the captain captures them He chains them like animals He sends them to Suriname a British colony in South America to be sold This betrayal shows the horrors of slavery This also shows how European colonists used lies and false promises to trap people The narrator says Never to credit one word they European colonists spoke Life in Slavery In Suriname Oroonoko is renamed Caesar by the colonists It shows slavery strips away the identity of the slaves Even though he is a prince the colonists treat Oroonoko like a slave They force him to work in harsh conditions on sugar plantations The colonists beat enslaved people for small mistakes They separate families parents from children husbands from wives Enslaved people have no freedom and no rights They call Africans savages but their own actions are far more brutal Oroonoko says We are bought and sold to be the sport of women fools and cowards This means that the enslaved people are treated as unimportant property of the white colonists Cruelty of European Colonists The European colonists in Oroonoko are shown as selfish greedy and cruel They constantly lie to Oroonoko They promise him freedom but never keep their word Trefry a European overseer seems kind to Oroonoko at first But even he does nothing to help Oroonoko escape slavery Oroonoko tries to rebel He says Why should we be slaves to an unknown people The colonists promise to forgive him But this is a lie They tie him to a post They beat him until his body is torn and bleeding The governor of the colony Byam is the most evil of all He pretends to be friendly but later betrays Oroonoko in the worst way possible Brutal Killing of Oroonoko The final scenes of the novella are the most horrifying Here we are heartbroken to see the horrors of slavery Oroonoko kills his wife Imoinda to save her and their unborn child from slavery He believes this is the only way to save her from more pain The colonists capture Oroonoko They cut off his body parts starting with his fingers then his ears nose and arms The narrator gives a graphic description of the horror With an ill-favour d Knife they cut off his Ears and his Nose and burn d them This brutal killing shows how heartless and savage European colonists were Even in death Oroonoko stays brave He smokes a pipe calmly as he dies In conclusion Behn s Oroonoko exposes the extreme cruelty of slavery It depicts the harsh attitude of European colonists who betrayed lied tortured and killed They treated slaves worse than animals The novel asks us to question who the real savages are the enslaved Africans or the Europeans who profit from their suffering