‘How Much More Must I Suffer?’: Post-Traumatic Stress and the Lingering Impact of Violence Upon Enslaved People
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-21-2021
Publication Title
Slavery and Abolition
Volume
42
Issue
2
First page number:
184
Last page number:
200
Abstract
By centering the voices of formerly enslaved people, this article suggests that black Americans in the nineteenth century had a sophisticated understanding of how slavery’s brutality instituted a multi-generational legacy of trauma in the United States. While they would not recognize the term ‘post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), black writers’ detailed descriptions of traumatic violence, and its debilitating impact amongst their friends and relatives, reflect many symptoms associated with PTSD. Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and its call to examine the lethal repercussions of systemic racism, this article provides one approach for scholars examining the links between anti-black racism and trauma in early American history.
Disciplines
Sociology
Language
English
Repository Citation
Parry, T.
(2021).
‘How Much More Must I Suffer?’: Post-Traumatic Stress and the Lingering Impact of Violence Upon Enslaved People.
Slavery and Abolition, 42(2),
184-200.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0144039X.2021.1896187