Describe, in your own words the poor and slavish conditions of the

Describe, in your own words the poor and slavish conditions of the black people before and after the abolition of slavery in America.

The black slaves who had been tilling the land of the white landlords for cotton growing had no independent family life. Discuss it.

Then the American society had three strata of free people in the American society. Describe them.

Describe briefly the Emancipation Proclamation and its effects on the black working class.

What is share-cropping? Explain it clearly.

How did only cotton growing was favoured by the greedy landlords of America ? Explain it.

Ans.

Introduction

The writer has described the life of the black people known as the American Negroes in this essay before and after the abolition of slavery in America. The system of slavery in America had continued there for more than three hundred years when it was abolished by the President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Though he had faced the Civil War in his country but he was determined to remove the evil of slavery from his country. At last he had succeeded in his aim but he was killed after winning freedom for the people of the black race. Today we remember him for his great achievement of removing slavery of the black people and bringing about freedom for them.

The condition of slavery of the black people in America

It is necessary that the black people or the Negroes in America had created an imaginary island for themselves where they were surrounded by the white American masses. They regarded themselves inferior to the white people who could not break such imaginary island. The white people used them as their slaves to take every kind of work on their farms by them. They were mainly used as the tillers of their cotton fields.

Since the black people used to work as the slaves of the white masters, so they had no independent family life of their own. They were used to work as farm-labourers and they were also sent from place to place to grow cotton for their white masters. The black people had no land of their own, nor they had any right on the land. Their wives could not live with them due to the change of places, so they lived and worked at the houses of the landlords to work as domestic servant. During absence from home the black people satisfied their sexual desire with other slave women whom they chanced to meet. During that period their own wives served the lust of the white masters with whom they lived at their houses in the absence of their husbands.

Three kinds of the white people

The writer makes it clear that there were three kinds of free white people of the contemporary American society. The first were the landlords who were the owners of the land and the related plantations. Secondly, below them were the bosses of the buildings and they were also the owners of cotton industry. Thirdly, the lowest of all were the large number of the poor white workers. The black people had to serve all of them because they were the real slaves and they had no freedom of any kind for them. They were so slave that they could not displease even the poor white workers who were their competitors in the work of earning bread and butter for themselves. In this way the black workers, or the Negroes had to work very hard.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Such slavery system continued till January 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed for the freedom of the Negro race to make them free from the social bondage of the white race. It was the turning point in the social history of the American society. The black people had got freedom to move from here to there at their will. The black worker had freedom to go to cities to get any other job, or start some small work of their own. They could also join some cash paying jobs. They could also live their own independent family life. Their black women who had lived at the houses of the white landlords had learnt good manners taught by them. They also had got some experience to manage their household. In this way, the family system returned for the family and social living of the people related to their black race.

The system of share-cropping

Though the freedom had been declared to the black people under the Emancipation Proclamation, yet their slavery still continued. The black people were given freedom but the land on which they worked belonged to the white landlords. In this way, they remained landless upon that land on which they worked. The rich landlords of the white race took advantage of their better situation by starting the system of share-cropping. The black people were permitted to till the land and grow crops on the basis of share-cropping. They worked hard but they got only nominal price for their hard work. If they tried to escape to the city, the white police was sent to chase them and bring them back to the plantation. In short, share-cropping also proved to be another kind of slavery for the black people.

The bloody law of the Queen Cotton

The white masters had ordered the black workers to plant only cotton because it was a very profitable crop for the white landlords. The poor worker had no other choice but to work hard on the cotton plantations. They had no right to grow even vegetables which were forbidden because it would reduce the cotton growing area. More cotton was demanded by other countries, so only cotton was produced by the rich white landlords. Only cotton was grown, nothing else. In this way the life of the black workers had become a hell for them. This system became popular as the bloody law of the Queen Cotton.