Original Paragraph:
The quarter was not far away. Joanna kept her eyes fixed on the last cabin in the row so that she would not see Aaron's strong copper arm draw back, so she would not see the welts and blood on Leah's back. Aaron's whip was seven feet of cowhide with a sturdy oak handle at one end and a small lead weight on the other, the better to bruise and scar the flesh. Joanna had never felt his whip on her own skin, but she had kissed marks it had left on Titus [her husband.] Another scream; she gasped and kept walking.
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This paragraph describes a scene from a book that focuses on slavery in the South, pre-emancipation times. In this particular scene, Joanna, a slave, is witnessing a beating of another slave, Leah, who had been "insolent" to her mistress and her mistress' fiance. They had ordered her to strip her clothes off in front of her fellow slaves to prove a point and she refused. I had many thoughts running through my head when I read this passage. First, I was sick to my stomach and I wanted to barf. Then, I just wanted to cry. I always knew that slavery was a bad thing, but reading how some of them were actually treated, made me realize that some slave owners and overseers were terrible and inhumane. It was truly an evil practice.
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