man’s house which they burned and murdered him and his family. After reaching Wallace’s Tavern, white residents of the next six houses or so were also killed. By eleven that morning, the group was about 50 strong. The additional whites encountered, were killed. The ten miles walked up to the Edisto River incorporated the killings of at least twenty whites. Early that afternoon a group of twenty to hundred whites set out in armed pursuit for the slaves. After being approached by the troop of whites, the rebels fired two shots. Returning fire, the whites killed fourteen slaves. The result was the killing of thirty slaves and the escape of another thirty. The rest were captured and executed over a period of months. The trigger of this rebellion was not proven