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Slavery in the antebellum period
Sex between slaves
Slavery in the antebellum period
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Slavery is a part of American history that is very significant . During the antebellum period, the treatment of enslaved women and men was very harsh. They were beaten, murdered, sold constantly and raped if they were women. I believe that enslaved women may have encountered more hardships than enslaved men during the antebellum period. This paper will compare the pain both enslaved groups experienced during this time period, to prove my idea.
Both groups of enslaved people face many of the same hardships. Lunsford Lane grew up on a plantation……..While enslaved women and men faced both physical and psychological pain,both groups encounter more pain than another.
Enslaved women suffered more psychological pain than physical pain. As I watched the video “Slavery and the Making of America," I learned about how a mother’s love for her children could make her do anything. Harriet Jacobs was a house slave whom turned down her master’s advancements, and instead had a
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Throughout my research there were two quotes that stood out to me that helped me come to this decision. “No matter what the girl looks like, whether she’s light skin or dark skin, if she’s at all attractive she is cursed. For the master will have a special interest in her."-Harriet Jacobs. This quote was why I decided that women have it worse. This quote basically says that if an enslaved woman is born with any type of beauty she will face hardships. From the constant advancements of her master to the jealousy of her mistress, she will face hardships from left to right. The other quote that stood out to me was”I would not be whipped, I would rather die."-Margaret Ward. This quote stood out to me because despite knowing that there could be consequences for disobeying her master, she still chose to stand her ground. These quotes showed me that the enslaved women during the antebellum period were
2. Female workers in Lowell, MA can be compared to slaves in the south in many ways but they are also very different. The conditions that the women in Lowell and slaves had to live in were very unsanitary and unbearable. The woman even felt like slaves. They were constantly watched as were slaves and they were also forced to go to church. Unlike slaves they were paid, even though they were paid very little because they could do the work of a man but get paid less, they still got paid. They had choices of what jobs to do where slaves were assigned to certain jobs. The women got some free time and even a 30 minute lunch break while slaves had very little or no brakes at all.
The U.S. slave system has placed African American women at a disadvantage for hundreds of years. It's atrocious to think this kind of thing could ever be allowed to happen. Even worse is to the reality that it wouldn't be that way if people truly believed in equality. Women were owned in every aspect, not merely free labor. Their minds, bodies, and souls were pushed to the limits and Harriet Jacobs is an example of this being true.
Between 1800 and 1860 slavery in the American South had become a ‘peculiar institution’ during these times. Although it may have seemed that the worst was over when it came to slavery, it had just begun. The time gap within 1800 and 1860 had slavery at an all time high from what it looks like. As soon as the cotton production had become a long staple trade source it gave more reason for slavery to exist. Varieties of slavery were instituted as well, especially once international slave trading was banned in America after 1808, they had to think of a way to keep it going – which they did. Nonetheless, slavery in the American South had never declined; it may have just come to a halt for a long while, but during this time between 1800 and 1860, it shows it could have been at an all time high.
Both Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs write narratives about their time being slaves. The narratives show dehumanization through physical and emotional abuse, along with sexual abuse supported with textual evidence. However, Jacobs states "slavery is bad for men, but is for more terrible for women", which I concur with.
Slaves are aware of their positions in society and have the choice to comply with their masters’ demands in order to gain a greater benefit to themselves often in the form of physical protection from abuse. Within the plantation hierarchy, the house slave was considered higher up than field slaves due to their close proximity to the master (Hall 566). The house slave’s position in the plantation microcosm evoked not only favor from the master, but jealousy from the field slaves. The fair-skinned, house slave woman and her master’s control over her mental psyche is a defining factor of her identity in relation to the other slaves on the plantation. Linda Brent in Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an excellent model of the mental bondage endured by light-skinned house slave women because she makes a conscious choice to continue her mental bondage in order to gain physical freedoms. Although many house slaves, like Linda, were granted physical freedoms, they experienced an unfathomable level of mental bondage that defined their character and prompted them to pick their own place in society.
Harriet Jacobs once said, “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women”. Men faced many hardships during slavery. They were beaten severely, starved, worked to the point where they couldn’t anymore and many more sufferings. On the other hand women also faced these similar hardships, but had to suffer even more. They would have to watch their children being taken away from them and sometimes never see them again. Women had to also deal with their Master trying to sexually harass them. Thus, slavery was indeed more terrible for women due to the facts that they would have to face with many more hardships than men did.
No one in today’s society can even come close to the heartache, torment, anguish, and complete misery suffered by women in slavery. Many women endured this agony their entire lives, there only joy being there children and families, who were torn away from them and sold, never to be seen or heard from again.
Slavery caused a rift in the American society. The issue of slavery in America divided citizens into two groups, pro-slavery and abolitionists. Unlike other countries America could not decide this issue peacefully. The two groups fought constantly, the issue would not be settled peacefully but would end in a violent war. The pro slavery group accepted and approved of slavery, while the abolitionists viewed slavery in a different light. The abolitionist disagreed with slavery and all it stood for.
Slavery was the main resource used in the Chesapeake tobacco plantations. The conditions in the Chesapeake region were difficult, which lead to malnutrition, disease, and even death. Slaves were a cheap and an abundant resource, which could be easily replaced at any time. The Chesapeake region’s tobacco industries grew and flourished on the intolerable and inhumane acts of slavery.
Slavery was a gruesome experience for all people of the African descent. However, the instances that occurred in a slave’s life differentiated between men and women.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth-century, notions of freedom for Black slaves and White women were distinctively different than they are now. Slavery was a form of exploitation of black slaves, whom through enslavement, lost their humanity and freedom, and were subjected to dehumanizing conditions. African women and men were often mistreated through similar ways, especially when induced to labor, they would eventually become a genderless individual in the sight of the master. Despite being considered “genderless” for labor, female slaves suddenly became women who endured sexual violence. Although a white woman was superior to the slaves, she had little power over the household, and was restricted to perform additional actions without the consent of their husbands. The enslaved women’s notion to conceive freedom was different, yet similar to the way enslaved men and white women conceived freedom. Black women during slavery fought to resist oppression in order to gain their freedom by running away, rebel against the slaveholders, or by slowing down work. Although that didn’t guarantee them absolute freedom from slavery, it helped them preserve the autonomy and a bare minimum of their human rights that otherwise, would’ve been taken away from them. Black
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like.
...en that were enslaved with Northup were forced to live up to the expectations of their slave masters. Out on the field, the women did not receive any special treatment, as was the case for Patsey. Under the cover of darkness, the slave masters would have their way with the women slaves, claiming that they were “their property to do as they please with”. Finally, the worst was the separation of women from their children as they were sold into slavery. Without a doubt, the experiences of slaves were gendered in many ways.
In conclusion, women were considered property and slave holders treated them as they pleased. We come to understand that there was no law that gave protection to female slaves. Harriet Jacob’s narrative shows the true face of how slaveholders treated young female slave. The female slaves were sexually exploited which damaged them physically and psychologically. Furthermore it details how the slave holder violated the most sacred commandment of nature by corrupting the self respect and virtue of the female slave. Harriet Jacob writes this narrative not to ask for pity or to be sympathized but rather to show the white people to be aware of how female slaves constantly faced sexual exploitation which damaged their body and soul.
African Americans suffered the hardships of slavery, servitude, and human bondage for about two hundred years in the United States. During the late 1700s, owning slaves was not only common in this country but considered normal way of making a living. Many African families have been torn apart, beaten, killed, and endured other horrible circumstances due to this unethical treatment. The general treatment of slaves was brutal and degrading, but it has been discovered that not all slaves were punished and brutalized. In this case, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper describes the intimate emotions and life of a desperate mother and innocent child who are placed in a slave