Slavery And Education Dbq

During the Antebellum period in American history,Slaves were molded by both oppression and agency, they were mistreated and had a lack of education but slaves also had hope in religion, songs and education, they thought this would lead them to freedom. Historians have made the argument that slavery stripped away all of the slaves African identities, stopped them from forming strong relationships and made them workers that couldn’t think on their own. However historians recently have argued that people born into slavery actually had control to change their own life and make their own choices and were not just shaped by oppression.
One of the ways slaves were oppressed was by the way slave women were mistreated. According to Document 7 “Charity
In document 1 written by Henry Bibb he talks about how “Books were supplied and she started the school; but the news got to our owners that she was teaching us to read. This caused quite an excitement in the neighborhood. Patrols were appointed to go break it up the next sabbath”(doc 1). So in his paper he talks about how a school for slaves was made by a white lady but then shut down by the neighborhood. Slaves wanted to learn and have an education but were so oppressed by whites and their masters that they weren’t even allowed to own paper in fear that would try and educate themselves and end up running away. In document 11 named Ber Rabbit and Ber Fox the story says “I was goin’ to school all my life,” Rabbit mutters to himself as he walks away from the carnage, “ and learn every letter in de book but d, an’ D was death an’ death was de en’ of Ber Fox” (doc 11). In this story it talks about a rabbit that tricks a fox and ends up killing it and he knew how to do so because he had gone to school his whole life. In this story the rabbit represents a slave and the fox represents the slave owner. This story was written to warn slave owners that if they let their slaves have an education they would end up tricking them and running away or killing them for their freedom. This caused white owners to oppress their slaves more by not letting them learn. Another way slaves worked towards freedom was by resisting and fighting back against slavery and oppression. In pages 278-280 the textbook says “Many enslaved people did whatever they could to fight back against their oppressors. Resistance took many forms including sabotage, such as breaking tools or outwitting overseers, and the more direct method of escape” (p.280). The textbook says that slaves did fight back and resist even if it was smaller things like breaking tools or major things like trying to escape