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In many occasions, the woman house slaves were treated more cruelty than any other slaves the master owned. Reading four different stories from four different people
Many slaves being shipped to America had been betrayed by their own race, kidnapped and sold into slavery. The conditions on the ship were horrendous and each man was chained to an area and given about six feet long by fifteen inches wide. The boats were extremely packed with close corners and no bathroom, and women or children got even less space than the men. Many a times, the crew tried to justify the chaining by stating the it was a form of protection to avoid an uprising. In one of the examples Rediker gave, the slave ship, with Captain Tomba, who was known for brutal beatings including whipping, handing out cruel punishments to scare the other slaves into not acting out.
Douglass uses paradox to demonstrate that slavery degragrates the slaverholder. When Douglass under Mr. Sever’s care he described that: “He was less cruel, less profane… He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. ”(Douglass 24). Most slaveholders are characterized to be cruel and inhuman because of the whipping and the way they treated the slaves.
The book "Soul by Soul" talks about one of the largest antebellum slave market that has happened in the South, specifically, in New Orleans. The author, Walter Johnson, describes the slave "pens" of New Orleans to establish a full understanding on how the American slave system worked. While in the pens, slaves were locked in cages or cells. A tight jail for hundreds of slaves with poor sanitary conditions, smells, and noise from all the slaves living together inside the Crammed quarters. Basically, a life as cattle living packed in a stable.
Throughout the narrative, the author includes his personal stories about experiencing the violence of slavery first-hand. For example, on page 20, he writes about the first time he witnessed a slave, his own aunt, getting the whip. “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest…I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition… It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery…” The author including his experience of his aunts whipping, in detail, appeals to the emotions of the reader.
The poem “Paul Revere’s ride” written by Longfellow is far from a reliable source for many reasons. Paul Revere wrote a letter himself about what happened that night, and so did Longfellow but whose side is more reliable? The man who allegedly saved a village from the British on his own and his words or Longfellow’s story about what happened. Many things Longfellow claims happened on the night of the British attack don’t match Paul’s letter.
While the masters may truly have these feelings for these women, being raised to believe they are superior to them leads the men to express their romantic emotions in ways that are degrading, controlling, and inhumane. Whether a female wants to engage in sexual or romantic acts with a slave owner, she is left in a situation where she has no choice but to obey despite her own feelings. Through the novels Kindred and the slave narrative of Mary Prince, we can see the consequences that come from these sexual and emotional relationships between a slave and her master.
But sometimes he likes to take the whip and this time he whipped her until her back was all ripped and bleeding. We had to watch”(43-44). This represents pathos to create the subject of freedom by way of showing simply come cruel they may be treated. Mothers are used for breeding but, don't even get to keep their children in the end. It’s even worst to think that Sarny as a child doesn’t realize what she has lost and thinks it not only normal but okay from children to be taken away from their parent and passed on for someone to take come on till they themselves are old enough to work and to create the theme of freedom by showing how old hearted the ‘master’ is that it is clear he enjoys the pain he causes and that he makes the other slaves watch in a way of a silent threat or promise that this could and will happen to them if they too step out of line.
To me this looks like another way to prevent women of color from forming uprisings. Due to the ideals portrayed by the white supremacist, as Jones stated, known as “white chauvism” it painted a horrible depiction of African American women as “‘backward ', 'inferior ', and the 'natural slaves ' of others" (112). Which played a role in the lives of the women because it prevented them from gaining job opportunities, and having economic stability. Even though men of color have suffered from the era of white supremacy, after reading this you can tell that women of color went through a lot more than their male counterparts. Women were limited in what they could achieve and some restriction even pressed to oppress them from achieving beyond what others classify
“One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognizes a human being in a slave” (Angelina Grimke). This quote was created to show the effect that slavery had on not only the slave, but the slaveholder. The slaveholder would dehumanize the slave to the point where the human was no longer recognizable; instead, the slave was property. Throughout this autobiography, Frederick Douglass uses language to portray the similarities and differences between the two sides. He allows the reader to spend a day in the life of a slave to see the effects from it.
The infliction that slaves suffered. But Mrs. Stowe never mentions why did white owner did this to slaves and continue to do this as a brutal.(PG 14) Baldwin points out that Mrs.Stowe only mentions three other slaves, but leaves out other slaves from that the endured suffering from the plantation. This makes the audience questions what else happened to others and as if she is hiding other things during the time of enslavement (16). In addition, she viewed whites as pure but African American as Blacks were evil (17).
From this, derives a bond with the reader that pushes their understanding of the evil nature of slavery that society deemed appropriate therefore enhancing their understanding of history. While only glossed over in most classroom settings of the twenty-first century, students often neglect the sad but true reality that the backbone of slavery, was the dehumanization of an entire race of people. To create a group of individuals known for their extreme oppression derived from slavery, required plantation owner’s of the South to constantly embedded certain values into the lives of their slaves. To talk back means to be whipped.
Douglass’s Message to Women Frederick Douglass gives many examples of the treatment of women like the following passage: “this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and made a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.” (Douglass 1183) Through this passage, Douglass brings to light that enslaved women are raped by their masters because of the master’s lust and the master’s desire to produce more slaves. By looking at the passage in the context of the rest of Narrative of Life, Douglass makes it clear that women who are raped by their masters and birth a child from the rape have it worse than others because of the excess brutality they receive from the master’s wife.
Living conditions for slaves were dreadful, with long work hours and low wages. Slave masters separated families and sold off children from their parents, or vice versa. Slaves were prone to severe punishment for even trivial offenses. Whippings and beatings were prevalent. Running away allowed them to get away from all the hostility, if only for a while.
Slaves faced extreme brutality and Morrison focuses on rape and sexual assault as the most terrifying form of abuse. It is because of this abuse that Morrison’s characters are trapped in their pasts, unable to move on from the psychological damages that they have endured. “Morrison revises the conventional slave narrative by insisting on the primacy of sexual assault over other experiences of brutality” (Barnett 420). For telling Mrs. Garner what they had done, she was badly beaten by them, leaving a “chokecherry tree” (16) on her back. But that was not the overriding issue.
