Inhumane Treatment Of Slavery Essay

1115 Words3 Pages

The inhumane treatment of slaves in America permanently damaged the psyche of the African American race which endured a considerable amount of damage due to slavery. The damage that slaves received was administered through countless horrible practices done by slave owners. These practices range from physical abuse to lasting psychological damage. Also, slavery lasted for 245 years causing multiple generations of African Americans were enslaved. This means these practices were engraved into slaves making a change to the African American race as a whole an inevitability. Slavery’s deadly grip on the African American race caused changes to occur that have become threaded into the dna of every African American. Slavery led to the destruction of …show more content…

The definition of what a slave is itself causes a mentality that African Americans were lesser to whites. Having this mentality causes slaves to hide behind false personalities. The famous poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote “We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes”(Dunbar 1). Constantly faking who you were caused slaves to forget who they are. This caused major psychological damage to every generation of slave because slavery forced African Americans to hide their past.
Physical torture was another major aspect of the destruction of the African American race from slavery. Physical torture was a daily sighting for many slaves. Seeing yours peers being tortured around you everyday caused slaves to always be in fear of succumbing to the same fate. Solomon Northup author of 12 Years a Slave wrote, “save in the bosoms of Epps and his painting victim and the silent witnesses around him”(Northup). Beating slaves caused physical and psychological damage to the victim as well as represses the urge to rebel for the slaves who witness these terrible …show more content…

This is an example of something so simple to you and I, but so dire to slaves. Knowing your birthday is something everyone knows in today 's society, but slaves often were never gifted that information. That 's what knowing your birthday is to a slave, it 's more than a date, it 's a privilege. Frederick Douglass, author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave wrote, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters.”(Douglass). Not knowing the day you were is a major problem because everyone is born, that is one thing that everyone has in common. Knowing your birthday is free and costs nothing to obtain for the slave but it means everything for the slave owner. Because slave owners did not let that information known it is again a way of looking down on

Open Document