Slave Narratives

From my time researching these articles and narratives, I have gotten to know more about what slavery was like from various slaves' perspectives. While reading through the National Humanities Center about relationships between masters and slaves, I learned that slaver was mentally and emotionally challenging for both masters and slaves. Masters not only owned their slaves, they were in complete control, were harsh and overbearing, and were expected to be so. They were forced to assure themselves that what they were doing wasn't morally wrong, and that their belief that slaves were only property was good and true, even as they witnessed what the slaves were experiencing right in front of them. Slaves were not only compliant, but totally submissive and subject to their masters' rules. They would obsess over what they would do and say in order to keep their masters content and prevent anger or violence. This constant "self-monitoring" and self-examination must have been immensely taxing on them, which is part of the reason why slavery was so terrible. Slaves also had to think about why they were slaves in the first place, and wonder if they really were meant to be inferior like that, or if it was simply the harshness and oppressiveness of their masters that was the problem. The masters, in turn, had to convince themselves as well as the slaves that slavery was morally acceptable and was the way it should be. In what ways were masters challenged morally through slavery? What do you think it did to slaves mentally when they were told they were meant to be slaves, and were naturally inferior?