Dehumanization Of Slavery In The 1800s

Slavery is a historical event well known by many people today. Slavery started taking place in the year of 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. Throughout the many years, slaves eventually started to find loop holes in the system, ways to communicate to one another, and how to escape. But before they could find the light in the tunnel, they had to go through their struggles. Defined by the Oxford Dictionary, a slave is, “A person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them.” Oxford Dictionary also defines a slave as, “A device, or part of one, directly controlled by another.” The second definition helps those understand how those who were forced into slavery were not treated as humans, but devices. The slave owners took away their
Their owners dehumanized them by treating them as a machine. For example, an escaped slave testified, “He would make us hold up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would feel up our hands and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth…Sometimes a man or woman…was taken, stripped, and inspected more minutely." (nps.gov, 2011) Slaves were not only talked to unfairly, but they were abused as well. When a slave did not perform a task correctly, or if they tried to take food because of starvation, they were then punished. Some punishments include, cart whipping, beating with a stick, sometimes to the breaking of the bones, using a chain, or even an iron crook around the neck. Harsher punishments could include breaking of limbs, slitting of ears, beating out of eyes, and even castration. (John Simkin, 1997) The slave owners were able to use these punishments on the slaves because there were no mandated laws that protected the slaves from their owners. The treatment started to get worse when land owners wanted to start maximizing profits. The slave owners would start to bully and punish harder to start increasing the slave’s productivity. When a slave appeared to not be producing enough work the slave owners would then begin to whip the slave into better work. (John Simkin, 1997) Slaves began to realize that this is not the way they wanted to live their lives, one woman in particular started the brave move of escape, Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was a brave and courageous American bondwoman who escaped slavery to become an abolitionist before the American Civil War. Harriet Tubman successfully escaped from slavery in the year of 1849, fleeing to Philadelphia. Harriet Tubman’s husband did not want to leave with her, but she did not go alone, her brothers, Harry and Ben assisted her. Her brothers then had later thoughts and returned to the plantation, leaving Harriet