The Treatment of African Slaves

This paper hopes to illustrate the barbaric and inhumane treatment of Africans during slavery in contrast to the pro-slavery counter-claims of fair treatment towards slaves. There is a famous African proverb which states, “Until the lion writes its own history, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Meaning until slaves themselves were able to document their treatment or until others on their behalf exposed the truth, the true nature of slavery would never be know, and the “happy slave” myth would continue to perpetuate. Mary Prince in her narrative declared, “All slaves want to be free” and states, “I can tell by myself what other slaves feel, and by what they have told me. The man that says slaves be quite happy in slavery – that they don’t want to be free – that man is either ignorant or a lying person. I never heard a slave say so.”

Mary Prince’s The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself is the earliest know slave narrative by a woman, which highlights the treatment of slaves. It was published in 1831, almost 300 years after the first African slave was transported from the African coast. It is a saga of overwork, abuse and sexual violence that well over 10 million unnamed slaved had experienced during Colonial Slavery. She details horrific scenes of physical abuse inflicted upon her by her mistress. She says, “To stripe me naked – to hang me up by the wrists and lay my flesh open with the cow skin, was an ordinary punishment for a slight offense. However, she soon details a far worse scene of brutal treatment towards the slaves by describing what happened to a fellow slave of hers named Hetty after a cow she had tied up had gotten loose. She says, her “master flew into a terrible passion, and ordered the poor creature(Hetty) to be stripped naked, notwithstanding her pregnancy, and to be tied up to a tree in the yard. He then flogged her as hard as he could lick, both whip and cow skin, till she was all streaming with blood. He retired, and the hit her again and again. Her shrieks were terrible.” After the brutal beating, she was brought to bed where she give birth to a still born child. After seemingly recovering, she was again repeatedly beaten by the mistress and master and later died due to her injuries. Mary goes on to say that that day filled her with horror and could not bear to think of it, but it was always present in her head for a long time. This small statement showcases not only the physical trauma that the slaves suffered but also the emotional and psychological trauma they experience and developed due to inhumane treatment of themselves and other fellow slaves on the plantation.

Olaudah Equinao was a former slave who authored a slave narrative when freed. In the narrative he witnessed a horrific scene also. He says he saw, “a negro man staked to the ground and cut most shockingly, and then his ears cut off, bit, bit by bit, because he had been connected to a white woman, who was a common prostitute!” As if it were no crime in the whites to rob an innocent African girl of her virtue; but most heinous of a black man only to gratify a passion of nature, where the temptation was offered by one of a different color, though the most abandoned woman of her species.”

The act of raping an African slave was legal and a normal occurrence during slavery. Due to the fact that Africans where not thought of as humans, but as property, they did not have rights which whites enjoyed. Rape by nature is a violent act, whether the victim puts up a struggle or not. This is because rape is when a victim is forced into a sexual act against his or her will. The fact that it was legal to rape an African, because she was a slave, shows the barbaric and inhumane nature of slavery.

Rape is just many of the gruesome and violent acts committed against Africans during slavery. As noted in the slave narratives, many of the slaves were beaten so severe that their injuries were life threatening. The psychological effect of being beaten brutally or seeing someone else beaten could cause post traumatic syndrome. Showing that not only was slavery physically abusive but also mentally. The slave narratives stand in sharp contrast to the pro-slavery stories of a happy and well treated slave and also shows how important it is for the lion to write it’s own story.