“Concomitant with the move toward race was the stratification of black society. Most Africans had been taken out of cultures in which divisions of labor had been apportioned to whole families, within which certain skills and economic activities were passed down from generation to generation. This arrangement of structures, somewhat akin to Western guilds, has led some to characterize much of precolonial Africa as a collection of caste societies based upon differentiated economic and labor functions, into which individuals were born rather than selected. Many, then, came to North America already possessed of ironworking skills, or adept at producing leather manufactures, or with considerable experience in animal husbandry. During the colonial period, skills acquired in Africa together with European stereotyping of Africans in America combined to inform labor differentiation, the basis of classism in the black community. As the colonial period merged with that of the antebellum, African importation began to decline while the percentage of American-born blacks began to increase. Labor differentiation could no longer be based upon ethnicity, but upon other factors. As a result, not everyone worked as laborers in the fields—there were skilled and supervisory duties as well. Furthermore, not all lived in the countryside—many dwelled in towns, where ports were constructed, fine homes crafted, streets laid, iron worked, horses shod, and so on. Blacks were to be found performing all of these tasks and many more.” Michael A. Gomez “Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South” Page 15
Posted on: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 11:21:49 +0000
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