HUMANITIES 2
PTSS posits that centuries of slavery in the United States
Slavery was characterized by systematic, as well as, structural racism and oppression
such as mass incarceration and lynching, which contributed to the establishment of
multigenerational maladaptive behavior in the United States (DeGruy, 2017). However, the
behavior was initially implemented to act as a survival strategy among the people but later led to
some adverse impacts. The adverse effects of the history have been passed on from one
generation to the other and are known as historical trauma. The paper identifies the impact of the
historical trauma on individuals, families and the culture.
Effects on individuals
American Indians lost lives, lands, as well as, culture due to their contact with European
colonizers. The massive losses led to increased grief, mourning and feelings of loss and
aggression among the people towards the colonizers as a result of chronic trauma in addition to
unresolved grief across the generation. The effects contributed to the social vices such as
increased suicide rates, domestic violence, child abuse, alcoholism and homicides among other
social problems among the Indians in America (DeGruy, 2017).
Effects of families
Families also experienced the death of their members as a result of illnesses such as
smallpox and tuberculosis. Additionally, the federal government put in place strategies that
required children to be taken to boarding schools, which were a way of alienating them from
their families. The children were belittled, beaten, murdered and raped in the boarding schools,
which led families to feel ashamed to be associated with their Indian cultures (Heart & Horse,
2007).
