The use of physical and mental torture, degraded many of the slaves to where they couldn’t sustain themselves. The thought of ever being free slipped their minds and it was all work and no play. Many of the slaves received a form of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from their experiences from their masters, and it not only stayed with that slave for the rest of his or her life, but it has stayed with the African American race. The feeling of not being able to defend yourself, while you are being raped, if just unbearable to think about.
“The day I came in here. You said they stole your milk. I never knew what it was that messed him up. That was it, I guess. All I knew was that something broke him. Not a one of them years of Saturday, Sunday, and nighttime extra never touched him. But whatever he saw go on in that barn that day broke him like a twig” (Morrison,