Response to film - Movie Review Example

But this is not entirely true as history proves that various uprisings and resistances were carried out by these slaves. These resistances were far and few in number and didn’t succeed but they are still an important part of the history of enslavement in particular and whole of mankind in general. Here we will give some examples from the film Sankofa and history about these uprisings and rebellions against the menace of slavery. Example No 1 The most common example of slaves showing their resistance was in the form of running away.

Contrary to popular belief, many slaves had certain freedoms like marriages, free time and praying which were sometimes even negotiated with the whites. Running away was not necessarily a way to get out of the slavery bond (sometimes it was) but was rather a way to temporarily pausing their labor and do negotiations and protesting. The nature of the owners also represented how they would react to runaways. A gruesome picture is portrayed in the film Sankofa when Shola, the main character of the film tries to escape her plantation.

However she gets captured in the way and is whipped by the priest and her master so that the Devil’s influence ends in her which compelled her to break free. History also has a record of the punishments that were dealt to the slaves when trying to run away. The southern states were most vicious and all who tried to escape where reportedly castrated and raped. Example No 2 The oppressed slaves seldom had the organizational values and time for chalking out large scale revolts and rebellions however several small scale uprisings did take place throughout the history of slavery in the Americas.

In Sankofa, Shola (Mona) and her companion slaves are being subjected to extreme physical torture and they begin to scheme against their masters with free blacks who lived near the hills. The planning and timing of the rebellion is not very good so the first unsuccessful attempt leaves many of the slaves in cages suspended in cages from the trees left to die. Nunu who is an influential slave is sold to another party and Shola is viscously raped and beaten again and again. Then she turns to Shango, a mystic who gives her the Sankofa bird which redeems her resistance to oppression and discrimination.

She reorganizes the rebellion with Joe but it ultimately fails and all the rebels are chased down by dogs and killed. History also gives us several examples of these rebellions. In New York City 1712, Long Island 1708, South Carolina’s Stono rebellion in 1739, Charleston in 1740, Caribbean in 1780s and 1790s and Virginia in the early 19th century are a few examples of many rebellions that took place across North America. They were most likely in places where slaves outnumbered the whites many times especially in the Caribbean where the normal ratio was 12:1.

South also had a large slave majority but the owners there were more ruthless and military trained to cope with these kinds of uprisings. In times of economic crisis these uprisings were more frequent. The most likely outcome of these events was large scale massacre of the slaves by the whites. In 1940, fearing a possible such scenario, 18 slaves were hanged and 13 were burnt alive in front of their families. In the same time around in Charleston, 37 slaves were publicly