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Hayden Farthing
Jones, Picquet, & Turner:
Slavery & the Devastating Consequences
Thomas Jones, Louisa Picquet, and Nat Turner were all slaves in America during the
nineteenth century. Both Thomas and Louisa wrote stories of their experiences in order to raise
money to free someone in their family from slavery. Nat Turner on the other hand voluntarily
wrote of his experiences while serving time in prison, which possibly could not have been much
worse than being a slave. The type of slavery that Jones, Picquet, and Turner experienced
differed greatly from slavery in other countries during this time period. Slavery in America was
much more demeaning than slavery in other countries because the system was based solely on
skin color rather than religion or social class. During this time, American slave owners
maintained slavery by physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, and slaves sought methods of
coping which included Christianity, learning to read and write, responding passively, and even
revenge such as rebelling.
At the age of forty-seven, Thomas Jones wrote of his experiences as a slave in order to
raise money to free his son who still bore the shackles of slavery (Jones 1). Jones served as a
slave for forty-three years, nearly his entire life. During Jones' time as a slave, he experienced
severe physical and psychological abuse from his masters. Jones associated his early life with
"poverty, suffering, and shame," and he felt "inferior and degraded" and that he must go through
life alone while always suffering (Jones 1). He watched his parents work day and night trying to
make their children's lives happy. Hawes' slaves were forced to work as early as three in the
morning until the sun had completely set below the horizon. If a slave had children, they would
then have more work at home before they could catch a few hours of sleep in order to "get
strength for the heavy burdens of the next day" (Jones 2). If a slave gave birth to a child while in
America, the child was born into slavery, which is very different from slavery in other regions of
the world at this time. To see one's parents or children suffer so deeply negatively affected
