Historical Analysis Of The Movie Glory

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There can be no doubt that movies have become one of the primary ways in which the general population consumes information. Often these movies are completely fabricated and serve to offer a distraction from ones every day life. However, sometimes these films educate the viewer about historical events that occurred. These films can vary in historical quality, and it is in this variation that worthwhile scholarship can be produced that analyzes both the facts and the fictions that movies depicting the past contain. It is in this analytical vein that this paper will break down the movie Glory and determine the quality of the historical events portrayed within it. In order to achieve this the reader must firstly become acquainted with the historical …show more content…
The North was seen as being largely slavery abolitionists while the South were seen as pro slavery. The two sides largely obtained this view based on their economies. The North was largely based on manufacturing, which took place in large cities and did not require the use of free labour. The south however had an agricultural economy that was very dependent on the slave trade . The role that African American’s played in their respective economies would certainly have coloured the opinion of both sides as well as furthering the divide between North and South. War was declared in 1861, however the 54th Massachusetts regiment, which was made up of all Black volunteers was not formed until the winter of 1862. The real 54th Massachusetts regiment was a revolutionary idea for its time, as the question on the minds of many was whether African Americans had the same capacity for combat as white Americans . The 54th Massachusetts regiment was made up of mostly free black men from the North, and some runaway slaves from the South. Many of the men in the regiment were skilled, educated, and literate …show more content…
Therefore the first theme of the film is the attitude towards the black population in both the North and the South. It is a well-known historical fact that the South was very racist and pro-slavery when it came to its black population. The North however escapes the racist title in modern consciousness due to its largely anti-slavery bias. However, Glory shows several instances of both the North and the South treating its black populations poorly. Glory depicts the South releasing a historically accurate proclamation that states that any black man in uniform will be sent back into slavery and that any white officer caught leading black troops would be shot for inciting rebellion. This shows that the South did not respect the choices of free blacks to take up arms. For the South, that black men could arm themselves in such large numbers against the states that were actively fighting to keep them enslaved was a frightening possibility because it meant that they would no longer be able to keep them as subservient and cheap labour, which was something that their economy was based off of. Therefore the depiction of the South in Glory is historically
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