under the lash, without fault, than that the master or the overseer should seem to have been wrong in the presence of the slave." (Douglass, 121) Slaves were beaten with chains, sexually abused, sold as property, robbed of a healthy diet, and exposed to inhumane conditions on a daily basis. This type of abuse dehumanized Africans by murdering their souls and manipulating their minds.
             Torment was not the only way in which slave masters dehumanized slaves. Africans were literally torn from their country and brought to a place in which they were controlled by white masters that referred to all of them as a category, rarely acknowledging the ethnic and religious differences among them. Religious rituals, naming practices, funeral ceremonies, and other features of culture are recognized as sharing traits with a generalized and often timeless Af
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