Slave Narratives

Slave Essay

The life of a slave was not easy and slave narratives allow us an insight into the lives of these slaves so we can really see what these slaves experienced. Although the narrative of every slave is different there are similarities between all slave stories. Throughout many slave’s narratives they describe their overseers as treating them like cattle more than people. Torture was a common practice used to keep slaves inline and keep slaves doing their work. Every story has torture or the threat of torture being the driving factor of them doing their work and the reason many did not run away. Although, torture is evident in all slave narratives not all slaves were afraid of running away. Some had enough courage to run away and …show more content…
“The slaves are put in stalls like the pens they use for cattle…” (James Martin, “The slaves are put in stalls like…cattle”) Martin’s description of torture is very common among slave narratives and the most common way people acquired slaves was through auction. During these auctions these slaves were penned up like animals and then when it was their time to be auctioned they were forced onto a platform and had to perform by walking around and doing what the auctioneer told them to do. After the slaves were sold at auction they were tortured even worse when they got to their plantations if they did not do as they were told. Slaves were tortured the worst after they tried to escape and were caught and brought back to their plantations. “Upon this he put the fingers of my hands into a vice, and squeezed all the nails off” (Moses Roper, “Among the instruments of torture employed”) Roper describes what his torture was like after he tried to run away multiple times and failed. Roper’s narrative is different them some other slave narratives because he tried to run away multiple times and failed every single time up until he finally fled to the north. Although, Roper kept failing and running away and he kept getting brutally tortured for his failed efforts he somehow still found the courage to keep trying and keep going until he …show more content…
Although, torture took may different forms from plantation to plantation torture was still a staple of slavery. However, there were some slaves that the threat or infliction of slavery was not enough to keep them from trying to run away and gain freedom. There are many questions as to how these slaves had enough courage to keep trying to run away even after they failed multiple times. Where these slaves found that courage is a mystery not answered in the slave