“Fifty Years in Chains” by Charles Ball

Introduction

Charles Ball narrates his horrifying story of behind the bars as a slave, where life had lost all its charm and worth. Slavery had caused him great misfortune and miseries. He was born in Maryland in the year 1785. Messed up with a destroyed house that divides after the sale of his mother, he was also sold off to a slave trader and separated by his own family. The journey narrated here is his story after that sale, in which he bore the ruthlessness of slavery and hard times (See appendix, quotation 1).

The story tells us how American slaves lived their life in extreme situations where they lived amidst hunger, suppression, torture and suffering of all other kinds. Charles Ball escaped to Philadelphia where he dictated his life to a lawyer. Isaac Fisher, lawyer to Charles Ball, subsequently wrote several memoirs for him in the year 1836 (See appendix, quotation 2). We will present a summarized version of his miseries in this essay, assessing the torments of ancient American slavery. Slavery was already a social and economic institution in America, since ancient times. For this essay, we have selected a theme that is based on the types of difficulties faced by Charles Ball as a slave and his response to those difficulties (See appendix, quotation 3).

Thesis Statement

Charles Ball suffered from acute torture and miseries as a result of slavery, coupled with hunger, poverty, hopelessness and fear of ever being able to see his family again.

Discussion

Slavery exists in ancient times; it is mentioned in the earliest written records, such as the Code of Hammurabi and other writings as analyzed transcripts of oral histories. Reliable evidence of the existence of slavery begins with the historical societies with writing, and can be extrapolated, with caution, for the preceding prehistoric civilizations. “Fifty Years in Chains” (1859) was a shortened and unofficial, reprinted version of the earlier Slavery in the United States. Ball describes his experience as a slave that includes a narrative of the experience he had among other slaves. It was the unpredictability and uncertainty of his slave life that was a source of consistent torture to him. He recounts his experience and exposes the reader to a world full of pains and brutality, which shows how American slaves lived their lives in ancient times (See appendix, quotation 4).

Charles Ball had a family background as American slaves. His mother bore the brunt of acute slavery and its tormenting effects on her life (Ball, p. 198). Later on, when Charles bore this suffering, he was subjected to severe miseries and misfortune, which left him in complete shatters (See appendix, quotation 5). There was no warmth in the chilly nights, the clothes were all leftover rags, lack of hunger provoked anguish and the fellow prisoner women were pregnant. However, their pregnancy was not regarded by the slave owners while they complained of pain and pressures.

America is precisely a nation that gives new shape and meaning ...