Searching Through Seas

Charlie Smith, 1976. Photograph by Peggy Kehoe

            Last week’s entry took a deep look into the relation between imagery and peoples beliefs. For today’s entry I hope to do the same, by bringing back my central goal of relating the topic of discussion to modern beliefs. I will be talking about Charlie Smith’s interview with the Library of Congress that took place during March 17, 1975.

In this interview he talks about the direct contact and relations that he had with other African people, being brought on boats to serve as slaves and how they interacted with him.

            Elmer Sparks, opens up with the following question,

            “…Mr. Smith, what is your full name?”

            To this question Mr. Smith is a lengthy reply. He talks about s the circumstances under which he got on the boat that I brought him to America, along with the conditions and situations he faced on the boat that came over from Galina, Africa.

            The circumstances under which Mr. Smith was brought to the United States were rather odd. He details an account where he asked his mother if he could see the white man landing on shore, and the next thing he knew he was asked to go down the hatch hole of the boat. This makes it clear that he did not have the permission of his mother to go on the boat and that he was largely taken against his will. This appears to have been the case for a lot of Africans that were brought to America as slaves and those were sold as slaves across the continent.

            On the topic of selling slaves, who were brought onto the boats, Mr. Smith that has a rather startling account of the process. He says that all the slaves were constantly harassed while they were on the boat and were threatened with even worse. He was taunted with a variety of punishments by the white ship crew, and was even threaten to be thrown overboard. The actual sales were took place in South Africa. The people who captured the slaves would placed them one by one, regardless of family or grouping, and selling off to the highest bidder.

         

Selling of Slaves ~ Bristol Radical History Group

   After being sold to a slave master that was located in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mr. Smith talks about what would happen to slaves that had run away. He talks about how individual or groups of slave masters would put bounties on a slave or multiple slaves, had their escaped together.

“…[the slave owners], put out the five hundred dollar reward anybody would go get him. There was six men right at the line of the states. You had to get your authorities from them to go over there. Everybody go over there and get them five…hundred dollars, them mens would kill them. Kill them. [unintelligible] They'd kill you.”

With the immense amount of mental and physical abuse of slaves had to endure, it shape their cultural identity in a very unique way. Old tales tell of slaves singing songs together, well working in the fields, and even teaching each other how to read and write. All of this symbiotic behavior appears to have stemmed from the fact that they were stripped of their identities. Their names were changed to that of their masters, their local language had changed, and working with each other was all they had.

           

Works Cited

Sparks, Elmer. "Interview with Charlie Smith, Bartow, Florida, March 17,

1975." The Library of Congress. Library of Congress, 17 Mar. 1975. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.