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Darrien Wheeler
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
December 5, 2016
What effects did the institution of slavery have on childhood for those born into it?
What do you picture in your head when asked to think about the institution of slavery in
America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? Maybe it is a slave working in a cotton
field, maybe it is a prominent figure like Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman, or maybe it is a
plantation in the Southern United States. What many do not consider is the idea of the children
that were born into slavery and that had to face all of the atrocities that the institution entailed. In
order to further understand the effects that slavery had on entire generations, it is important to
first understand and explore what effects that it had on the children that were born into the
institution of slavery.
Imagine a young girl growing up on a plantation near Charlotte, in North Carolina. She is
only about sixteen years old, but has already seen and experienced enough violence and horror to
last a lifetime. She doesnt know any members of her family, because when she was still a young
toddler, her master died, and she was sold away from her family in Georgia to her new master in
North Carolina. As she grew up, the only person that was there to take care of her was an elderly
woman who lived on her plantation, though the woman really only made sure that the young girl
survived, as opposed to becoming a pseudo-grandmother. This young girl never knew a
comfortable life: only one where her days were spent hungry, working outside in the fields, and
facing the harshness of the weather. She has no friends, and no desire to make friends because
making herself vulnerable and too comfortable around others only leads to getting herself hurt
when they are sold off to another plantation, are publicly whipped, or killed by their master.

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Every day brings new fear of doing the smallest thing wrong and being the one to face the danger
of the masters or the overseers wrath. But that isnt even the worst of it. When this girl was
fourteen, she was raped by her master during the middle of the night. She had no option to resist
or to protect herself from what was happening. Every day after, she has to face him and face the
chance of being sexually abused again. Then she realizes that shes pregnant with his child. That
baby is the only thing in her life that she has ever loved, but it looks too much like his father, and
so her master rips the baby from his mothers arms and sells him off to another plantation just
after it is a year old. The young girl has now lost everything, and is now facing severe depression
in addition to her preexisting anxiety and PTSD.
Although this story is hypothetical, it is reflective cumulatively of several slave narratives
shared by women of their experiences before they were emancipated following the Civil War.
Children growing up during the time of slavery were forced to face many of the same horrors
that this hypothetical girl did, from growing up without a family; to living withdrawn, lonely
lives; to physical and sexual abuse from slaveholders; and having to live with the emotional
consequences of it all. These children were left psychologically destroyed before the time they
even reached adolescence and adulthood. Slave masters would do this systematically in order to
achieve compliance from their slaves to ensure efficiency and compliance on their plantations.
Of the many challenges children born into the institution of slavery faced, one of the most
prominent ones was the separation of families. According to several slave narratives, including
those of Frederick Douglass and Lewis Clarke, there was no one, prominent reason that masters
chose to separate slave families: in some cases, masters used it as a method of deterring slaves
from acting out, some used it as punishment, and some separated families without the conscious
intention of doing so. During this time period, slave marriages were not legally recognized by the

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state so when masters bought and sold slaves, there was no care given to slaves relationships
with one another as husbands, wives, children, and siblings. Slaves were seen as property and as
tools that would perform necessary labor on these large, southern plantations. Therefore, their
exchange was merely a business transaction and was not at all aware of or influenced by any
personal relationships that existed among the slave populations at each property. However, the
death of a master was one of the most common reasons that slave families were separated during
this time period (Simkin.) If the previous master did not have a will dictating to whom his
property, including his home, land, and of course his slaves, would be inherited by, it was all
auctioned off. In one such case, shared in John Simkins article recounting the narrative of a
slave named Harriet Jacobs, who was also a mother to seven children, [she] knew that some of
[her children] would be taken from her; but they [the auctioneers] took all. The children were
sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town...She begged the
trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do. How could he, when he
knew he would sell them, one by one, wherever he could command the highest price? These
kinds of devastating separations of children from their parents and their siblings were awful
enough, but this quote also shows the way that slave traders systematically sold slaves and
separated families just to make the most possible profit for themselves. For many, the
opportunity to be reunited with their family was a lost hope, and they simply just had to move on
with their lives, not knowing the fate of their loved ones.
The children undergoing these traumatic experiences had absolutely no control over their
circumstances and were only left to suffer the devastating consequences. Due to the fact that
people all react to situations differently, there is obviously significant variation on how much this
separation impacted each child experiencing it, and the impact was also dependant on how old

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they were when it happened. Nevertheless, for many slaves it was common, to part children
from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month,
its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, wrote
Frederick Douglass. According to modern psychological studies conducted by researcher
Kimberly Howard at Columbia University, as well as her colleagues from Columbia and Duke
University, this is one of the most detrimental times that any child could be taken from its
mother. In her expert opinion, the first three to five years of a childs life are the most important
when it comes to interacting with family and loved ones to enforce strong emotional
development. Being separated at an early age from their families leads children to suffer from
significant socioemotional development problems, emotional distress, lower cognitive
functioning, emotional attachment problems, and other mental health issues (Howard).
While there are programs and psychologists in place today to help children undergoing
these experiences cope in a healthy way, children growing up in slavery did not have that luxury.
Their childhoods were spent trying to overcome the damage that had been done and to fight for
their day-to-day survival. In a few cases, some slave children had friends or elders with which to
create a pseudo-family, but often times these slave children were emotionally distant from others
and kept to themselves, internally condensing and repressing their emotions which was only
making it worse, (Douglass). This actually was a very common coping mechanism for children
who have been abandoned by their families, although it was the fault of the master, and not the
families for this abandonment.
As these slave children began to grow up, being separated from their families not only
affected them psychologically, it affected the ways they developed and functioned socially.
According to an article called Child Socialization, Primary socialization in sociology is the

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acceptance and learning of a set of norms and values established through the process of
socialization, and is typically the responsibility of parents to instill into their children. This is
when children learn what the expectations of the community are, and how to fit into their
community. Typically, parents are the ones that guide children through learning all of this, but
children born into slavery were not afforded this opportunity. Instead, they had to learn how to fit
into their new community from elder slaves, and by following the example set forth by those
around them. For the most part, children born into slavery had to learn the expectations for life
on the plantation the hard way, or through experience. In some cases, slave children had elders
that would keep an eye on them and do their best to show them what to do and what not to do,
but for the most part, all of the adolescent and adult slaves were busy working in the fields all
day, away from the young ones. While the masters children, for example, were simply scolded
if they broke their parents rules or displayed poor behavior, slave children faced harsh physical
punishment or were refused meals if they failed to comply with any of the masters rules. If a
slave was convicted of any misdemeanor, became unmanageable, or evinced a determination to
run away, he was brought immediately here, severely whipped, put on board the sloop...and
sold...as a warning to the slaves remaining, (Douglass). This instilled into slaves, especially
children growing up in this toxic and terrifying environment a great deal of fear, mistrust, and
resentment toward their masters.
The brutal physical punishment that slave children experienced, which went far beyond
punishment for breaking rules, had significant effects on them as they grew up. Slaves were at
the mercy of masters, who could have them beaten at any time of day and for any reason, if any
at all. Not only were they physically beaten, they were often left with scars, that served as
constant reminders of the oppression they were under from their masters. In one slave account,

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transcribed by Monique Prince, Some of the scars are the size of a man's thumb, and appear as
if pieces of flesh had been gouged out, and some are ridges or elevations of the flesh and skin.
Worse still, children were often forced to listen to and even watch their friends and family
members be beaten nearly to death. According to Frederick Douglasss autobiography:
I have often been awakened at the dawn of day[to] shrieks of an own aunt of mine,
whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally
covered with blood...The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the
blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and
whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing
the blood- clotted cowskin.
The effects of such extreme physical and emotional abuse was exceedingly harmful to
children growing up in this environment. Modern studies show that children suffering from
physical abuse display aggressive behavior, hostility, are more withdrawn and avoidant toward
others, show signs of hypervigilance, and are more prone to stress related disorders such as PostTraumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD as it is more commonly known, according to Salzinger.
These symptoms become worse over time, especially if they are left untreated. Additionally,
suffering from abuse as a child is especially detrimental because it is often much harder to
overcome, especially if it is enforced on a consistent basis, as it was for children growing up in
slavery. Therefore, these children often faced these psychological issues for the remainder of
their lives. For many slaves, the issues instilled into them from such a young age drove them to
seek out suicide as their only escape (Simkin). Some slaves even ran away from their plantations,
knowing they would be caught and killed for running away, just to escape their lives living under
such horrible conditions on their plantations.

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Symptoms of the damage and trauma caused to these children as a result of their lives as
slaves were not always visible just by looking at them. Karen Salmon quotes the American
Psychological Association and writes that trauma can be defined when, the person experienced,
witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involve actual or threatened death or
serious injury; or a threat to the physical integrity of himself or herself or others. Many children
were forced to suffer the effects of severe psychological issues as a result of the trauma they
experienced and did not have the proper resources to be able to address their issues, which only
left them to fester and become even worse. Psychological damage to children could come to
these slave children from neglect, which often happened to the children that were separated from
their families, as well as physical and psychological abuse that came from their masters and
overseers. According to an article in The New York Times Times Health Guide, symptoms of
child abuse can come in the form of social withdrawal, mood swings, hostility toward others,
anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, and inclination toward participation in high-risk behaviors.
Left untreated over time, these symptoms often made life miserable for children as they grew up
and faced life as an adult slave. Often, they made no effort to make friends or to engage in
romantic relationships because they knew that it could all be taken away in an instant. This selfisolation was an effect of their childhood trauma, but it also became an indirect cause for their
life-long depression issues because they didnt have the social skills to relate to others. In
addition, the physical abuse that the slave masters and overseers inflicted on their slaves,
especially the whippings, instilled into their slaves a severe distrust and hostility toward authority
figures in their lives.
Another aspect to the psychical abuse forced upon slave children was the sexual abuse
that many young girls had to endure. Countless slave narratives tell the same story as that of

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Hilliard Yellerday, who recounted that, A slave girl was expected to have children as soon as
she became a woman. Some of them had children at the age of twelve and thirteen years old.
Often times, the relations that caused these pregnancies were a result of the young girls being
forced into bed with either their master, or another young man in order to produce a child that
could then be sold. These girls that were raped and forced to bear children for their masters were
still only children themselves, and still had to face the thought that their child might be ripped
away from them to be sold to another master on a plantation far away from where she was. Some
of the effects of this trauma include severe PTSD, especially as these young girls transitioned
into adolescence and adulthood, along with significant amounts of depression, anxiety. These
symptoms often compound and are accompanied by even more psychological problems when
children face sexual abuse in addition to already suffering other forms of either psychological or
physical abuse. Research conducted by Melissa Hall, a Counselor Education Doctoral Student at
the University of Arkansas, shows that children who have experienced sexual abuse face
symptoms like, chronic anxiety, tension, anxiety attacks, and phobiasSymptoms correlated
with childhood sexual abuse may... [cause] relationship difficulties with trust, fear of intimacy...
difficulty establishing interpersonal boundaries, passive behaviors, and getting involved in
abusive relationships. What made these situations worse for the young girls growing up in
slavery and experiencing these horrific events was the fact that they were still forced to interact
with their abusers, or for some women, experience forced relations with other slaves repeatedly
in order to produce more children for their masters.
Although their stories were not recorded in slave narratives, though they were
disregarded in their society, and though they arguably faced harsher conditions than anyone else
within the institution of slavery, understanding what children that underwent slavery experienced

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is a key to understanding the effects of slavery as a whole. From the separation of families, to the
psychological effects of repeated physical and sexual abuse, to the sociological effects of the
environment in which slaves lived, all plays a part in the slave culture that was created, and to
American history as a whole.

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Works Cited
Birere, John, and Marsha Runtz. "The Long-term Effects of Sexual Abuse: A Review and
Synthesis." N.p., 10 Mar. 2007. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
"Child Socialization." Boundless. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.
Douglass, Frederick, and Benjamin Quarles. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An
American Slave. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1960. Print.
Hall, Melissa, and Joshua Hall. "The Long-Term Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse:
Counseling Implications." American Counseling Association. VISTAS Online, 2011.
Web. 30 Nov. 2016.
Howard, Kimberly, Anne Martin, Lisa J. Berlin, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. "Early Mother-Child
Separation, Parenting, and Child Well-Being in Early Head Start Families." Attachment
& Human Development. U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jan. 2011. Web. 08 Nov.
2016.
"On Slaveholders Sexual Abuse of Slaves Selections from 19th- & 20th-century Slave
Narratives." National Humanities Center 1 (n.d.): n. pag. National Humanities Center
Resource Toolbox. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
Prince, Monique. "A Runaway Slave. Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave." The
Emancipator 1 (1838): 5. A Runaway Slave. Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway
Slave. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,, 2003. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.
Salmon, Karen, and Richard A. Bryant. "Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Children: The
Influence of Developmental Factors." Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Children: The
Influence of Developmental Factors. School of Psychology, University of New South
Wales, 11 Dec. 2001. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.

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Salzinger, Suzanne. "The Effects of Physical Abuse on Children's Social Relationships." J Stor
1st ser. 64 (1993): 169-87. JStor.org. Web. 8 Nov. 2016.
Simkin, John. "Spartacus Educational." Spartacus Educational. Spartacus Educational, Aug.
2014. Web. 08 Nov. 2016.
"What Was It Like to Be a Child Slave in America in the Nineteenth Century?" (n.d.): 1-7.
Nationalarchives.co.uk. Web. 27 Sept. 2016.