Rachel Hope Lyness
November 2010
US History: Conflict/Consensus
Slavery Essay
The following images invoked a slave to not foresee the injustice but only to feel numb to the insensitivity of being human. The institution will be uncovered through the depths and drag out the hypocrisy of master and slave. Numb responses were the reaction to the emotional, physical, and spiritual treatment day to day. There was no assertion of control whatsoever to lead a humane life. I am conveying this through image and illustration of how man was so despicably treated.
The majority of slaves didn’t know who their families were, their real names, the city they were from or their own age. This shows the master’s had many responsibilities to their cruelty and what they believed to be humane. For example, maintaining very restrictive brainwashing (in ways unimaginable), and preventing his slaves from gaining anything at all for himself. Along with the common knowledge people know about slave/master relationships today, annihilating his slaves with whips, chains, rope and more (which is much more gruesome than what people who think it “must’ve been bad” ever thought). Slavery was not distinguished, it was exactly how life was, is, and is to come.
From the perspective of a slave, life was lived trying to survive daily. It was seen as being very dishonorable even among the owners to feed your slaves minimal amounts and still most did. Scars, dried blood, deep wounds and open lacerations were ignored by anyone who came within distance to see the feebleness it caused. It was only common and acceptable to boast about your master whether he resembled the devil or wasn’t as cruel. There were spies in the work area, the act of trying to be fortunate in society, which did their job corporately at brainwashing the entire slave trade.
The response of the slaves was fear because they were usually degraded from not knowing what was going to be acceptable to their master from moment to moment. They often felt incapacitated as life was a machine by which everything completed was somehow not earned once done. Even masters that weren’t as harsh wouldn’t dare congratulate a slave for a single effort, and usually again sought for a reason to discipline. “A mere look, word, or motion,- a mistake, accident, or want of power,- are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time.” (Douglass 69) These images invoked a slave to not foresee the injustice but only to feel numb to the insensitivity of being human.
The authority given to a slave meant less than the mere choice to knowingly rebel for a whipping. The authority given to a slave meant less than to get out of bed or whether to do work that day. Masters took advantage of any strength preserved after torturous violence that they speculated as a victory. As the master’s considered themselves doing God’s work such as, “Slaves obey your earthly master’s with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” (Ephesians 6:5)
This environment of enforcement was not only left up to the whips and chains of punishment but it also forever lingered mind sickness, cunning curiosity of anything different, and of God.
The societies where slavery was legal were extremely hypocritical, so hypocritical that they acknowledged hypocrisy a very dishonorable sin in their own eyes. The guilt never wore them out though, not in Frederick Douglass’s time as a slave. His perspective as a slave differed than what would have been most common among them as they worked morning until night, between the whippings, in silence left to their thoughts. Whether they be correct or incorrect their entire livelihood, according to the Bible (which ‘centered’ in the lives of some slave owners), or according to science, their rights, their real mothers name, or their hope.
The institution of slavery controlled the lives of the slaves as they continued to be uneducated, with no liberties, raised to not feel but only on the flesh, and incomplete sanctity of human life. “...instead of spending the Sabbath wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky, we were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings.” (Douglass 71) This expresses the core foundation of the institution’s mockery of how we are to love one another. It also belittles the value to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In spite of reconciling differences of man, the cycle of slavery deadened the hearts of generations.
“For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I among you as one who serves.”(Luke 22:27) As America was more recently granted freedom of religion and interpretation of the bible during that time, it was interpreted incorrectly. This verse should have spoken out among them from the New testament, Jesus’ words. He puts His name as the servant, and they assumed they were treating Christ with reverence? It is by great wonder I will now go on living understanding the route from a slaves heart into freedom and then accepting Christ. It is the reason of forgiveness that they are truly free.
