The Affect Slavery Has On Family Life Essay

The life of a slave woman is far more complex than that of a slave man, although understandably equal in hardships, the experience for a woman is incredibly different. The oppression that women have faced throughout their lives in the struggle to even be considered equal to men is more than evident in slavery, not only because they were thought of as lesser but in some ways many women actually believed it to be true. The experiences that Linda Brent, pseudonym for the author Harriet A. Jacobs, went through in her life story in Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl prove that the difficulties for slave women were more than significant in many different cases. For Linda Brent, her life had been a constant fight since she was six years old

He notes that, the slavery institution made them forget about their origin, and anything else that entails their past, and even when they were born. The slaves forgot everything about their families, and none knew about their family because, they were torn from them without any warning. Douglass explains how they went without food, clothing and even sleep because their masters were cruel to them. American slavery took advantage of black laborers as they were beaten mercilessly without committing any offense. They were not treated as human beings, but as property that could be manipulated in any way. The slavery institution was harsh for the Africans especially women who were regularly raped, and forced to bear their masters children and if they declined, they were maimed or killed.

Slave as defined by the dictionary means that a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. So why is it that every time you go and visit a historical place like the Hampton-Preston mansion in Columbia South Carolina, the Lowell Factory where the mill girls work in Massachusetts or the Old town of Williamsburg Virginia they only talk about the good things that happened at these place, like such things as who owned them, who worked them, how they were financed and what life was like for the owners. They never talk about the background information of the lower level people like the slaves or servants who helped take care and run these places behind the scenes.

One of the most strategic and dehumanizing components of slavery is the fact that it separated people from their families. In The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, it is evident that the idea of being sold to another white family and separated from your own is a devastating that can happen to a slave on short notice. For example, Douglas was born and raised on Colonel Lloyd's plantation in Talbot County in Maryland. However, at the age of seven or eight with only a few days notice, Douglas was told he was going to work with the Auld Family in Baltimore. This meant

Among many abolitionists of slavery in early America were former slaves, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs who lived to tell the stories of their quests for freedom during their time as slaves. Harriet Jacobs, known for her narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, was born into slavery like many African Americans at the time. Frederick Douglass who was also born into slavery was best known for his “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Through these narratives both Jacobs and Douglass each portray their own experiences of slavery in contrasting ways.

society (97). Harriet Jacobs’ life revolved around slavery from birth to death. Jacobs was a

Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: A Harrowing Escape from Abuse

Douglass' thesis mostly focuses on slavery and how it destroys the humanity of all those involved. He also takes time to speak of the unthinkable deeds which took place between the masters and the slaves.In many cases, slave holders commit adultery and rape with their female slaves in order to produce more slave. “He can be father without being husband, and may sell his child without incurring reproach.”[3] “A master fathering a slave child destroys the very concept of fatherhood and of family. Family is antagonistic to slavery. He made a personal argument later in that same paragraph "My father was a white man, or nearly white. It was sometimes whispered that my master was my father." The very existence of such a slave threatens the sanctity of the slaveholder's family. “Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves”[4] The father must either sell his own child, or raise him as a slave with all the abuse that comes with such a life.”[5] He writes in vivid detail about the common cruelties slaveholders inflict against their slaves, making it a point to show how dehumanizing slavery is not just to the slave, but to anyone who supports it. Douglass uses the character of Sophia[6] as a prime example of a person corrupted by slavery in order to depict a much broader sense of the evil powers slavery possess. "Her face was lightened with the

This was the period of post-slavery, early twentieth century, in southern United States where blacks were still treated by whites inhumanly and cruelly, even after the abolition laws of slavery of 1863. They were still named as ‘color’. Nothing much changed in African-American’s lives, though the laws of abolition of slavery were made, because now the slavery system became a way of life. The system was accepted as destiny. So the whites also got license to take disadvantages and started exploiting them sexually, racially, physically, and economically. During slavery, they were sold in the slave markets to different owners of plantation and were bound to be separated from each other. Thus they lost their nation, their dignity, and were dehumanized and exploited by whites.

Being raised as slaves; both Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass devoted their professional life for telling their true story based on their own experience. As a matter of fact, their works “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” (1861) and “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” (1845) are considered the most important works in the genre of slave narrative or of enslavement. Thus, this paper will compare and contrast between Jacobs and Douglass in terms of the aforementioned works.

Harriet Jacobs' words in Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl clearly suggests that the life as a slave girl is harsh and unsatisfactory. In this Composition, Jacobs is born a slave, never to be freed. She struggles through life in many instances making life seem impossible. The author's purpose is to state to the people what happened during slavery times in the point of view of a slave. Her life is so harsh that she even hides from her master for 7 years in a cramped space in the top of a shed without any room to walk. The theme of the story is a statement on how slavery was a much harder way of life than many people may have thought. Many people during these times thought that slaves were happy where they were and that their lives

Fittingly, they treated the slaves as if their family bonds were completely worthless – something they would never have imagined doing to a white man. This is illustrated through Douglass's relationship with his own mother, Harriet Bailey, whom he was separated from as an infant. As Douglass reminisced, "very little communication ever took place between us…I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial…I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger" (26). This passage depicts how the slaveholders became so convinced of the worthlessness of the slaves that they saw no reason to respect the vital bond between a mother and child. Consequently, the slaves' view of family fell askew. Although Douglass appeared to know that his mother was important and desired a relationship with her, her passing clearly did not ever sadden him. He also showed no affection for his brother and sisters, as he lacked the necessary interactions with them needed to form familial bondage. Additionally, slaveholders expressed extreme animosity towards the slave families by raping slave women, impregnating them, and then encouraging their white children to whip their half-black siblings. As a result of the dehumanizing behavior that slavery presents, slaves not only suffered and lost all of their freedoms, but also lost their entire family lives, which the slaveholders deemed necessary to

The definition of family has changes dramatically over the course of history, especially from culture to culture. It is quite interesting to research the definition of family within slave communities because the slave definition of family not only changed from plantation to plantation, but also slave to slave. Upon reading the secondary sources, “The Shaping of the Afro-American Family,” by Steven Mintz, & Susan Kellogg, "Marriage in Slavery," by Brenda Stevenson, and “Motherhood in Slavery” by Stephanie Shaw, and the primary sources WPA Interviews of former slaves conducted in the 1930s. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, throughout all of these readings there seemed to be some definite

Slavery was a horrible institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It wasn't less severe, but it was different. The sexual abuse, child bearing, and child care responsibilities affected the females's pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, demonstrates the different role that women slaves had and the struggles that were caused from having to cope with sexual abuse.

‘Incidents in the life of a slave girl’ written by Harriet Jacobs and published by L.Maria Child (in 1831), is an autobiography by the author herself which documents Jacobs life as a slave and therefore