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Act X Con't.
This law affected the Africans physically, because without the ability to hunt and obtain food, Africans could not be able to stay healthy and strong and resist the whites. -
Act X
This law is one of the most important laws because the law is banning any kind of ammunition from Africans. Before Act X, guns were allowed to be distributed among all people of all different races. Then the law was passed, clearly intending to leave Africans defenseless. It also seems to make eating and hunting practically impossible. Without food and guns, suppression of rebellious acts of Africans is easy. -
Period: to
Events During Life of Anthony Johnson and Sons
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Act XII
Act XII makes it obvious that the whites are now purposely subdueing the Africans' freedom. This law states that no matter the position of the father, powerful or not, if the mother is a slave, that the child will be a slave as well. This law also discourages white men to engage in a personal relationship with an African woman who is a slave. Even if the love of their life is an African, the white man would probably not want to condemn an innocent child to a life of labor. -
50 Acres Taken From Anthony's Son Con't
The jury had claimed that Anthony "was a Negroe and also an alien." This quote is spoken proof that the whites think Africans are not humans like them. By calling them aliens, they are being prejudiced against all blacks. -
50 Acres Taken from Anthony's Son
This situation is important to the diminishing progress, because the jury (all white men) had declared that because Anthony Johnson was a black, he therefore was an alien, and the land he owned would be taken from his remaining family. At one point, a freed black COULD own land without the whites saying much about it. But then times changed and the whites are treating Africans as the jury is saying in this passage from Document A, an alien. -
Act I
I feel that this act is an important one as well, because it clearly indicates that the whites feel that they are much more important compared to a foreign race. They assume that the white race is the race in charge. To make themselves seem even more superior, they are now punishing the Africans by pain of death. This act of perfidy seems to be also an act of communication to the rest of the slave population. The casual killing of slaves shows which priviledges a white thinks an African has. -
Chap. IV
This chapter says that the whites totally have a lack of trust in Africans. The banning of office-bearing Africans displays this. They also seem to be trying to subdue Afrcan rebellions even further, because if an African was to hold an office of power, the office bearing African may allow other powerless African to overthrow whites. Having a place of power given to an African may result in disastor for whites. This also indicates that the highest place of honor for an African is being a slave. -
Chapter XXII
This chapter is clearly the last straw. This chapter implies that the whites do not even think that Africans are people as much as just property. It also implies that Africans, as property, can be bought and sold just as furniture can be bought and sold. By this time, the whites have utterly and completely disregarded the Africans as people just like them. Before the whites had begun to despise the Africans so, Anthony Johnson had prospered with land, 250 acres to -
Chapter XXII Con't.
call his own. As the whites gradually began to discriminate the Africans, Anthony's sons lost his land and everything else he had once owned. The diminishing progress has reached its peak, and the Africans are no longer treated as humans in the eyes of the whites.
