ABSTRACT
The sound of the whip is so common in the field and that without any particular observation or feeling. Many persons fall into the idea, that the slaves are, on the whole, mildly treated, and that there is really no necessity for making any material alteration in their circumstances. Transatlantic slavery was premised upon the strategic dehumanization and animalization of enslaved Africans as a way to "break" or "season" a population that was deemed to be uniquely fit for servitude due to their supposed brutishness and insentience. The physical dehumanization of the enslaved went hand in hand with strategic material deprivation, cultural prohibitions, and social humiliation. A part of this process necessarily involved the regularized use of corporal punishment. Fugitive slave advertisements were also a primary source with prescribed limits. The limit of the slave advertisement is that it confirms only that someone ran away from the person who claimed to own the runaway.
