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Nicole Matteson
Mrs. Clark
Humanities
September 21, 2014
Creating American Culture
The United States of America stands as the melting pot of various cultures. There is no
American culture without the influence of others, in this case, African culture. When the
Africans came to the Americas, they were stripped of their culture because the white settlers
were afraid of the difference between their own. This act of ethnocentrism lead the enslaved
Africans to evolve their culture which therefore impacted America on multiple fronts. In The
Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas, an American Slave, and many other credible
websites, the reader observes many examples of how the institution of slavery created culture.
Despite the loss of pure African culture, the times of American slavery gave birth to a new
culture.
Through African slavery in America, a new form of music was born. During the time of
slavery, the south forbade the enslaved from using their traditional drums, because they feared
the drums signaled a slave rebellion to form. In order to adapt to these new standards, the slaves
sang songs that told a tale of woe which was then altogether beyond feeble comprehension
every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains,
expressing in the security of song their deepest untold truths of pain (Douglas, 26). Low voices
and vibrations of pain through their lyrics expressed their emotions with beauteous noise. This
music then became the genre present Americans know as blues. Kimberly Sambol-Tosco writes
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in her article Education, Arts and Culture, blues were introduced in work songs and field
hollers based on the musical forms and rhythms of Africa. Through singing, call and response,
and hollering, slaves coordinated their labor, communicated with one another across adjacent
fields, bolstered weary spirits, and commented on the oppressiveness of their masters thus
proving how African culture evolved in America to form a new genre of music (1, par 5). Since
expression of their honest opinions of their enslaved circumstances resulted in severe
punishment, slaves found alternatives for keeping their spirits up, and their opinions heard. Their
slave masters heard their songs, but did not hear their lyrics, which held all their pain and
complaints about their living conditions. These songs of blues saved them from the whip, and
from total destruction of their spirits. Through creativity, African American slaves created a form
of safe expression which added to the growing culture of the United States.
The institution of slavery inspired American freedom and produced light to the
importance of education. Slavery was viewed as a hereditary lifelong service with close to zero
chance of becoming free. However, the enslaved people desired freedom with all their might.
They believed they had human rights, just as the whites did, and were completely consumed by
the idea of escaping enslavement. Fredrick Douglas writes in his narrative, I have observed this
in my experience of slavery, - that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its
increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans
to gain my freedom. I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a
thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to
annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must
be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a
man (87). Stripping a man of his rights, moral values, and education leaves him as nothing
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other than an object. Slave owners used this method of transforming man into object to justify
and simplify their partaking in slave owning. They figured if slaves had no other knowledge
besides enslavement, then the slaves had nothing to compare it to, thus bringing them to
acceptance of their situation. However, when slaves achieved education and realized there was
more to life than slavery, they fathomed of freedom and how to escape the claws of slavery.
Fredrick Douglass was an educated man who knew the splendor of the North. He used his
education by devoting his Sundays to teaching slaves how to read which lead to him
inspiring fellow slaves to run away to the north (Douglass, 74). Educating slaves defied the laws
set to keeping the enslaved tamed and gave them the potential of partaking in important
activities- such as speaking at abolishment meetings and or writing testimonies. Freedom was
from then on viewed as something of high importance which reverberated in many cases of
citizens desiring freedom, for example, womens rights. This snowball effect of education and
the idea of freedom changed the United States views on unalienable rights.
The institution of slavery created the America contemporary citizens live in today.
Despite the abolishment of pure African culture, an American culture was born from the
evolution and adaptation of enslaved African Americans. Lack of freedom and education led to
the recognition of its value. Pain and suffering led to appreciative art. One does not learn true
appreciation from always attaining what is rightfully theirs, appreciation is learned through
lacking what is necessary. All in all, slavery has presented American citizens a culture rich in
appreciation.