Effects of slavery

  Effects of slavery

Slavery is something that is rarely discussed in the modern world. This happens due to shame associated with the white families who held slaves in the 18^th century. There were many effects it had on both the black and the white population. Some of them were psychological in nature some were cultural while others were purely physical in nature. This essay is going to gather those effects from various slave narratives mainly Victor Sejour’s the Mulatto which provides an account of a slave in a story that became the first fictional work by a black person.

Some of the effects it had were hatred, violence and total disregard for human life. This story is narrated from the point of view of a white settler who was sympathetic to the plight of the African Americans who were forced into slavery. He talks about a slave known as George who had an African American mother and a white man for a father. He got the complete narration from Antoine who was an old man but still working on as a slave. George was angry at his master (biological father) who had allowed the death of George’s wife after she refuted his sexual advances. It is worth noting that the master had bought George’s mother as a slave to satisfy his sexual needs and that’s how George was born. George planned and executed a ruthless murder by first poisoning his master’s wife (official wife) and chopping off his master’s head with an axe. George then ended his own life upon realizing that his master was in fact his own father.

The above narration shows the psychological trauma the slaves encountered. First his mother was bought by his masters purely for sexual needs resulting in the unplanned birth of George. Secondly George’s newlywed wife was ruthlessly murdered by his master after she denied having sex with him. This infuriated George who became violent and murdered his perpetrators showing the kind of consequences slavery had on both the lives of the white settlers and the black settlers.

The slave trade also led to hatred among the African Americans directed towards white people. From the above narration alone, Alfred who was the master in question is depicted as a villain, a man who kills rapes and mistreats black people without remorse. George, his mother and his wife all appear to the innocents being manipulated in the narration. It is totally understandable that the affected people would have resentment towards their masters for the mistreatment they go through on a daily basis. This is caused a clear divide among the two races which eventually led to the rebellion and some of that hatred is still present today. It can be clearly deduced from the tone of the narration that Antoine had a lot of resentment towards the masters and he felt free and safe enough to vent his frustrations to the white sympathizer. He is very effective in his job as a mouthpiece by describing the many atrocities the blacks faced and their feeling to the ordeal. Here is an excerpt from his narration “you have to realize, all niggers are considered as vile as dogs, the white man hates him the constitution itself condemns him….Yes, he spends most of his days in contemplation and sadness without the relief of being virtuous….he may be born to a world of riches and property but that  wont matter a bit as his miserable life would end with an insatiable hunger for vengeance.” In a nutshell this sums up the hatred the black people had against the white and how much they sought vengeance.

The slave trade also meant that both the black and white people were segregated depending on which side of the trade a person was. A good example is how the white southerners today are divided i.e. one group is for those whose families had slaves in the past and those that did not. Slave holders who owned a lot of properties including huge plantation were the most powerful but were very few in number. Most of the white people are always painted with the same brush of slave ownership yet less than 30% of the southerners actually owned slaves despite its increase in number at the turn of the 18^th century. Of the 30% that owned slaves, only 10% actually owned more than ten slaves as not many families had large enough plantations to actually afford all of them. This goes to show that the poor white families at the time got segregated for no apparent reason which is unfair to say the least. However, most of them supported the slave trade as they recognized that they would be at the bottom of the food chain if it weren’t for the slaves.

On the other side of the coin, slavery also divided the African American people living in the South into those that were once enslaved and those that were not. There were three groups i.e. those who were free from the beginning, those who were freed by their masters and those who bought their freedom. However, what this means is that they were only legally free but still faced a lot of obstacles due to their color. Most of the black people were not allowed to vote nor were they allowed to attend higher education.

Slavery also leads to the complete violation of humanity mainly on the part of the black people. This time Antoine narrates the story from the point of view of the mother of George, Laisa. He starts by explaining how Laisa, originally from Senegal, was bought at a slave auction purely for the sexual gratification of her master Alfred. He controls the emotion of the story and how he wants his readers to perceive it. He emphasizes the humanity of Laisa which is mostly violated by his master as she has no control. She instantly becomes Alfred’s play thing to do as he wishes meaning she has no control over the course of her own life. He gives an appropriate example of the time Laisa arrived at her new home and she saw her long lost brother, Jacques, with whom she had been separated. She immediately holds him in an embrace only for an over seer to whip Jacques and asks him to move on. This shows the disregard they had for humanity given that Laisa and her brother were both orphans who had been separated for a long period and should have been given a moment to reconnect.

The above points show the effects slavery had on both the white and black families both in the short term and long term. Some of these effects had a knock on effects into the modern day society mainly the black and white segregation.

References

¹Seeds of Rebellion in Plantation: Victor Sejour’s “The Mulatto”