Summary Of The Forced Separation By Sale By Henrik Gutman

This is proof that this terrible act was very typical within slaveholding societies. Now, just because this relationship seems usual in the south, it does not mean everyone condoned it. The wives of many slave owners proved they were not okay with a white male and a black female relationship by the way they acted with “anger and resentment” towards other slaves (McLaurin, 26). Wives chose to ignore this behavior simply because if they didn’t, not only would their lives be in danger, but so would their children’s.

During the mid-1800s, it was challenging being a slave. Belonging to another human being instead of being free brought numerous hardships African Americans had to endure. It brought about unimaginable pain, frustration, disruption, and stress. In America, slavery was glorified, even though, families were separated and destroyed. Slavery made it tedious to have stability in families because of the effects it had on the African American people. After reading “How Affected African American Families” and “Narrative of Jenny Proctor,” slavery caused African American families to cope with separation, unfair marriage stipulations, horrible living condition, mistreatment and labor, and also the ending of slavery.

This book is helpful interpretively as it helps the reader understand the relatively recent departure from an interpretation that slavery was an unprofitable and necessary evil in which African-Americans were usually treated well and benefited from their relationships with whites. Such traditions and interpretations have educated many visitors.

The law did not recognize or protect slave families. Buying and selling slaves disrupted attempts to create a stable family life. Marriage of a slave woman did not protect her against the sexual demands for her master. Sometimes targets for the wrath of white mistresses were slave children of white masters. Slave work kept mothers from their children while spouses were always at risk to be sold. Broad kinship patterns had marked West African cultures, and they were reinforced by the separation of children and parents that routinely occurred under slavery. Slaves often created “fictive” kin networks. They helped to protect themselves against the disruption of family ties and established a broader community of

For the most part, masters made young, single slaves the objects of their sexual pursuits. They did on occasion rape married women. The inability of the slave husband to protect his wife from such violation points to another fundamental aspect of the relationship between enslaved

Slavery is an institution that repetitively separates family members and close friends from each other, without any regard to those people. This aids in disrupting the heteronormative nuclear family relationship greatly. Frederick Douglass said that “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant…” and that “It is a common custom…to part children from their mothers at a very early age.”(pg. 1). This showing that most children that were born into slavery would grow up having no relationship at all with their own mothers. Also, a lot of slaves were born into slavery by the fact that “children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers,” (pg. 2) and the slaveholder now holds the title of father and master. With being torn from their mother at a young age and having your own father be your master, completely takes away the chance of a child that is born into slavery from having the “normal” nuclear family relationship.

Slaveholders took the responsibility for the physical and moral well-being of their dependent which was their spouse, children, and slaves. Paternalism, which is Latin for “Father,” narrowed the cultural gap between the master and the slave because it became deeply embedded after the closing of the African slave trade in 1808. The paternalism disguised and gave a reason for brutal reality of slavery. “[Paternalism] enabled slave-owners to think of themselves as kind, responsible masters even as they bought and sold their human property—a practice at odds with the claim that places formed part of the master’s “family”” (Foner 413).

Many Americans had expected the practice of slavery to die. Americans were given this impression in relation to decreasing tobacco production due to lack of fertile soil (Foner, 317). However, Americans would be presented with factors that would lead to an expansion in slavery. The expansion of slavery deteriorated already terrible conditions for slaves; slave families would be separated and many female slaves faced imminent forced reproduction with studs or white males.

First and foremost, Stampp established the norm for slavery by using anecdotes from slaves and masters alike. He did this in an attempt to remain non-biased by presenting the lifestyle from both perspectives. Stampp does this in the format of ten chapters which details the setting, lifestyle, and economic issues in the South primarily during the 1830s until the 1860s. His first chapter entitled, “The Setting,” provides the reader with a thorough background in slavery in North America from its roots during the colonial period. Stampp believed that, “Southerners did not create the slave system all at once in 1619; rather, they built it little by little, step by step, choice by choice, over a period of many years; and all the while most of them were more or less blind to the ultimate consequences of the choices they were making.” Originally, according to Stampp, the use of native Africans as slaves was an obvious choice considering their expertise in agriculture. He argues that the reason African slaves were targeted was that their culture was accustomed to the tasks and heavy labor associated with an agricultural setting. This is a plausible explanation but what of the

Thesis: Despite the oppression of slavery, African Americans were able to keep their culture alive through their music and oral traditions.

The limitation of this book is that this book could only dedicate about 10 pages in the slavery in Virginia. Since it covered so much time period, some details were overlooked.

For the women who were formally indentured slave, marriage was the mark of their freedom. However, their marriages didn’t necessarily improve their living or work conditions. Women who were indentured slaves often ended up marrying other slaves or married less well-off than their masters, some women even married up in class (Dubois, ch.2 p.51-52).

As it was common for large amounts of African slaves to live on one plantation, families began to become prevalent among slave communities. Slave owners actually encouraged marraige because it generally meant better moral among the slaves and thus less opposition, as well as, because slave marraiges meant children which would become the slave owner’s next generation of laborers. Therefore, slave families grew quickly and became a key aspect of slave culture. Instead of relying on friends on the plantation, slaves had their families to go back to. Black mothers found great joy and happiness in their newborns, even though childbirth deaths were common, but

The discussion with the slave, as it has been pointed out, recalls the discussion between

It will also seek to identify the nature of sexual relationships between masters and their slaves. Jacobs describes an incident when at about 12 years old her mistress had died . She explains that she and her mistress had an amicable relationship. Her mistress had taught her that God’s word required one to love one’s neighbor as themselves and hoped that her mistress would release her from bondage. Her mistress had however bequeathed her to her five year old niece. This act caused her much grief and made it clear that her late mistress did not quite consider her a neighbor.