The most important emotional knowledge communicated by slaves

 ... i decided to take another shot at this and go about writing it a different way.

Arsenio Jordan

                                           The most important emotional knowledge communicated by slaves is pain and fear. During the horrific moments of slavery pain and fear served as a peculiar form of motivation that developed within the slaves and caused them to make attempts to get out of their horrendous situation.  In The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano we are introduced to many accounts of not only physical pain but emotional as well as trepidation felt deeply within young Equaino that caused him to make certain decisions based upon the means of survival.

                                            During the intensity of unfortunate events we as humans tend to make courageous efforts under pressure to save ourselves. Even though these acts for the most part are arbitrary and not fully thought out the need to survive is always present. on page 21 of “The Interesting life” equaino makes an attempt to escape his slave owner but fails after his inner emotions take over as he quotes “I was seized with a violent panic, and abandoned myself to despair”. These were the emotions that flourished within him as he hid in a bush for hours battling hunger pains that would eventually lead him back into the very danger he initially ran from. The truth is in the event of Equaino suffering from hunger pains and the fear of being caught it forced him to abort his mission of escaping and immediately returned to his masters kitchen to find some sort of ease. How unusual yet courageous to see a person sneak back into the premises of captivity to locate a safe haven.

                               Aboard slavery ships you can find slaves being whooped and forced to work under the most dangerous and unsanitary conditions. On page 15 paragraphs two of “The Interesting Narrative Equaino writes about these conditions and witnessing it first hand quoting “lest we should leap into the water. I have seen some of the poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so and hourly whipped for not eating”. They were treated as If they were machines and they had no feelings or emotions. Yet they did indeed have emotions mostly of pain and fear. On many occasions these emotions mixed with poor treatment would drive  a slave to jump over board the ship some knowing death may be certain. To me this would indicate another courageous act to escape. Yes, death is a rather unfortunate choice to make but imagine being put to work for endless hours and being force fed to restore your energy just enough to work even harder and longer. Somewhere in between sobbing and the fearful thought that you won’t survive causes you to make a run for it even if it you may die trying.