In the immediate aftermath there was a lot of confusion. If you read interviews conducted at the time, most of the freed slaves express that they miss their old way of life, and most said they'd go back into slavery if they could. As slaves, they were given a food, housing, healthcare, and after they were too old to work, were taken care of until death. Suddenly thrust out into the "real world," where they had to find jobs, find housing, buy food, find a doctor, etc. was a massive shock. The effects of that reverberated for years, and some would argue they are being felt to this day.
Imagine facing all of that, then trying to manage an international relocation on top of all that, especially in the 1860s or '70s. Even today, moving to another country is daunting, now imagine it for a recently freed slave. The language barrier alone would be a dealbreaker, much less all the other challenges that come with such a move.
reply
share
RockAway (1601)
2 years ago
Suddenly thrust out into the "real world," where they had to find jobs, find housing, buy food, find a doctor, etc. was a massive shock.
Just imagine, You need to work so you can have money to take care of yourself and your family but the only employment available would be to work for their masters and their masters would continue to give them slave wages. Who else would hire them and give them a fair wage at the time. Who would sell them land or property even if they could scrape some sort of money together, again the problem of how they would even be able to do that. White doctors would not treat them at the time either. A lot of the time their ONLY recourse to survive would be to steal food and now they are criminals etc.
We really shot ourselves in the foot. This is the legacy of slavery.
reply
share