Creation and Practice of Black Cultures

This course establishes that the process of enslaving African people, which jump-started the period of modernity through colonial conquest, had a large impact on the creation and practice of Black cultures across the African Diaspora. After watching the educational video from CrashCourse (YouTube) titled “Slavery in the American Colonies,”

-Write an essay that shows your understanding of how the economic and legal guidelines born within the institution of slavery allowed for the political, legal, cultural, and physical domination of Black enslaved people by European and Euro-descended colonists and enabled the resulting accommodation, resistance, and syncretism performed by Black enslaved people as they produced a cultural politics of their own to survive the horrors and dehumanization of enslavement in the United States.

This prompt is designed to test your understanding of the processes through which the cultures of enslaved Africans and their descendants were created in the United States. We expect you to answer the following questions by using the video above, as well as information from lectures and the assigned readings to formulate your Short Essay.

1. What were the conditions under which Black enslaved culture emerged?
-What were the environments in which the Black enslaved culture emerged?
-Labor and capital investments, political and legal power, policing of time and movement, physical and psychological violence, etc. should be discussed within this answer

1.2. Why was it that Black enslaved people needed to create new cultures?
-Here you should consider how the natural, geographic, social, political, and legal environments of the United States isolated the enslaved and made them victims to violent practices of behavioral coercion and further natal alienation

2. Which were the cultural materials that acted as the sources of this new Black enslaved culture and how were they combined?
-European elements (i.e. language, dress, Christianity, etc.) and African elements (dance, food, art, folklore, language, etc.) should be talked about in order to answer this question

3. How did Black enslaved people perform accommodation, resistance, and syncretism through their new form of cultural politics in the United States?
-For resistance, make sure to name examples of how Black enslaved people went against the hegemony of white “masters” (i.e. contextual resistance and structural resistance)
-For accommodation, make sure to name examples of how Black enslaved people practiced the same culture of white “masters”
-For syncretism, make sure to name examples of how Black enslaved people combined Africanisms retained from the continent and the white European cultures imposed on them by white “masters”

Here are some non-negotiable thresholds your Short Essay must meet:

1. The Short Essay MUST be between 3 to 5 double-spaced typewritten pages in 12-point font with standard margins.
2. The Short Essay MUST have an explicit thesis statement in your introduction paragraph, have the above questions answered in the body paragraphs, and contain a summation of your analysis in the conclusion paragraph.
3. The Short Essay MUST use materials from the class lectures, assigned readings, and the video above in formulating your analysis. We are looking for thoughtfully analytical answers that directly engage the course materials to understand the issues involved in and behind the prompt and show a strong understanding of the module’s concepts.
4. The Short Essay MUST properly cite all information taken from the prompt’s video, class lectures, assigned readings, and any outside sources within the text and in the bibliography page. The choice between using MLA, APA, or Chicago citation styles is up to each student. The bibliography page DOES NOT count toward the length requirement above. For proper citation guides, please visit the “Documentation & Style Guides” section on the University Writing Center’s website: https://uwc.utexas.edu/services/resources/
5. Your Short Essay MUST have a logical progression of ideas and concepts with clear transitions that connect each paragraph and sentence