Welcome to Tellers, Untold. I am Vanessa.
Today,
this is our Thanksgiving episode. And I want to speak to you guys about what it was like for slaves during Thanksgiving.
And
Interestingly enough on like today, I’m going to kind of compare the two. So during slavery, so our ancestors, many of them spent Thanksgiving where they started off in church. So black pastors would get together and small, they would get together in small churches, and the black pastors would have sermons related to hope and struggle and fear and triumphs, some of the same things they would normally do. But that would be like the beginning of Thanksgiving morning for them. And the slaves would also organize tiny feast among themselves. And within those feasts, so they would have wild game, which I’ve never had, it’s a wild meat game, and the field slaves would go out, they would usually hunt for the wild game for their families and the close slave friends, while the women slaves they would make you know, those Pol pancakes or also known as like, the people call them slave hoe cakes. Which are kind of you know, kind of like the pancakes, sweet pancakes, those are so good.
I wonder why they don’t like you can’t get them in the restaurants as much. I only know one place in Chicago Dixie kitchen, but I don’t even know if they’re still around. Anyways, they would make those pancakes are the the slaveholder cakes, and they would make cornbread,
which is still in our tradition today to make cornbread, specially during Thanksgiving. So those that were house slaves, they usually had it a little bit better, which they normally do. But even during Thanksgiving, they were able to eat the leftovers from the Masters, the master. And unfortunately, you know, the slaves, they just had to fit for their own. And this is something that I find pretty interesting. And if you want to find more information about this in this topic, go to our blog at Tellers Untold calm, and there is a blog that about Thanksgiving for during, you know, with slaves. But for some of the slaves headed a little lacks during Thanksgiving, because their slave owners would go traveling, and they would, you know, go out of town to visit their family. And so those slaves had a little bit lacks, but that was the time where they were trying to take advantage to escape they tried to escape during that time. But as you know, many slave families, they weren’t with each other or slaves weren’t with their families. So in order for them to see them, they sometimes requested time off during Thanksgiving to go visit their family members at other plantations and so forth, but they would use some slaves would use that time to try to escape. So what they would do is they would have what’s called like, they requested a pass to visit their families during Thanksgiving. And some of them you know, use these passes passes to explain why they were on the road during their escape. So it’s kind of Hey, Master, can I go visit my family? You know, and, and Nashville, whatever. And then they would say, yeah, you can go visit them, here’s your past, and then they would escape and leave and then when they get stopped, they’ll say,
you know,
who are you who’s your ownership and they would give them that pass. So then it would be an excuse for them to be able to escape. Now today things are different. Our traditions are a bit different. We still continue the tradition of certain foods that that were eaten during slavery, such as the cornbread. I didn’t speak of collard greens in this particular podcast but I will later and some others and and how significant that food was. We’re also broke the tradition of going to church during Thanksgiving. I don’t know too many churches that are open on Thanksgiving. I think there’s a few but we’ve left out that tradition as well. So I am going to move on from Thanksgiving and go into Black Friday. I’m going to do these two two things in one episode because we’re Approaching Thanksgiving and Black Friday. So you may be wondering, why am I having part of this episode about Black Friday? Well, it does have a lot to do with this topic, within tellers of the end told. So did you guys know and I was not aware of this for until recently, that Black Friday? Well, that say, There’s so called rumors and myths, but these allegations are based in truth, I believe. And so blackfriday really came about in 18 669. And 1869 was just four years outside of the abolishment of slavery. So Black Friday, the name Black Friday, right. But some say that, that day, could have been called, and may have been called the N word. Friday, the CIO could have been instead of Black Friday,
I hope you guys are okay that I said the word. Anyways. So the why is that it’s because slavery, so Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that was used to sell slaves, and they would sell the slaves for a discount on that day. So Thanksgiving comes right after the harvest festival. And a successful harvest would require additional help. So if we consider that after the harvest, the plantation owners would celebrate by selling slaves at a deep and a cheap discount. And some say that they were the slaves were on discount that day, because the winter was about to, if we were getting closer to the winter, and they needed additional help, so it was time to get more slaves buy more slaves. So how are those slaves actually sold. So one, once they were captured, you know, the African slaves were transported into the Middle Passage. And before heading to their final destination, the slaves would prepare and, and be sold in the Caribbean. But they were two different methods. One was the auction and one was scramble the auction, you know, just like a regular auction for slaves. And then there would be a scramble and the scramble would be where the slaves were kept in a sealed area. And the buyers would pay a flat rate to access that area. So the captain would open the enclosure once all the the buyers paid, and then they allow them to go through the slaves to pick the ones that they bought.
Horrible, horrible.
So how is it similar today? Think about it. Black Friday, people are scrambling to to get the sale. They’re having bidding wars. They’re purchasing last minute. Just like they would do ended with slaves. So on Friday, for Black Friday, I mean, I’m still going to purchase something or a few things. But I cannot help but not, you know, help but be reminded of what happened during that day after Thanksgiving. And that’s why I think it’s just so important that we just know our history, although and then we can make that we can make that decision if we want to celebrate that or not. I told this story today to my eight year old and he just could not believe it. He couldn’t believe it. Black Friday, so he said, Well, we can’t buy anything for Black Friday then sodoma we can but just remember what our ancestors went through. And just remember that day as we shop. Thankfully, hopefully it’s not going on what anything like that today. Right guys? That’s the end of this episode of Tellers of the Untold I hope you enjoyed and receive some kind of information, educational information of something unknown, that you did not know about black history. Make sure you check out go on YouTube and type in sand cofa as a NK f Chicago, that is our trailer on there. I’m really excited for you guys to check it out. We just made 7000 views on YouTube this week. And we’ve only had it on up there for a few weeks. So I appreciate it, go on there, like it, comment and subscribe. We’ll be posting more videos and the actual film itself is being submitted to film festivals and other potential distribution options. So I’m very thankful for that. That’s why I haven’t been on here as much and I haven’t been able to interview a bunch of people because we’ve been interviewing for the film. However, I will be showing you will be hearing excerpts from those interviews through the podcast. And I will for those of you guys that cannot see the actual video because I’m work still working on audio description for the blind. For the trailer and the film, it’s in process now. I will provide that through a podcast at least the audio version of it. Alright, thanks so much. And thank I’m thankful for you guys. I’m thankful for our house. Thank you for thankful for our family. I’m thankful for so many things right now during this horrible time. And you guys have a safe and very healthy Thanksgiving where mass safety does safe distance. God bless
Check out the blog for more information on Slaves during Thankgiving and Black Friday.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
