Sugar cane cultivation was back-breaking labour under the punishing sun. The colonists found that Africans stood up better to these conditions than the Tainos, who were exterminated; thus the reason and the beginning of the mass exodus of the people from Africa to the Americas (North America, South America and the Caribbean).
There were slave-trading stations on the coast where European crew and ships bought slaves from African slave traders who traded their prisoners of war for industrial products made in Europe.
Our 9-11 million ancestors survived the journey through the Middle Passage in cargo ships from Africa to the West Indies. The ones who didn't survive the passage jumped overboard in protest, were thrown overboard as warning to the others or died from the injuries and illnesses sustained and gained from the inhumane conditions.
Our ancestors lived and worked under inhumane conditions. There were no laws that regulated the treatment of slaves. All this was left to the whim of overseers and plantation owners - massas and bakras.
They rebelled when they could. The peaceful ones were called silent resistance. These were the sabotage of crops, tools, even the maiming and harming of one's self.
During this dark hour of our heritage, drums and songs, some of which we hear today, were means of communication and expressing the desire for freedom slavery engendered - a freedom they could only attain through death.
The slaves who successfully escaped the plantations joined the Maroons in the almost inaccessible mountains.
There were slave-trading stations on the coast where European crew and ships bought slaves from African slave traders who traded their prisoners of war for industrial products made in Europe.
Our 9-11 million ancestors survived the journey through the Middle Passage in cargo ships from Africa to the West Indies. The ones who didn't survive the passage jumped overboard in protest, were thrown overboard as warning to the others or died from the injuries and illnesses sustained and gained from the inhumane conditions.
Our ancestors lived and worked under inhumane conditions. There were no laws that regulated the treatment of slaves. All this was left to the whim of overseers and plantation owners - massas and bakras.
They rebelled when they could. The peaceful ones were called silent resistance. These were the sabotage of crops, tools, even the maiming and harming of one's self.
During this dark hour of our heritage, drums and songs, some of which we hear today, were means of communication and expressing the desire for freedom slavery engendered - a freedom they could only attain through death.
The slaves who successfully escaped the plantations joined the Maroons in the almost inaccessible mountains.