African american history - Essay Example

Question African American History Most African American are descendants of Africans held captive in the United States from 1619 to 1865. Other African American people have their ancestors who immigrated to settle in the United States of America. The descendants of majority of African American were sold into slavery by African states or kidnapped by Arabs, Africans, Americans, and European slave traders. European powers exploited and expanded slave trade in Africa in search of free labor for plantations in the new world (America).

American slave populations constituted various ethnic groups from central and western Africa (Joanne 25). They include Igbo, Wolof, Mande, Akan, Fon, Bakongo and Makua amongst others. This people did away with their tribal differences and forged a new culture and history that was acreolization to their pasts and present.This African American developed a culture that was referred to as a black culture. The culture is deeply rooted in Africa. This culture has affected the United States as part or distinct from its culture.

It has enormously influenced the American culture as whole. Although slavery restricted the practice of African American culture, their beliefs, values, and practices survived and have blended or modified the white culture (Joanne 64). Within 18th and19th centuries, both white and black Americans worked to stop slavery (Franklin and Higginbotham 285). Many antislavery societies were organized to fight so that slaves could be freed. Main slaveholders considered freeing slaves to disrupt British trade.

Most notably, Prince Hall a free slave submitted petitions to end slavery but it was largely ignored. The other challenge of revolution against slavery set in when President Washington stopped recruitment of soldiers into the revolutionary army. The free slaves participated in the revolution against slavery and participated in American revolutionary war. America won the battle against the British rule (Franklin and Higginbotham 327). President Thomas Jefferson referred to slavery as ‘abominable crime’ and declared the independence of slaves yet he was a life long slaveholder.

During constitutional convention of 1787, there was declaration of freedom of equality between the blacks and whites.Work citedFranklin, John H. and Higginbotham, Evelyn B. From Slavery to Freedom. New York: McGraw-Hill, 9th edition, 2010. Print. Joanne Pope Melish. Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, 1780-1860. Ithaca, New York and London, England: Cornell University Press, 1998. Print.