African American literature, Family by J California Cooper

African American literature, Family by J California Cooper

Introduction

The beautiful novel by the J. California Cooper identifies the history of slavery in America. It discusses how the slavery by Africans has become a symbol for all the other slaves. In the novel, Clora who belonged to a slave family refused to accept slavery and committed suicide. Clora's mother also decided the same. The mother tried to kill her children first, but the children survived (www.aalbc.com). As a result, Clora's spirits were ignited. Clora had to face a lot of difficulties in the course of her life. She had to risk herself to read and learn. She was often raped by the slave owner of the community. The slave owner's wife and Clora gave birth to baby sons at the same time. The first one was white and lived life in freedom. Clora's son was a black and had to face psychological tortures. However, both of these men survived in the Civil War. According to Clora, human kind always lives and removes all forms of slavery and racism (www. aalbc.com). This paper also narrates how the blacks have survived under the slavery of the Americans with uplifted spirits and now enjoy a central position.

Discussion

How Slavery affected the African American families

The enslaved families were very much like the normal families where husbands and wives loved each other and some had to be separated. Children followed their parent's commands and some did not. However, in some critical areas the slavery in their lives made these families very different from the normal families (Williams, n.d). For instance, the enslaved people were not allowed to marry legally in any American colony. For the Americans, these slaves were mere commodities and as marriage was a legal contract, the blacks could not enter these contracts. Until, 1865, the Africans were not allowed to marry or get into any legal contracts.

Many people belonged to nuclear families where each member of the family has the same owner. There were near nuclear families where the father had a different owner than his family (Williams, n.d). The father was given plantations several miles away and he would visit his family on Wednesdays and Saturdays to provide labor to his family to fulfill their personal needs. This created a scenario of inequality and distress as people were separated from their families and were asked to live on their own. As a result, many people developed new families at the plantations that they had to serve and many people just lived alone without their loved ones.

This method of slavery produced wealth for America where the slaves had to work all day and night. Women had to get back to work as soon as they give birth to a child and often had to run from the fields to feed their babies (Williams, n.d).

Slave cabins and yards were the centers for interactions of the enslaved members of a ...