Slavery In America Movie Analysis

Slavery is a major part of American History that explains how Africans came to the America’s. Slavery also helps understand how America evolved and who played a part in helping America gain its Independence from England. It is hard for historians to know what truly happened during slavery and the effort required to end it, when only hearing stories from the perspective of plantation owners. However, by looking at slave narratives, we get an inside look of what life was like for slaves and the actions they took to emancipate themselves. Discovering the role of religion, education, African contribution, and resistance played in slavery and slave communities, giving us a realistic view into how slavery intensely worsened and the means slaves took …show more content…
In the beginning of the movie, a female black woman is captured and forced into slavery. When she is moved into the Lafayette plantation as a house slaved she is given the name Shola. There are several times in the movie where we see Shola being raped by her master. This is one for of abuse many slave women endured. Slaves were also put in head and hand holds for their rebellious behaviors. One of the most common form of punishments were whippings. In another scene, several slaves ran away as a form of resistance. However, they were found and brought back to the plantation, where they were each ordered to get over 40 lashes. Like we see in the movie, slaves became fugitives as a form of resistance, but many were found and returned to the plantation. Another form of resistance that is talked about in the movie is killing masters by poisoning their food. In the movie, slaves from the Lafayette plantation and other plantations form a secret society where they decide to burn the sugar cane crops. This is an important representation of the many rebellions that were going on during the period that slavery existed. Countless slaves led other groups of slaves to revolt by burning plantations and killing masters and their