Plantation Mistress Rhetorical Analysis

Plantation Mistress Turned Abolitionist In antebellum America, cotton became an extremely important economic factor in the South, as well as the rest of the United States. Cotton was the oil of the nineteenth century. As its importance grew, so did the emergence of plantations and the need for slavery. Those who owned plantations were usually very wealthy and could afford a large portion of land, and the labor to maintain it. Gender roles on plantations were somewhat different than what would be seen in a New England household. Plantation mistresses were needed to manage the property in the absence of the male. Therefore, these women had some power over what when on around the plantations. For some women, this was not always a power they wanted.

Grimké stated, “I witnessed for many years its demoralizing influences, and its destructiveness to human happiness. It is admitted by some that the slave is not happy under the worst forms of slavery. But I have never seen a happy slave.” Grimké said this to debunk the idea that slavery really was not that bad, and that slaves were even happy being slaves. Grimké does her absolute best to illustrate the horrendous practice of slavery in the South so people will react. Grimké asks the question, “what has the North to do with slavery,” to make her audience feel like they need to take action on the issue. At another point in her speech, Grimké discusses how southern hospitality sometimes masks the issue of slavery to Northerners who visit. She says many who go to the south go and are “hospitably entertained”. However, she states the people that visit do not always get to witness the audacity of slavery, and she says “they know nothing of the dark side of the picture”. Grimké does this to show the audience how easily slavery could be looked over if someone was not playing close enough attention. She also paints slave holders to be extremely manipulative. It was extremely important to Grimké that Northerners not only realize how terrible slavery was in the South, but also react and want to join her in the abolition