Ancestor of Slaves

Descriptive Essay # 115997

African-American Studies > Slavery
English > Creative Writing
Music Studies > Blues, Jazz

Ancestor of Slaves

This paper relates the author's ancestral history as an ancestor of slaves.

890 words () | 4 sources | MLA | 2009 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper describes the author's ancestral history, beginning with three hundred years ago when his ancestors lived in Senegal. The paper relates the entire saga of his family history from their lives in Senegal, to the kidnapping of one of the family members by another African tribe to be sold as a slave to a British slave trader, to the arrival of that slave to North Carolina. The paper continues by describing subsequent generations born in the US and ends with the writer's birth in 1925.

From the Paper:

"Great-grandfather Louis was very intelligent - and had a talent for music. Maybe that was from old Mbiti, who was forbidden to play drums as a slave. Louis was trained to be what they called a "house negro" - sort of a butler for a highbrow family. Well, old Pete Devereaux was a drunk, and his affairs caught up with him. Eventually, everything was sold off - including my great-grandfather."

Sample of Sources Used:

Baum, Robert M. Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Davidson, Basil. The African Slave Trade: Precolonial History. New York: Little, Brown 1961.
Duignan, Peter and Clarence Clenenden. The United States and the African Slave Trade, 1619-1862. San Jose: Stanford University Press, 1963.
Gioia, Ted. The History of Jazz, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.