Introduction to Africana Studies Assignment Essay

Introduction to Africana Studies Assignment - Essay Example This could be done through delayed menstrual cycle, breaking tools, feigning illness, slowing down work or breaking tools. This was the common recourse when slave owners provided meager rations, punished too severely or increased workloads (Winant 85). The effectiveness of this method was due to the fact that in as much as it angered the slave masters, there was little they could do to stop them without risking prolonged breaks in production. The second form of resistance is showing defiance. This could involve publicly defying the master by failing to plead for mercy when beaten. A slave would disobey an order or fight back to prevent a beating. Defiance carried the risk of inviting more severe punishment. The third and most desperate form of resistance involves making oneself incapable of working. This could be achieved through self-mutilation. Some slaves would murder their slave masters and mistresses. Others would commit suicide by drowning themselves in rivers or jumping out of windows. The fourth form of resistance is running away. Groups of slaves would came together to plan escapes. They would run away and hide out in swamps and the forest often attacking plantations to save other slaves. Individual slaves would also run away to the North. Most escape attempts were unsuccessful. The American civil war was caused by a complex set of economic, social, political and psychological differences. In the course of the American Revolution and the making of the constitution, differences between northerners and southerners were overtaken by their mutual interest in building a new nation. However, once this was done, those differences started growing with the south seeking to separate from the Union. It took the leaders of a national stature to hold the Union together. The deaths of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay in 1852 left a vacuum that was replaced by sectional spokesmen who were unwilling to compromise. In the 19th century, the South was