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
For more than two hundred years, a certain group of people lived in misery; conditions so inhumane that the only simile that can compare to such, would be the image of a caged animal dying to live, yet whose live is perished by the awful chains that dragged him back into a dark world of torture and misfortune. Yes, I am referring to African Americans, whose beautiful heritage, one which is full of cultural beauty and extraordinary people, was stained by the privilege given to white men at one point in the history of the United States. Though slavery has been “abolished” for quite some years; or perhaps it is the ideal driven to us by our modern society and the lines that make up our constitution, there is a new kind of slavery. One which in
Slavery was an issue in early America that plagued the African Americans who were forced into the position. It was believed, in the beginning, that the African Americans were happy to be enslaved, that it was their natural place. Many of the slaves that were taken from Africa couldn’t be more distraught with being sold into slavery but overtime as the older generation that had memories of freedom were replaced by the generation that only knew servitude. This generation was socialized into their position of enslavement, a lack of self-worth, and no access to education gave the illusion of happiness. Luckily around this time white Americans, mostly Northern, saw how wrong these inequalities were and began demanding the abolition of slavery. This
Position: To convince my audience that although slavery occurred years ago, it still negatively affects black people in America today.”
By this time, the mindset of people who owned slaves, thought of ex-slaves as if they were still objects and property to be owned. The inequality and treatment of ex-slaves were ridiculous. Even some objects were more valuable than the life of an ex-slave, or any colored person. Leary, Hammond, and Davis stated in the “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome” article, “Being reminded that our ancestors were treated as property and only as humans when it was profitable to their owners stirred our emotions… The author details how blacks were counted as 3/5 of a person… American slaves had no legal rights as property, but interestingly enough, slaves outside of the United States did have rights and could even buy themselves out of slavery under certain conditions” (Leary, Hammond, and Davis, “Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome”). This played a major role into Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome making a lasting effect throughout generations and generations to come. There were people who believed in the great plan of equality and fairness, but those people were very few. Even when President Lincoln passed the emancipation proclamation, people still did not want slaves to be free or even wanted to acknowledge them as people. This started to cause the Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome because there was no closure on the situation and the pain that came out of it. To this day,
When discussing the topic of slavery oftentimes the reality of the trauma which took place is not fully understood due to the audience’s inability to relate. However, the most effectual means for one to convey the true extent of oppression is through accurate and compelling firsthand descriptions. Frederick Douglass thoroughly accomplishes this by transparently exposing his personal experience as a slave in his book titled “Narrative.” From being separated from his mother at birth to outsmarting his slave master into allowing him to teach fellow slaves to read, Douglass’ perspective provides an in depth look into life as a slave. Certainly, anyone with any knowledge of American slavery is familiar with the aspect of physical abuse because it
Ironically, their journey to the “land of the free” ended with their liberty being stripped from them and their enslavement. The slaves lost their own civilization because of slavery, which led to their lost heritage and history. Their slavery not only subjugated them to the white man, but it also locked their psyche into ego-restriction. Their minds became trapped at a very young age during the original phase of their psychical development. In this stage, their primary narcissism never fully developed, which is what helped to lead to their obsession with approval from the white man. This incessant need for approval led to an impaired development of the psyche. Another key factor in the development of neurosis in the black slave was the lack of education. Because the black man’s primary narcissism never fully developed, due to his lack of a proper education, he attempted to lose his true self and become the white man. America’s early history of slavery led to the obsessional neurosis that the black man had for the white man. Thus the dramatic effect that a civilization can have on the psyche is
From the very beginning of time African Americans have been a culture of resistance. That is resistance from slavery, resistance from torture, and resistance from wrongdoing. Families were torn apart, women were raped, and children were tortured. In an article by Atlanta Blackst they list some of the ways African American slaves were tortures, and it’s horrifying. Some slaves were burned alive, lynched by meat hooks, castrated, and even Mutated. This is the easy part, as after being tortured they had many years of psychological suffering. They didn’t have family to turn to because they were most dead or sold to another slave
In Colonial America indentured slavery happen gradually. The colony of Virginia was one place the “terrible transformation” took place. There were Africans and poor whites that came from English working class, black and whites worked side by side in the fields. They were all indentured servants as servants they were fed and housed. After their time was served, they were given “freedom dues,” with that came a piece of land and supplies. Black and whites became free. The English would not enslave non-Christians slaves; they could be set freed by converting to Christianity (PBS Online, nd).
Slavery in the eighteenth century was worst for African Americans. Observers of slaves suggested that slave characteristics like: clumsiness, untidiness, littleness, destructiveness, and inability to learn the white people were “better.” Despite white society's belief that slaves were nothing more than laborers when in fact they were a part of an elaborate and well defined social structure that gave them identity and sustained them in their silent protest.
Slaves were subject to harsh working conditions, malicious owners, and illegal matters including rape and murder. In many instances, slaves were born into slavery, raised their families in slavery, and died within the captivity of that same slavery. These individuals were not allowed to learn how to read, write, and therefore think for themselves. This is where the true irony begins to come into light. While we have been told our entire lives that education and knowledge is the greatest power available to everyone under the sun, there was a point in time where this concept was used to keep certain people under others. By not allowing the slaves to learn how to read, then they were inevitably not allowing the slaves to form free thoughts. One of my favorite quotes is that of Haruki Murakami, “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, then you can only think what everyone else is thing.” This applied in magnitudes to those who didn’t get to read at all. Not only were these individuals subject to the inability to think outside the box, but for most of these their boxes were based upon the information the slaves owners allowed them to
...tive on the psychological damages of slavery. White believes “pairing the psychological with the enslaved woman’s means of survival has helped us analyze many patterns that emerged after slavery (10).”
In the Autobiography, “Narrative Life of Fredrick Douglas: An American Slave,” Fredrick Douglas writes to show what the life of a slave is like, because from personal experience, he knows. Fredrick Douglas not only shows how his life has been as a slave but shows what it is like to be on the bottom and be mistreated. Douglas shows that freedom isn’t free, and he took the initiative to become a free man. Not many African-Americans had the opportunity to make themselves free and were forced to live a life of disparity and torture. Through his experience Douglas shows us the psychological effects of slavery. Through Douglas’s memory we are able to relive the moments that continued to haunt his life. Douglas’s book showed the true
The film “Slavery by another name" is a one and a half hour documentary produced by Catherine Allan and directed by Sam Pollard, and it was first showcased by Sundance Film Festival in 2012. The film is based on Douglas Blackmonbook Slavery by Another Name, and the plot of the film revolves around the history and life of African Americans after Emancipation Proclamation; which was effected by President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, for the purpose of ending slavery of African Americans in the U.S. The film reveals very brutal stories of how slavery of African Americans persisted in through forced labor and cruelty; especially in the American south which continued until the beginning of World War II. The film brings to light one of my upbringing
Beginning in the 1830s, white abolitionists attempted to prove that American slaves suffered physically, emotionally, and spiritually at the hands of those who claimed their ownership (Pierson, 2005). Like those that were seen in our American literature text book. Not only did they suffer from those things, but they also had trouble with their identity once they moved on or was freed from slavery, that’s why we seen a lot of the former slaves changing their identity. Abolitionists were determined to educate the public on how badly slaves were being treated. They even argued the basic facts of Southern plantation life such as slave holders divided families, legalized rape, and did not recognize slave marriages as legitimate (Pierson, 2005). In the interregional slave trade, hundreds of thousands of slaves were move long distance from their birthplace and original homes as the slave economy migrated from the eastern seaboards to Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas (Thornton...
The word “slavery” brings back horrific memories of human beings. Bought and sold as property, and dehumanized with the risk and implementation of violence, at times nearly inhumane. The majority of people in the United States assumes and assures that slavery was eliminated during the nineteenth century with the Emancipation Proclamation. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth; rather, slavery and the global slave trade continue to thrive till this day. In fact, it is likely that more individuals are becoming victims of human trafficking across borders against their will compared to the vast number of slaves that we know in earlier times. Slavery is no longer about legal ownership asserted, but instead legal ownership avoided, the thought provoking idea that with old slavery, slaves were maintained, compared to modern day slavery in which slaves are nearly disposable, under the same institutionalized systems in which violence and economic control over the disadvantaged is the common way of life. Modern day slavery is insidious to the public but still detrimental if not more than old American slavery.