The Brutality Of Slave Trade

The brutality of slave trade left a detrimental impact through psychological and emotional damage which could never fully be repaired. Slaves were forced to bare through physical pain and suffering as well as mental, they were treated as property and the majority of slave owners didn’t even think of slaves to be human. Through their traumatic experiences, it was hard for many of them to stay positive because they weren’t surrounded by family which caused emotional suffering. No words can express the extent of what the victims went through and how severe what they went through was.
In the process of slave trading, the victims were given the bare minimum to survive off of, many died due to causes that could’ve been prevented had they been taken
Elbows and wrists will be scraped to the bone by the motions of the rough seas. Some will die of diseases, some of starvation and some simply of despair. This was the fate of millions of West Africans across three and a half centuries of the slave trade on voyages known as the “middle passages.” There was very little the victims could do to help themselves, they not only suffered from mental trauma, but physical abuse as well, which led many to make risky decisions in attempts of breaking free. John Green addressed this in his video entitled “Slavery” saying,”-slave resisted their oppression: by running away. Although some slaves like Joseph Taper escaped slavery for good by running to the Northern free states or even Canada, where they wouldn’t have to worry about fugitive slave laws. Even more, slaves ran away temporarily hiding out in the woods or the swamps and eventually returning.” Many slave victims, though they wanted out were too scared of acting upon their desires due to fear of getting caught trying to escape because they would be punished more severely than if
Frederick Douglass was a slave victim himself, in his book, “Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass” he talks about his experience with enslavement, including having to watch other sufferers and can be quoted saying, “Their names were Henrietta and Mary. Henrietta was about twenty-two years of age Mary was about fourteen; and of all the mangled and emaciated creatures I ever looked upon, these two were the most so. His heart must be harder than a stone that could look upon these unmoved. The head, neck, and shoulders of Mary were literally cut to pieces. I have frequently felt her head, and found it nearly covered with festering sores, caused by the lash of her cruel mistress.” What Henrietta and Mary had to go through was unfathomable, as Douglass describes their experience it is clear he could relate to it through his own experience in the slave trade and recognized that these innocent girls did not deserve to go through such torture. Daniel O'Connell, who was a captain wrote about his experience with slave trade, which was also mentioned in “Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass” saying, “An American sailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa, where he was kept in slavery for three years, was, at the expiration of that period, found to be imbruted and stultified- he has lost all reasoning power; and