The path to losing one's sense of manhood which was based in being able to defend oneself and protect one's family began as they were stripped of their ability to do so when being chained up and abused throughout their walk from the interior to the west coast. They further lost the ability to prove and demonstrate their manhood due to being chained together tightly against others under the deck of the slave ship. Furthermore, their ability to end their own lives to escape this suffering was stifled by that tight bondage which further added to their sense of helplessness making them further lose any semblance of African manhood. (Henry Prior)

Black argues that these assaults on West African Manhood served to “displace the West African male perception of himself.” The context of slavery stripped African men of the relationships and experiences that they used to define manhood itself. It was not simply a destruction of African manhood, then theoretically replaced by colonial or white manhood, but a destruction of manhood itself for those who experienced it. Additionally, the trauma and both the mental and physical displacement of the Middle Passage caused African men to lose their ability to reference the past as a way to assert their manhood. Previous experiences of performing masculinity were disconnected from any present claims to manhood, leaving African men without the structures to assert their own capabilities and possibilities. (Cameron Spivy)

Although I have previously learned about the Middle Passage, I was unaware of the extent of the psychological and physiological horrors that occurred. The parallels between the general institution of slavery and the physical journal exemplify how Black manhood and masculinity have been impacted by systematic racism. In particular, I was intrigued to learn about the acts of resistance enslaved people took during this time. The author discussed how acts of resistance, such as starvation, were so widespread that extreme measures were taken to reduce the likelihood of men revolting. This week's text sheds light on how disenfranchising large groups of men may implicate women and girls. For instance, during the Middle Passage, West African women and girls were victimized by white captors. Overall, the text showed how the process of enslavement devastated communities with the onset of removing fathers, brothers, cousins, and grandfathers from their homes. (Allisya Smith)

This chapter explores the experiences of Venture Smith (originally Broteer Furro) and Olaudah Equiano/Gustavas Vassa, who were both born in Africa and were enslaved as children. Black uses their written narratives of their lives to examine how ideas of manhood interacted with the lived experience of slavery. Both Venture and Equiano were originally raised with ideas and concepts of West African Manhood, that, after being enslaved and displaced, they felt they could no longer achieve. (Cameron Spivy)

Olaudah Equiano as portrayed in his autobiography. There are no contemporary portraits of Venture. (Cameron Spivy)

Plantation life severely limited African men's abilities to father their children, specifically in ways that affirmed their own ideas of manhood. Specifically, in the case of sons, enslaved fathers were unable to impart cultural knowledge and ritually guide their sons on their journey to manhood. They were barred by the limited time they could spend with their family, through both overwork and separation, as well as the explicit prohibition of these practices. Additionally, in the context of their enslavement, fathers had to spend their precious time teaching their children how to survive in a world where white men held all the power rather than teaching their children about what adulthood and specifically manhood meant to them as Africans. (Cameron Spivy)