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Image: Reconstruction and 1876: Crash Course US History #22
Reason One: Inhumane Treatment
Reason One: Inhumane Treatment
Playing mind games with slaves to make them feel inferior. The owners played mind games with slaves to make them feel powerless and depressed. In the book Nat Turner and the Virginia Revolt, Rivvy Neshana wrote, "People who were slaves were told that they were inferior-not good or as smart as the white people who enslaved them. The terrible way they were treated made them feel inferior, too. Enslaved African had no right, no power. Their enslaver could control them" (Neshana 7). Black people survived in their native land for thousands of years, so they were intelligent and not inferior to any one. Additionally, It shows in the picture that black people are very intelligent people.
Source: Rivvy, Neshana, Nat Turner and the Virginia Slave Revolt, The Child's Word,20121
Reason Two: Separation of Families
Reason Two: Separation of Families
Black people were sold and bought causing a horrible humilation and depression. They felt empty and powerless. In some cases, when slaves were sold, families were separated. According to Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin, who wrote the book 5,000 Miles to Freedom, "Slaves were sold as property, not as people. Member of a family could be sold to separate buyers" (Fradin 9). From this statement many facts can be considered, for example, the slavery and the separation of families caused trauma for the rest of their lives, especially to children. Otherwise, these people could have lived with happiness, smiles and laughs. The image demonstrate how slaves were sold. Also, demonstrates how much slaves suffered, and how lazy, heartless and cruel sellers and buyers, the criminals, were.
Source: Fradin, Judith Bloom and Dennis Brindell, 5,000 Miles to Freedom: Ellenand Wiiliam Craft's Flight from Slavery, National Geographic, 2006
Reason Three: Psychological Impacts
Reason Three: Psychological Impacts
After traumatic events people can feel fear and depression. In the book Slave Uprising and Runaways, Ann E. Enslow wrote, "Frederic Douglas once described slavery in Deep South as "a life of living death" ", and "he did not think of himself as a slave in his younger years. But he earned of a person his grandmother called "Old Master." When his grandmother spoke of this person, she did so in fear" (Skridge 60). The phrase "a life of living death" indicates that slaves had a horrible amount of physical and psychological pain, unhappiness and a hopeless life. The phrase "When his mother spoke of this person, she did so in fear" indicates that slaves were treated very bad. After slavery ended, they still felt the effects of the treatment by slave owners, the criminals. The images shows that former slaves were not happy after slavery. They are not smiling or laughing. Additionally, it clearly shows that a picture was taken after slavery because a girl is reading a book.
Source: Eskridge, Ann E, Slave Uprising and Runaways, Enslow Puplisher, 2004
Reason Four: Housing
Reason Four: Housing
Racism and poor housing. If the black race had been compensated for the 246 years that they worked for free, poor and stressful form of living could have been avoided. For example, according to John Logan, who is a professor of sociology, ”...alley housing was sometimes compromised of self-constructed shanties or kitchens, sheds or stables repurposed as rental housing. Increasing over time, it took the form of low income housing” (Logan 1761). Living in poor and stressful conditions can create unhappiness, sadness, that can be carried through generations.
Furthermore, the first image shows how former slaves did not deserved to be treated this way. The second images demonstrate how former slaves did not deserved to live in poor conditions.
Image: https://allthatsinteresting.com/reconstruction-era#22
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