An Analysis of the Positive Remarks from Former Slave Interviews
Introduction
The institution of slavery in the United States created troubling consequences even in present day. Racism remains a pressing issue, and the media constantly reports of hate crimes and police brutality. As much as most people refuse to admit they are racist, it is been studied by psychologists that we all have implicit bias. The most blatant acts of discriminatory treatment towards black people was during the time of slavery. From the process of the slave trade and transporting them to work on the plantation in the New World, to decades after emancipation, it has become common knowledge that their lives were unimaginably rough and unfree. Some of these brutal acts …show more content…
The Ku Klux Klan is a huge source of the racist violence exerted on slaves, such as when the KKK “raided a prayer meeting,” and if the slaves misbehaved, “dey’d nigh ‘bout kill him.” Another example is when W. E. Northcross was excused to return to LaGrance, but on his way back, some people from the Southern army caught him and even “voted to shoot [him].” They tied him up overnight and robbed him before letting him go eventually. The act of selling slaves was also an extremely dehumanizing act. Wade Owens explains his father was sold for $160 and chained him up by the legs and arms around a post. Some slaves, such as Carrie Pollard’s aunt, were born free but became a slave afterwards, and this shows the deprivation of human rights. Slaves were often whipped and beat for trivial reasons, such as trying to learn how to read. These examples are consistent with the general knowledge of slavery, and it is evident that this was a horrendous and traumatizing dark past for …show more content…
For example, Sally Murphy says, “Ole Marster Joe and Miss Rosa Clayton was good as gold.” Murphy’s masters gave her Christmas presents and took care of her when got sick. When her master said they are “free now to do what [they] want to do, [they] stayed on two years mo’.” Another example is Hattie Anne Nettles describing her master as “a good Christian-hearted man who did de bes’ he could for” the slaves. She explains that the masters would buy slaves from other plantations so that they could marry the people they wanted to marry. Wade Owens claims “Marsa Berry an’ Miss Fanny Owns was good to us.” Similary, Simon Phillips says, “people has the wrong idea of slave days” and he “was treated good” because his “massa never laid a hand on [him] durin’ the whole time [he] was wid him.” Other positive recollections of slavery days include Mary Rice claiming her masters were “de bes’ Marster in de worl’” because she was nursed when she got sick. She says, “I was happy all de time in slavery days, but dere ain’t much to git happy over now, ‘cep’n I’s livin’—thank de Lawd.” These positive descriptions about the slaves’ masters consistently appear throughout the myriad of interviews, despite the slaves having experienced brutal sufferings. It is worth investigating why some slaves smiled and were happy