FREE ESSAY ON BOOK REPORT ON STAND THE STORM: A HISTORY OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE.

BOOK REPORT ON STAND THE STORM: A HISTORY OF THE ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE.

Reynolds, Edward. , Stand the Storm: A History of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Longman. 1985.
My Responses from Reading Stand the Storm
With my sallow understanding of slavery, I imagined slavery only happening in the New
World, where they obtained a better treatment than the book recorded; at least, slaves
would have enough nutritious food on their trip to North and South America. After reading
this book, Stand the Storm, the pains of African slaves conjured up on my mind, and I
thought their suffering and humiliation was difficult to compensate with any amount of
money. This book portrays thorough history and impacts of how African slaves were
captured and sent to North and South America. One thing was true that slave trade favored
the economic development of Americas to expand in a fast pace. However, it was absolutely
an evil economic activity that brought great suffering and incredible distress to many
thousands of the Africans. In this paper, I would like to probe deeply on how the
Africans slaves were treated in their tribes. Also, in that sense they were captured to
serve as slave on their own continent of Africa. Comparing with North and South America,
I will find out the differences of practicing slavery between both places, and the ways
of the African salves adapted to the new environment and conditions in the New World.
Slavery was common in many African tribal societies long ago before the Europeans
introduced slavery to the New World. In Africa, a slave was generally known as servant or
property of his host whose social status was lower than the other society members'. In
the most inferior case, especially in Eastern Nigeria, they could be pawned by their
masters, or even acted as a medium of exchange. Their lives were worth nothing that could
be completely controlled by their masters; it meant he could take it or leave it. Once
slaves were captured or traded to another kinship society, they would probably be treated
as outsiders who had no social status and identity. Even worse, they no longer obtained
any social rights and obligations. Still, they would probably be assimilated to be a new
kin that depended on whether they were utilized or not. However, in some cases, like the
tribes in Gold Coast and Kongo, the life of slavery was as ordinary as the rest of
society. Sometimes, they could have their spouse and children sharing equality of
identity with their masters. For instance, "...he eats with him from the same dish, and
has an equal share of all his simple enjoyment." (Reynolds 13) The social status and
identity of slaves were varied in different parts of Africa. 
The variety forms of utilization of slavery were available in different tribal societies.
In fact, some of the usages were beyond my imagination. For example, it was common for
the tribes in Western Sudan to employ slaves as its warriors and military officers to
deal with military affairs because their original kinship tie was not available, and as
an outsider, they could only contribute their loyalty to the new kinship master. Besides,
for religion purpose, slaves were used as offerings in the ritual of human sacrifice
among the tribes in Nigeria, such as Igbo. In order to increase the productivity,
agricultural and gold mining were extremely popular throughout Africa. To reflect one's
ascendancy and high social status, domestic slaves were employed to serve as a mean of
property. Particularly, females worked as domestic slaves who usually married to her
master or became his concubine. In a certain extent, slaves could be used as bank notes.
Their indifferent hosts or masters exchanged goods or paid debts with them. Actually,
whatever the purpose, any forms of slavery finally revealed the exploitation of human
beings' body and soul.
Inasmuch many purposes that a slave could perform, a large number of the Africans was
recruited or kidnapped to become slaves. Most of the slaves were grabbed during wartime,
and they were sold to a distant place as soon as possible since they were the prisoners
of war who thirsted for escaping from their enemies. Hence, it was common for the slavers
to sell prisoners among many tribal societies. Moreover, over border kidnapping often
happened between strong and weak tribal groups. To have more slaves working for them or
for sale, the strong groups would bombard the weak ones and raid their kin. Another
reason that made a host of the Africans being slaves was natural disasters, such as
famine, drought, massive spreading of diseases and attack of locust. They were willing to
become a victim of slavery because they yearned for finding a shelter to fend for
themselves and their children; at least, their masters would provide them food and place
to rest. No matter how people were reluctant or willing to become slaves, it is sad to
know they were joining the cruel enslavement indeed.
The most apparent difference between the Africans and the Europeans on practicing slavery
were kinship assimilation and conversion to Christianity. As I mentioned before, the
alien slaves would have an opportunity to gain a new kinship identity within some African
tribal societies. However, in the eyes of the Europeans with a strong sense of social
class, the African slaves were slaves whose identity and social status absolutely could
not be the same as them. In this sense, the African slaves in America were like the
downtrodden untouchables always bullying by the nobility. Besides, owning to religion,
all of the slaves who were sent to the New World had to be baptized or Christened; that
was a rule to ensure their arrival to America. However, for those Africans, they did not
believe in God, and they even did not know what Christianity was. On that score, the poor
African slaves were bereft of their rights of free religion and traded to the New World,
which was a tragic place for them, by the profit-oriented Europeans. 
All along, the Europeans treated the African slaves like a dog. Although slaves in Africa
needed to work harshly, some humanity was retained. For instance, "the kings have
slaves...to whom they gave wives, ...also, furnish them with food and drink." (Reynolds
8) In contrast, in the Middle Passage, thousands of Africans were chained in pairs, and
kept in extremely narrow ship compartments without any utilities. Furthermore, on the
board, the nasty "African meal"was served to the Africans, so most of them would rather
to starve themselves to die from malnutrition. To halt this from happening, "hot coals
were put on a shovel and placed so near the lips of a recalcitrant slave that his mouth
was scorched and burned..., a mouth opener, was used to force food down a slave's
throat." (Reynolds 49) In addition, sexual harassment always happened to the African
females. In reality, those women could not reject the sailors to harass them; otherwise,
they would be whipped severely. These inhumane treatments reflected the Europeans as
cold-blooded, and those Africans were being persecuting when they first stepped on the
ship to America. 
Another phenomenon that often occurred in the Americas rather than in Africa was
escaping. It was no doubt that the slaves in other African tribal societies also escaped
to their homes, but in the Americas, the situation was extremely different. The African
slaves escaped from their working fields to the nearby mountains, and they formed several
small societies there as their gathering places. Also, most of them would hold their
wedding and tribal religious ceremonies within these secret tribal groups. Tribal dancing
and songs were practiced as well. In fact, it was so painful that for these Africans
lived in such a clandestine life to exchange a little bit freedom from enslavement. They
were fear to be discovered by their brutal masters in every minute since harsh punishment
would be used to punish those escapers. 
For the similarities, it is so simple to think of the meaning of slavery. In Africa,
slaves were at the lowest level in society, and they were the properties of their masters
or host. Meanwhile, they worked as a servant or a medium of exchange. In the same way,
the Europeans had such ideas towards the African slaves in the New World. Also, harsh
punishment was applied to the escapers and lazy slaves. Not only that, the rationale of
slavery inheritance was more or less same in two places. Children of the enslaved father
and mother were regarded as slaves. Assumed that an enslaved woman married her master,
their children would be considered to be free. However, in most of the cases, children
were entitled to have an enslaved identity when their fathers were slaves. 
In order to adapt to the new environment in the Americas, African slaves tried their best
to mix their own tribal culture into the American society. Hence, they could create a
unique life-style that really belonged to them, even though they still hindered by the
Europeans. Besides the secret tribal societies that have been mentioned before, certain
aspects of adaptation were crystallized clear; they were religion, family, and songs.
African religion survived in the heart of every African slave under the influence of
Catholic and Christianity. Instead of praying the God, they worshiped their ancestor
during All Souls' Eve. Furthermore, the Africans imaged the similarities and created
relationship between African gods and Christian saints. For instance, Saint Bouleverse
was believed to have the capacity for good and evil that just similar to African gods.
Actually, they created their Africanized Christianity. Most of the Bible stories were
interpreted into their own imagination and meanings; for example, "They identified with
Israel's Babylonian captivity and longed for prophets of salvation to lead them back to
freedom." (Reynolds 115) Additionally, the African slaves respected and concerned family
value very much because most of the slaves had a handicapped family. Since a score of
male slaves were traded to the New World, as well as female slaves were always raped by
their masters and other male slaves, family was a significant center force for the slaves
to support their survival through the hardships and to link their kinship together.
Likewise, songs were another important clue to grasp how the African slaves subjected to
change their lives in order to adapt to the new environment. Their songs were regards as
work songs and social songs since they resorted to singing to express their souls,
sadness, discontent of life and work, and tradition. Generally, most of the slave songs
had a secret message behind them; in some cases, these songs were used to help guide them
to a safe place when escaping. Moreover, the songs acted as the linkage among the slaves
working in the same place because they had to cooperate to create and follow the
particular rhythm and chant together. As they sang, "...I'm going down and lay my head on
the railway track, When the train come along, I'm gonna snatch it back." (Reynolds 118) 
These three aspects, religion, family and songs, were only some of the obvious
adaptations among African slaves in the New World. In order to survive until last minute,
the Africans altered their life completely along with their sweat and blood.
In my opinion, this book is quite heart stirring; also, the visions and rituals are
depicted in full and complete details. Certainly, it gives a clear insight to the readers
of how the African slaves were subjected painfully by the Europeans in the New World.
Moreover, I was surprised that slavery did exist and start first on the continent of
Africa, as well as their functions were different from those in the Americas. However, no
matter where the enslavement existed, slavery is realized and confirmed as the human
exploitative system up to the present day, in which numerous Africans used their sweat to
replace for their tear.