In another post, I spotlight Nikita Stewart’s concern that our schools are not teaching the history of slavery adequately or appropriately. One resource that might help is provided by Mary Elliott and Jazmine Hughes, entitled: “Four hundred years after enslaved Africans were first brought to Virginia, most Americans still don’t know the full story of slavery.”
While Stewart’s article discusses the challenge and gaps in our teaching, this report is primarily a resource, moving through a chronology of events and images of artifacts, perhaps not surprising since one of the authors is curator of American slavery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
It is worth bookmarking this resource. If you teach or have children, this would be a resource to read and discuss with them.
Rather than quoting lines from this brief history, I just appreciate the multiple examples of “Continual Resistance” that have to be part of our understanding of the history of slavery. I especially valued two stories that were unfamiliar to me– that of Elizabeth Freeman better known as Mum Bett and that of Queen Njinga. I have added them to my list of sheroes.
One other note: I mentioned earlier that I am appreciative to lessons in how to use language to talk about these topics. In this article, I saw the phrase enslaved people used rather than slave, and enslaver rather than slave owner. I am guessing that may be preferred language, which makes a lot of sense.
reader. writer. 