Beatings, torture, imprisonment, crippling and death. It started in 1916, when twenty abducted Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, wearing shackles and chains. Over the next 250 years, the Europeans assumed the Black Americans to be morally and mentally inferior, thus they were deprived of their fundamental human rights. However, through the pain and suffering, they were able to retain the memories of their African cultural heritage and infuse it through out their daily lives as a way to resist assimilation, ease suffering, express their master's cruelty, and mask codes of escape. For the majority of black people living in colonial America, intellectual pursuits were forbidden, thus for cultural expression they drew essentially from their African oral heritage. Using these roots, Euro-American origins, and their own interpretations of biblical myth and typology, they created proverbs, work songs, spirituals, folktales, and other forms of communication. .
African proverbs were used to portray the philosophy of life to people by building on the wisdom and experience of the past. Proverbs taught moral values, modes of conduct, religious beliefs, respect for elders, and was also a means of communication, such as a greeting. The African American proverbs however, had both African and Euro-American origins. The slave's proverbs are similar to the African proverbs in content and form, however, they reflect the impact of slavery and the plantation experience in the New World. The slave's proverbs served as a form of instruction, such as how much labor the slave should perform, how to avoid punishment, and also referred to their daily activities such as plowing, religious meetings, harvesting cotton, corn and wheat, and singing. The slaves also used proverbs to express the cruelty in their master's character and practice without him knowing. .
The black folk cries, hollers, and shouts are also an important part of the African and African American culture and tradition.
