Introduction
The condition of the black race in the United States is one of the intensely debated issues since the American Civil War. Through slavery, the black structure has continued to suffer and experience various social and political issues that affect their moral wellbeing. Notably, the capture and taking Africans from their homes separated them from their families and consequently torn from the extensive previously established kinship networks. Enslaved in the free states of North America, the Africans ability to re-create their nuclear families and the familial support greatly depended on various factors that ranged from the needs and the desires of the slave owners. In this way, it is evident that slaves and former slaves in the nineteenth century suffered immensely as a result of the slavery. While it is notable that the whole structures of the African-American slaves suffered at the end of the slavery, it is worth to note that the African-American women were substantially affected. These effects affected the previous roles, reproduction, benefits and the positions former African-Americans women occupied before the onset of slavery. This essay will, therefore, offer an exposition of the ways in which the former African-America women slaves were impacted by the end of slavery in the nineteenth century.
Prohibition in participating in family formation and marriage
One of the major effects of slaves on the former African-American women slaves in the nineteenth was that it prevented women from participating in the family formation, in addition to making the stable and secure family lives difficult or virtually impossible. Ideally, the enslaved women could not marry in any American State or colony. After the end of slavery, the colonial and the state laws and regulations perceived the enslaved people, including the women as the property and commodities for exchange. In this way, they were never considered as legal persons that could enter into the marriage contracts with the clean people who were initially not enslaved. As noted, a considerably large number of former African-Americans women slaves could not marry legally marry as their counterparts. Some African-American women defied the colonial and state legislations and entered into relationships that ultimately thrived into marriages. For example, in the northern states such as the Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York, the freed African-American women could marry but under restricted condition in 1830 when slavery ended. In the same way, the enslaved women in the South entered relationships that were treated like marriages. This is because the colonial and state laws considered such ‘marriages’ as mere relationships, and therefore, their unions were not protected by the laws.
Emergence of Psychological and mental impacts
Evidently, the end of slavery led to the rise in the psychological, mental and physical suffering throughout the nineteenth century became another significant impact on former African-American women. Ideally, the psychological and cognitive effects as experienced by the former African-Americans women were attributable to the previous experiences and actions during slavery and slave trade. Some such experiences were torturous and deadly, and therefore substantiality affected women after the end of slavery from the beginning of 1800 onwards. For example, actions of the planters and the colonial states who initially tried to apply various policies to mould women’s sexual behaviours and consequently imposed the Europeans norms about domestic monogamy on former African-Americans women.
Similarly, the same way, majority of planners attempted to manipulate the women to have their childbirth practices and family traditions changed. For instance, a Jamaican doctor offered the suggestions that the plantations construct the lying-in-houses where women could get the opportunity to give birth and after that attended by the plantation managers and the owners. The former African-Americans women’s experiences under these conditions made them think of being inferior to their white counterparts, considering that now they had had their childbirth practices changed from the traditional form to the one that involves hospitalisation. To make the conditions unbearable during the enslavement, women were subjected to frequent and forced rape from their white managers and owners.
In the same way, the end of slavery was accompanied by the rise in racism in major parts of America States such in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts among others. The rise in racism during the post-slavery period was attributed to the actions, beliefs and the experiences that the white structure observed concerning their black counterparts. Ideally, more than one and half decades of slavery planted the notion of white superiority onto the children born during this period. On the part of the former African-Americans women, the end of slavery freed them but never eliminated the feelings of being inferior to the white counterparts. Additionally, the belief by the white society that black women were innately lustful beings throughout the slavery period further perpetuated the shame and embarrassment on the part of African-American women. All these evoked feelings of shame and embarrassment associated with the experiences during the slavery. Cloaked in a veil of silence and depicted as a benevolent system, the slavery appeared as a severe mental illness that was shrouded in secrecy and stigma. Despite being freed and later recognised by both the colonial and state laws, racism (that resulted from slavery) emerged as the major barrier for children born to black women. Observably, actions observed in racism were seen in the colonial’s and State’s initiative to provide education at a different level. In the same way, the young girls who were previously enslaved found it difficult to cope up with the life after slavery, in the pursuit of their education rights.
In conclusion, the paper demonstrates the two ways in which the end of slavery affected the former African-Americans women in the nineteenth century. Slavery affected the previous roles, benefits and the positions former African-Americans women occupied before the onset of slavery. On a wider note, the end of slavery and slave trade prevented women from participating in the family formation, in addition to making the stable and secure family lives difficult or virtually impossible. For example, the formerly enslaved women could not marry in any American State or colony. This is because the colonial and the state laws perceived the enslaved people including the women as the property and commodities for exchange after the end of slavery. In this way, they were never considered as legal entities that could enter into the marriage contracts with the clean people who were initially not enslaved. Moreover, the psychological and cognitive effects as experienced by the former African-Americans women were attributable to the previous experiences and actions during slavery and slave trade. Notably, some such experiences were torturous and deadly, and therefore substantially affected women after the end of slavery.
Bibliography
Hicks, Shari. 2015. A Critical Analysis of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: A Multigenerational Legacy of Slavery.
Turner, Sasha. 2011. Home-grown Slaves: Women, Reproduction, and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Jamaica 1788-1807. Journal of Women's History. 23, no. 3: 39-62.
