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
Following the success of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the Americas in the early16th century, the Spaniards, French and Europeans alike made it their number one priority to sail the open seas of the Atlantic with hopes of catching a glimpse of the new territory. Once there, they immediately fell in love the land, the Americas would be the one place in the world where a poor man would be able to come and create a wealthy living for himself despite his upbringing. Its rich grounds were perfect for farming popular crops such as tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton. However, there was only one problem; it would require an abundant amount of manpower to work these vast lands but the funding for these farming projects was very scarce in fact it was just about nonexistent. In order to combat this issue commoners back in Europe developed a system of trade, the Triangle Trade, a trade route that began in Europe and ended in the Americas. Ships leaving Europe first stopped in West Africa where they traded weapons, metal, liquor, and cloth in exchange for captives that were imprisoned as a result of war. The ships then traveled to America, where the slaves themselves were exchanged for goods such as, sugar, rum and salt. The ships returned home loaded with products popular with the European people, and ready to begin their journey again.
It is well known that slavery was a horrible event in the history of the United States. However, what isn't as well known is the actual severity of slavery. The experiences of slave women presented by Angela Davis and the theories of black women presented by Patricia Hill Collins are evident in the life of Harriet Jacobs and show the severity of slavery for black women.
Women slaves were subject to unusually cruel treatment such as rape and mental abuse from their master’s, their unique experience must have been different from the experience men slaves had. While it is no secret that the horrors of the institution of slavery were terrible and unimaginable; those same horrors were no big deal for southern plantation owners. Many engaged in cruelty towards their slaves. Some slave owners took particular interest in their young female slaves. Once caught in the grips of a master’s desire it would have been next to impossible to escape. In terms of actual escape from a plantation most women slaves had no reason to travel and consequentially had no knowledge of the land. Women slaves had the most unfortunate of situations; there were no laws that would protect them against rape or any injustices. Often the slave that became the object of the master’s desires would also become a victim of the mistress of the household. Jealousy played a detrimental role in the dynamic the enslaved women were placed within. Regardless of how the slave felt she could have done little to nothing to ease her suffering.
A recurring theme in, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is Harriet Jacobs's reflections on what slavery meant to her as well as all women in bondage. Continuously, Jacobs expresses her deep hatred of slavery, and all of its implications. She dreads such an institution so much that she sometimes regards death as a better alternative than a life in bondage. For Harriet, slavery was different than many African Americans. She did not spend her life harvesting cotton on a large plantation. She was not flogged and beaten regularly like many slaves. She was not actively kept from illiteracy. Actually, Harriet always was treated relatively well. She performed most of her work inside and was rarely ever punished, at the request of her licentious master. Furthermore, she was taught to read and sew, and to perform other tasks associated with a ?ladies? work. Outwardly, it appeared that Harriet had it pretty good, in light of what many slaves had succumbed to. However, Ironically Harriet believes these fortunes were actually her curse. The fact that she was well kept and light skinned as well as being attractive lead to her victimization as a sexual object. Consequently, Harriet became a prospective concubine for Dr. Norcom. She points out that life under slavery was as bad as any slave could hope for. Harriet talks about her life as slave by saying, ?You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of chattel, entirely subject to the will of another.? (Jacobs p. 55).
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.
The experiences that Linda Brent, Harriet Jacobs, went through in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl attest that slavery was crueler for slave women. When Linda Brent found out that she gave birth to a baby girl, she envisioned every single misfortune, sorrow, and shame of her own unwillingly inherited to her daughter. Every bit of emotional suffering and physical pain she had felt throughout her lifetime as a slave was about to be passed down to her most prized possession, her daughter; a daughter who would be property. “When they told me that my new-borne was a girl, my heart was heavier than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrib...
One of the many obstacles which women had to cope with during slavery was losing their children. One night a black woman’s child will be with her and the other morning he/she could be sold off to another Master. In the story, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, Harriet Jacobs had to face a similar dilemma. She had to escape, risk leaving her children back on the plantation, in order for them to be kept in one place. If she had stayed, her children would have been sold to another slave master and she probably would have never seen them again. One of the hardest things for a mother to do is leave their children behind in a dangerous place and Harriet had to do this. If she was a man, she wouldn’t be taking care of her kids, but she would just be working. No children to worry about or nothing. Therefore, a woman’s fear of losing her children was a major obstacle during slavery.
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.
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.
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
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.
Women involved in slavery had several struggles dealing with physical and mental abuse. In one of Douglass's narratives it states "an old aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back til she was literally covered with blood". The women would be beaten brutally, and treated as if they were not human beings. They also had no chance of fighting back against the abuse, which is shown from this quote. While in the quote from Jacob's narrative states "She sits on the cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn
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.
Slaves and Women during this time fought for a lot of the same issues during this time period, both where second class citizens, had little to no rights, and where