The United States of America has many tragic and horrible events in the country’s history and out of all of them; slavery was by far the worst. Cruel and evil are understated adjectives used to describe the abuse and treatment that slaves endured. Men and women slaves did not have any rights or freedoms and were treated more like animals than people. They not only experienced physical abuse by means of punishment or torture, but also psychological abuse. Extreme measures were taken as forms of survival and many slaves lived under constant fear. While the anti-slavery movement became popular, testimonies from freed slaves were documented and shared to the public to educate society on the horrible ways African-Americans were treated as slaves.
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Both the masters and mistresses would mistreat the children that were conceived from the slave girls and their masters. The mistresses could not handle having these children playing with and being raised near the mistresses’ own children. I am sure this made the mistresses very upset because of the constant reminder that their husbands were committing adultery by having sex with the girl slaves. Instead of taking the frustration and blame out on their husbands, they forced it on the slave girls by abusing their children, separating the children from their mothers, or even selling the mothers and their children. For example, Linda discusses the times she has witnessed this first hand with other slave girls when she states, “I had seen several women sold, with his babies at breast. He never allowed his offspring by slaves to remain long in sight of himself and his wife” (Jacobs 930). This leads to another challenge slave girls faced was the idea of their children being sold and taken away from them with no way to control or stop it from happening. In the story, when Linda becomes a mother, she elaborates on the constant fear slave girls face when they were old enough to have children, saying, “The mother of slaves is very watchful. She knows there is no security for her children. After they have entered their teens she lives in daily expectation of trouble” (Jacobs 931). These slave girls that were mothers live under constant fear that their babies will be taken from them if they make mistakes or anger their owners. This is another part of them mental and emotional abuse girl slaves were put
Both the masters and mistresses would mistreat the children that were conceived from the slave girls and their masters. The mistresses could not handle having these children playing with and being raised near the mistresses’ own children. I am sure this made the mistresses very upset because of the constant reminder that their husbands were committing adultery by having sex with the girl slaves. Instead of taking the frustration and blame out on their husbands, they forced it on the slave girls by abusing their children, separating the children from their mothers, or even selling the mothers and their children. For example, Linda discusses the times she has witnessed this first hand with other slave girls when she states, “I had seen several women sold, with his babies at breast. He never allowed his offspring by slaves to remain long in sight of himself and his wife” (Jacobs 930). This leads to another challenge slave girls faced was the idea of their children being sold and taken away from them with no way to control or stop it from happening. In the story, when Linda becomes a mother, she elaborates on the constant fear slave girls face when they were old enough to have children, saying, “The mother of slaves is very watchful. She knows there is no security for her children. After they have entered their teens she lives in daily expectation of trouble” (Jacobs 931). These slave girls that were mothers live under constant fear that their babies will be taken from them if they make mistakes or anger their owners. This is another part of them mental and emotional abuse girl slaves were put