Revealed: Shocking Reasons Captives Wear Mental Masks

Humans especially the black all over the world had from the time of Adam been faced with the severity of man’s inhumanity to man. Thus, the era of human trafficking commonly known as the slave trade lasted unabated because the people were either incapacitated to wage war against it or inferior to stand up for themselves. Other reasons abound.

This draws credence to the 1803 incident, where about 75 Igbo people were captured and taken overseas for slavery. En route to their destination, the young men conspired to hijack the ship and escape. On the verge of the execution of their plot, they were transferred to another slave ship after their first master found out how rebellious they could be.

The young men were to be transported to a rice plantation which was renowned for brutal work and required strength.
However, as the Igbos were crammed under the deck, and chained together, and no sooner when they were transferred to the ship than the crew of the new slave ship got tired of them because they were too noisy.

They began to go in turns to force them to shut up, but the Igbos wouldn’t listen. Soon, the crew discovered they were not just making a noise, rather they were chanting in unison. The chant probably increased their morals and they were able to break loose from their chains. The young men then, hijacked the ship.

Remember that on the ship, they weren’t putting on any masks and therefore, could talk and communicate at will. This metal màsk which they would later be compelled to wear if their journey had continued was used during slavery for 3 main reasons:

The first was to prevent the enslaved from eating fruits such as apples, pineapples, oranges, cashews, bananas, plantains sugarcanes, etc. while harvesting them. Even though, they were made to work consistently on all the plantation farms.

Another reason captives had to wear metal masks was to stop the enslaved from chanting African spiritual songs. This is because those spiritual and war songs affected the slàve masters, and also motivated some enslaved to rèbel and fìght back not minding losing their lives.

It was also to stop those enslaved from teaching the African local dialects (languages) to their children. Thus, they targeted to kill the African dialects, by forcing them to learn foreign languages.

Finally, to starve the enslàved as a punishment in the slàve camps. The màsk prevented them from eating or drinking. Sometimes the slàve màsters would force an apple (a whole 🍎) into the mouths of enslàved before they wore the metal mask on with the padlocks so that they couldn’t talk.

The metallic masks are synonymous with slavery and communicate the glaring vicissitudes of life that the black race faced at the hands of the slave masters. A Heartwrenching story that many don’t want to tell so loud.

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