On Prison Reforms
Initially, between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, prisons were not meant to punish offenders. Rather, they were the holding places in which the people who dared to break a law and social norms remained until their due punishment. In other words, if one were to steal of murder, he or she would go to prison and wait for trial after which, based on the type of crime, the punishment would ensue. From whippings to executions, the kinds of sanctions in the years leading to prison reforms were swift. Accordingly, prisons lacked any form of order and were mostly poorly maintained. By that logic, a debtor and a murderer could be in the same holding place regardless of age and gender. Thus emerged the penal reformers who, by the commencement of the nineteenth century, sought to have prisons render punishment by inhibiting the freedom of inmates and at the same time, ensure the detainees’ health remained intact. By that logic, men and women had separate holding places and for sanitation purposes, every prisoner had his or her cell. Additionally, Christianity became the foundations on which prisons operated as the reformers dictated the changes of detainees to be the responsibility of the entire society.
The Lowell Mills
Cabot Lowell’s mills differed from those around the world just because he not only hired female workers but had them convene in one place for production. In other words, contrary to the traditional methods in which factories would send unfinished products to the women in their homes, the mill had them come to the plants and work for a wage. On a similar note, factory workers received wages depending on the amount of time spent working instead of the level of production. As hired workers were predominantly female, Lowell offered them housing as a means of security. Apparently, rather than have them go back home after working long hours in the mills, it was safer to have them residing closer to the plants. By that logic, factory work was liberating to the women. Naturally, a steady job ensures the stability of an individual’s livelihood and his or her independence; hence, the women working in the mills were both secure and independent. By extension, the ability to care for their persons meant they had freedom to choose when they would marry as they no longer lived under the dictations of societies and their families.
On Slave Rebellion
The nature of slavery dictated enslaved men and women as the human chattels of the masters. Consequently, a slave would toil for his or her owner without pay since the labor was, as per the understanding of the institution, the legal property of the master. To that end, the feeding of slaves was subject to the whims of the masters who would in most cases provide them with leftovers for meals. In other situations, the slave owners gave food provisions for the enslaved to prepare for sustenance. A typical Soul Food meal encompassed ingredients originating from the African continent. For instance, while okra seeds were indigenous to Africa and had found their way to North America via the Atlantic slave trade, they made up the main ingredient in the Soul Food meals. In that sense, such dishes were rebellious to the institution of slavery because they gave slaves an identity, one that defied the one granted by the people that also kept them in bondage. Extensively, another form of rebellion was the cakewalks. Designed primarily as a mimic of how the Caucasians walked, the cakewalks provided entertainment for plantation slaves as they competed to see who would give the best impression of their oppressors’ mannerisms. Ironically, the masters resided over such competitions. Thus, catwalks were rebellious because they ridiculed the white community as they watched.
With the given facts in mind, another form of rebellion was in the form of songs that criticized the whites. As a means to the elaboration of the given claim, this paper will focus on the lyrics of “I Don't do Nobody Nothin'” as a criticism of the Caucasians’ religious practices. Foremost, in the first stanza, the song appears to report the masters to Jesus as the singer asserts that he or she has done nothing but the whites “hate [him or her] just the same.” In the next stanza, the singer makes yet another report by stating that the masters rebuke him or her although Jesus knows he or she tries to save his or her name by managing to stay “outta bad company.” Finally, the singer seems to accept his or her plight by declaring “oh, well, well, it's among that Christian family” where his or her heart has pain, but the sinner knows nothing about his or her name. Apparently, slaves did not believe that the whites practiced the true nature of Christianity, and the institution of black slavery provided enough proof. After all, how could one claim to be in accord with a doctrine that revolved around Jesus Christ, the entity of love for all, and still holds an entire race in bondage? The song was rebellious as it highlighted the fact that whites were imperfect yet the whole slavery system stemmed from ideologies of white supremacy, where the possession of white skin meant liberties and freedom that were inaccessible to others.
