What Is The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass Mental Abuse

Arwa Zaman
English 111
Dr.Stanica
February 26, 2023

Why isn’t mental abuse substantiated alongside the physical trauma that African Americans endured at the hands of slave owners? Most rich “noble” men, like Thomas Jefferson, a president of the United States of America, were deceivers who not only physically assaulted their slaves consistently but also inflicted psychological torture on their slaves and tried to conceal it to avoid stigma and maintain the “honorable” status and the brand of a “common man”. Psychological torture is a form of torture where one is tormented mentally not involving bodily harm but can make one question their sanity. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Fredrick Douglass, an autobiography

A crucial aspect of his argument is that he agrees that slaves were whipped consistently and they suffered through the mental control and trauma enforced upon them. Throughout the memoir, Douglass would bring up personal experiences as well as anecdotes he heard from other slaves. Some of his personal experience as a slave and the trauma he went through were conveyed through his isolation: “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant— before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland…to part children from their mothers at a very early age” (Douglass 2). The bond breaking of a mother and her child showcases the level of control slaveholders had over slaves. This isolation exempted any sort of distraction from serving the masters and created a sense of sole dependency on the slave owner. Subsequently, if one of them had to escape, they would attempt to take their family as well because of their bond which would be a loss of property for the owner so separation from a young age would solve the issues. This isolation would lead to a feeling of numbness or desensitization and this is shown in Douglass when he spoke about his mother: “She was long gone before I knew anything about it. Never have enjoyed to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender, and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much

The slaveholders left no possibility of showing mercy upon the people in bondage. Overseers at the plantations were equally diabolical as their employers, if not more and Mr.Severe is one example who would publicly torture the slaves: “I have seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for their mother’s release” (Douglass 14). This is public torture and this impacted the woman, the children, and Douglass. Physical pain is already burdening but humiliates the receiver of the lashes and instills fear in the people watching. The children here could be connected to Douglass’s witnessing Aunt Hestor’s whipping and that also shapes their mental health. The slaves were frequently dehumanized by being treated as property, passed around between slave owners without consideration of the slave’s families. Douglass states that all livings things were regarded the same at the valuation at the plantations: “Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sleep, and swine…holding the same rank in the scale of being and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (58). These valuations would eventually make human beings feel like farm animals and property; it stripped them of