Nightjohn Research Paper

Although slaves were able to obtain religious agency, they were still oppressed due to the different kinds of abuse they experienced such as emotional abuse. In Charity Bowery by Lydia Maria Child, Child is retelling a story of an aged colored woman, Charity Bowery, from New York. In Bowery’s story she says, “Sixteen children I’ve had, first and last; and twelve I’ve nursed for my mistress. From the time my first baby was born, I always set my heart upon buying freedom for some of my children. I thought it was of more consequence to them than to me; for I was old, and used to being a slave. But mistress McKinley wouldn’t let me have my children. One after another - one after another - she sold ‘em away from me. Oh, how many times that woman ‘s broke my heart!”(Child, p 12). Bowery is explaining to Child the various times her owner would not allow her to purchase her own children. Bowery had to endure that pain of seeing her children be sold away, one after another. This can be seen as mental abuse because Bowery had some hope that she would be able to purchase at least one of her children 's’ freedom, but was not able to do so. Instead, she had to watch her children be taken away from her. Because of this mental abuse, Bowery was oppressed due to the fact that she was not allowed to buy any of her children, and was given false hope. Mental abuse is also seen in Josiah Henson’s autobiography when he says, “ The day for the execution of the penalty was appointed. The Negroes

In the Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave, written by himself, the author argues that slaves are treated no better than, sometimes worse, than livestock. Douglass supports his claim by demonstrating how the slaves were forced to eat out of a trough like pigs and second, shows how hard they were working, like animals. The author’s purpose is to show the lifestyle of an American slave in order to appeal to people’s emotions to show people, from a slave’s perspective, what slavery is really like. Based on the harsh descriptions of his life, Douglass is writing to abolitionist and other people that would sympathize and abolish slavery.

Greed is the undertone upon which Douglass states that slavery “corrupted souls” and “turned good people into bad people.” The institution of slavery was based on the ultimate control and power over a human to whom he is stripped of all of his identity and becomes sub-human. Consequently, the institution forces slave holders had to buy into this concept in order to justify any and all cruelty toward slaves. Douglas states “Slave holders resort to all kinds of cruelty” and later describes various ways of torture and punishment “all are in requisition to keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States” (Douglass 272). Slave holders showed no mercy when reprimanding slaves. The brutality and cruelty of these punishments were more of a statement of power and control and often times the punishment was worse than the offense.

Douglass not only describes slaves as animals, but he describes slave treatment as if they were animals to further describe the horrendous lives of slaves. Slaves were fed food in troughs (36). By choosing the word “trough”, Douglass emphasizes the poor treatment of slaves; slaves were not good enough to be fed from bowls or plates, they were no better than animals. Douglass also compares women on the plantations to breeding animals. Women were expected to reproduce in order to increase their masters’ wealth, not to create a family. Women and children were separated before the child was a year old so they would not form familial bonds with one another. When Douglass’ own mother died, he compared it to a stranger dying because he had no connection with her (18). Slaves were not only thought of animals, but also fostered as animals. Douglass describes Mr. Covey as a “nigger-breaker”, Douglass was broken in “body, soul, and spirit” by

Perhaps one of the strongest elements of slavery is honor. Honor has had a wide range of impact in history, whether it was shaping major dynasties and hierarchies, deciding an individuals’ role in society, or family ties and marriages. This sense of worth, high esteem, or virtue was also manipulated by slave masters in order to control their slaves. “The slave could have no honor because of the origin of his status, the indignity and all-pervasiveness of his indebtedness, his absence of any independent social existence, but most of all because he was without power except through another” (p 6). This element is not just a physical force, such as coercive power, which one can heal and

The different treatments slaves received from their masters may have been caused by the different environments they were living in. After moving from the country to Baltimore, Douglass observed that slaves living in urban surroundings were treated differently from slaves living on plantations. Douglass notices that “a city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation” (Douglass 32). These differences can be seen through the experiences of George Womble and Douglass. Mr. Womble, a slave who lived on a plantation in Clinton, Georgia, says that “slaves on the Womble plantation were treated more like animals rather than like humans” (Womble 12). Children ate from a trough and shared meals with the animals, and his master would whip slaves “just to give himself a little fun” (Womble 2). Slaves were also punished unjustly. For instance, when he was sent off to complete an errand, Mr. Womble “stopped to eat some persimmons [instead]…of returning immediately” (Womble 13). As a result, his master “started beating him on the head with a wagon spoke” until “his head was covered with knots the size of hen eggs and blood was flowing from each of them” (Womble 13). This brutal treatment would not be accepted in the city. In urban areas, masters have “a sense of shame that does much to curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty so commonly enacted

Slavery was a big problem in the south in the 1800’s. Slaves were whipped, shot, and tortured in every way possible. They were often auctioned off for money, so they had many different friends and families. Nightjohn was a free slave who had something no one could ever take from him. He had letters. He shared these letters with a female slave named Sarny for some tobacco. Slaves weren’t supposed to know letters, so they had to have private lessons and no one could know.

“I speak advisedly when I say this – that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot County, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community.”(Chapter 4; Paragraph 3)The United States slave owners made slaves work for long hours in the heat, beat slaves, murdered them and did various inhumane things to African American men, women and even children and slave owners did not get punished or even a “stern talking to” for the inhumane things they did to African Americans. African Americans were considered animals. “We [the slaves] were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. Horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children – all held the same rank in the scale of being and were all subjected to the same narrow examination, the same indelicate inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder.”(Chapter 8; Paragraph

(3) When first reading these narratives one would often assume, by what history tells us, that slave owners were cruel, hated men who often beat slaves severely if they committed even the slightest infraction. While this depiction does stand true for some slave owners, I was surprised to find that most of the former slaves interviewed in the “Slave Narratives” often held their masters in high regards, referring to them as kind and good. Former slave Harriett Gresham even goes as far to say that her master, Mr. Bellinger was “exceptionally kind”. Many slaves in the narratives described their masters as good to his slaves and never whipping them unless it was absolutely necessary. However, when the former slaves spoke of the “paterollers”, white men who roamed the roads in search of runaway slaves often beating them and returning them to their owners, they were described as being very cruel to slaves showing no sympathy to any slave found running away from a

Issues of freedom vs being enslaved did not stop with whippings. Douglass has memories when it was time to eat, "our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooded tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate the fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied" (Douglass 957). This moment they have of them eating a meal could be that of rats fighting over garbage. This was no way to treat hardworking people that had worked all day long. Douglass experiences the discomforts of hunger and cold during his time as a slave.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.” In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs provides a portrayal of her life as a black slave girl in the 1800s. Though Harriet described herself as having yellowish brown skin; she was the child of a black mother and a white father. “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.” Born with one drop of black blood, regardless of the status of her white father, she inherited the classification of black and was inevitably a slave. Harriet endured years of physical and mental abuse from her master and witnessed firsthand how slaves were treated based on the color of their skin. Years of abuse can only be taken for so long, like many

In his youth, Douglass felt inferior to other boys his age because of his slave status. Frederick Douglass was often whipped by his masters and suffered from hunger and cold. As an outcome from being a child and not old enough to work in fields yet, Douglass often had leisure time which include keeping Master Daniel Lloyd company. To his advantage as the master’s son being attached to him, he would not let Douglass be “made fun of by older kids and would shares his sweets with him” (Douglass, 5). Even as child, Douglass knew he would never be able to enjoy life like his master’s son. He knew slaves were not given the same amount of freedom like citizens or indentured servants. Slaves were not permitted by law to read or write. A slave could not go anywhere with a written consent form from his or her master. There were no laws that stop a white slave owner from abusing their African slaves. The slaves worked more intensive labor for less benefits of an indentured servant because of the law. A slave would cook and clean, tend crops, and do other assignments from dawn to dusk (Sewall, The Sin of Slaveholding, 3). These hours were much longer than an indentured servant. Although the son was the same age as him, Douglass would be always a lower status than him.

It was in 1973, that a young, brazen and ostentatious Donald Trump, met one of New York’s most notorious attorney: Roy Cohn, whose name was synonymous with the rise of manipulative political power acts. Roy was known to be a ruthless prosecutor who had mastered control over all the loopholes in the law and had become the premier practitioner of hardball deal making, offering his help to defend even the mafia networks. Cohn became a business mentor and nearly a second father to Trump. Trump first hired Cohn to sue the federal government. The allegations that Trump faced had accused him of renting his prime apartments only to White people thereby showing a racial bias. This was clearly against the fair housing act which the congress had passed.

Making it impossible for slaves to for a family, is not the only way that masters mistreated their slaves. Slaves were treated as animals or a piece of property. Epps looked at all colored man, "not at human being, but as a chatter personal, as mere live property, no better, except in value, than his mule or dot" . Angelina Grimke talks about daily abuse that slaves had to face. They were called names such as, fools, liars, sluts, husseys, good-for-nothing creatures and many more. She adds that "every natural and social feeling and affection are violated with indifference [by masters]; slaves are treated as through they did not possess them" .