In the photo shown above was taken of an unknown man, yet this photo displays the intensity of the whipping that would occur to African Americans. This image is very eye opening in the sense that is shows people the kind of treatment slaves had to go through on a day-to-day basis. If you look at the image you see the man’s back is covered in welts from the shoulders down. It is this way because slave owners would lash out on the slaves for any reason for example, a slave trying to escape and being caught or a slave doing something the owner did not approve of. This image is showing up that the whipping is something that occurred on a regular basis and no one did anything to stop it.
The unknown man pictured, however, the way his face is positioned is as if he choose to not have his face pictured. He turned around and did not have his face attached to this picture, possibly because he understands his place in society. There is no face so it shows it could be any slave because this whipping was something that every African American was accustomed to. Also, the wombs on his back seem to be untreated which shows the lack of treatment and care that slave owners gave to their slaves. From the treatment the slaves received it is as long as they were breathing they were to be working on the fields or wherever it was the slave owner wanted them to be.
Frederick Douglass mentioned a situation where he witnessed someone being whipped and he described the blood dripping from the body. This image helps up paint the picture Douglass was referring to. It is a very horrible image and it really stresses the degree of torture a slave owner would put their slaves through.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASwhipping.htm
I never knew what the aftermath of being lashed/whipped by a master described by Frederick Douglass actually looked like after healing. This is absolutely absurd! I do not know how someone can go through that much pain and have all the wounds to prove over and over again that they were a slave. Slavery literally left a horrible scar on each and every slave that has these life lasting marks. I can not imagine the agony of these torturous beatings. It says his wounds were untreated as I'm sure many slaves went with untreated wounds and left with these scars covering the entirety of their backs. This image is very saddening that this is part of America's past that we each have to face as facts that did happen.
ReplyDeleteThis picture is truly eye opening. These wretched wounds literally appear to show that this man has been mauled by a savage beast. Douglass had good reason to compare his slave owners to gruesome creatures and this picture suits the brutal characteristics that he gives them in his narrative. The man in this photo has a vacant look in his face as if his emotions and sense of hope have been beaten out of him. The wounds on his back are comparable to a depreciation expense of a "false commodity" that was noticed during this period. It's as if this mans life has been transformed into a machine with a salvage value that consists of a limited life before it becomes disposed of or pawned off, only to be replaced by another machine that is younger and more efficient. This man was stripped of his humanity just as his flesh was stripped from his own body.
ReplyDeleteThis brutal beating is hard to look at for long. Even after being given countless descriptions of slaves being whipped by both Douglass and Jacobs I never went as far as to imagine the aftermath. If this is what it looked like after time, I would never wanted to see the fresh wounds of a slave that had been whipped. This just makes me think what could make someone think they are so much better than another that they would go so far as to do this. No one deserves this kind of treatment.
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