Inhumane Treatment Of Slavery In America

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Cruelty can be described as a desire to cause others to suffer: inhumane treatment. Slavery was cruel and inhumane. As early as seventeen hundred, Africans were ripped away from their families and homes and forced into slavery in America. White wealthy plantation owners in the South bought slaves as if they were shiny new objects put on a silver platter for them to do with what they wanted. The text from the sales advertisement for a ship full of slaves’ states that they are “choice cargo of about 250 fine healthy negroes” and that they are “free from danger of being infected with the small-pox” presents the slaves as merchandise that has been handled carefully until the owner could claim their rights to them. Slaves were not considered as humans but as property. From the way they were sold on ships to the unjust way they were treated by the slave owners it is no wonder the thought of freedom was always on their mind. The major areas of cruelty slaves endured were most apparent in the slaves working conditions, living conditions and loss of freedoms all humans have a right to. …show more content…

Slaves lived in fear of being punished and did not think of disobeying. Slaves worked from sunup to sundown six days a week. Although the slaves were sold to their masters reasonably healthy and strong many of them died from disease, torture and hard work. Even though they grew the crops they were given little to eat. After an exhausting day of labor, the cruelty continued as they retired to their less than ideal dwellings. Many of the slaves had large families and they were encouraged to do so by their master because it was thought it would keep them from running away. Although, sometimes an entire family would flee together to avoid being

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