A power point presentatoin on Toni Morrison's Beloved and the Fugitive Slave law

Essay by GirlGeminiUniversity, Bachelor's April 2004

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Why I Chose This Presentation

Critical to understanding key elements of Beloved

Understand how and why a mother actually may be driven to act as Sethe did

Sethe acted out of love

Keeping her children from things she had seen/known

Slavery In America

The earliest African arrivals were viewed in the same way as indentured servants .

This similarity did not long continue. By the latter half of the 17th century, clear differences existed in the treatment of black and white servants.

A 1662 Virginia law assumed Africans would remain servants for life.

By 1740 the slavery system in colonial America was fully developed.

The slavery system was maintained in the United States until 1865.

Affects of Slavery

Widespread anti-black attitudes nurtured by slavery continued thereafter.

Created a huge socio-economic gap that has yet to be closed.

Also accounts for the disparities in health care, education attainment, and emotional well being experienced by African Americans.

Left deep emotional and spiritual scares.

Black People Resisted

They resisted the practice of slavery and it's trade in slaves from it's inception to it's end.

For their freedom they killed and were killed. They poisoned and committed infanticide and suicide.

Thoughts of a Former Slave

"If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun an' jus' end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog"~Fountain Hughes

Former Slave

The Underground Rail Road

One of the most curious characteristics of the Underground Railroad was its lack of formal organization.

Some trips took as much as a year.

No one knows exactly when it started, but there were isolated cases of help given to runaways as early as the 1700s

By the early 19th century, there were organized flights...