Question

How have historians over different generations thought about the question of whether enslaved people were able to retain African culture and/or build a new culture in America? What was the importance to enslaved people of their culture? How did their culture help slaves cope with and/or resist slavery?

Answer 1

Answer:

Historians over different generations had the thought of how the enslaved people were able to retain their African culture. It was realized that, the physical isolation and societal marginalization of African slaves, and also their free progeny facilitated the RETAINTION of significant elements of traditional culture among Africans in the United States.

Explanation:

The Enslaved people's African culture is rooted in the blend between the cultures of West and Central Africa and the Anglo-Celtic culture that has influenced and modified its development in the American South. Understanding its identity within the culture of the United States, it is, in the anthropological sense, conscious of its origins as largely a blend of West and Central African cultures.

Although slavery greatly restricted the ability of African to practice their original cultural traditions, many practices, values and beliefs survived, and over time have modified and/or blended with cultures of Native Americans, and these became a useful weapon in RESISTING slavery of African in America.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Christianity to spread across North Africa; this shift in religion began displacing traditional African spiritual practices. The enslaved Africans brought this complex religious dynamic within their culture to America. This fusion of traditional African beliefs with Christianity provided a commonplace for those practicing religion in Africa and America.