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Incidents in the life of a slave girl essay
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Deborah Gray White in Aren’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South theorizes that black women in the plantation south were the most vulnerable group in early America. These were black women in a white Southern society, slaves in a free American society, and women in a society ruled by men which gave them the least power and the most vulnerability in the plantation south. Their degradation was the result of American stigmas that understood black women as being promiscuous, licentious females who had high birth rates as well as a high pain tolerance. Although black women were seen as a part of the weaker sex, they were not seen as being as not seen as ineffectual. These women were sold for their abilities that include, but are not …show more content…
Deborah White uses various examples of situations regarding these characterizations from other pieces of work such as “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, interviews, and other historical references. Through these examples, Deborah White is able to effectively relay, through historical context, how these women struggled with the assumption that all black female slaves were “Jezebels” until proven otherwise. Regarded as highly sexual women, those who were categorized as a “Jezebel” woman initially started because of African traditions prior to their enslavement and also excused “miscegenation, the sexual exploitation of black women, and the mulatto population”. Deborah White argues that these women faced a very unique situation because their sexual behavior could result in being treated better or worse, depending on the situation and the master; because population growth was inevitable, white men seemed to believe that this proved their “lewd and licentious behavior”. Also, the conditions in which these women lived “helped imprint the Jezebel image on the white mind” even though this environment was created by these men “which ensured female slave behavior fulfilled their expectations”. In contrast to the “Jezebel” figure, white men also created the “Mammy” figure who was a loyal servant to the white family as well as a surrogate mother for the both black and white children. This position for a black female slave helped “endorse the service of black women in Southern households” (61). Therefore, both of these characterizations were to justify the treatment of black
(pg. 75) Because of Baartman’s race, Europeans linked her to an animal who is apart of nature as opposed to a human being. Like wise, in Mastering the Female Pelvis, Sims and Harris depicted the slave women as inherently more durable than white women, they described the black women to be durable like a car, not in reference to a human being (272). Sims often argued that the slave women were able to endure excruciating pain because slavery “prepared” the women for the surgeries. In present day black women are still looked at as being strong women, but with that description comes negative. In society, people often think that black women can endure any and everything that causes pain, as Dr. Kuumba once stated in class that her doctor compared her to an animal after giving her a shot.
Were women in the 1850s not valued more than to live life as concubines? Did black men not deserve equal rights just as white men? The Antebellum Era was a pre-Civil War time when white men were positioned as the head of the house, and women and wives below them at their husbands’ service, and inferior to all remained the Negro population. In Celia, A Slave, Celia’s story revealed many difficulties faced by female slaves. Her story conveyed the position of women in Missouri during the 1850s, along with the position of slaves in regards to the resistance of oppression. Her trial gave a strong idea of the rights between masters and slaves.
Harriet Jacobs, Frances E. W. Harper, and Anna Julia Cooper are three African American female writers who have greatly impacted the progress of "black womanhood." Through their works, they have successfully dispelled the myths created about black women. These myths include two major ideas, the first being that all African American women are perceived as more promiscuous than the average white woman. The second myth is that black women are virtually useless, containing only the capabilities of working in white homes and raising white children. These myths caused these women to be degraded in the eyes of others as well as themselves. In Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harper's Iola Leroy, and Cooper's A Voice From the South, womanhood is defined in ways that have destroyed these myths. As seen through these literary works, womanhood is defined according to one's sexuality, spirituality, beauty, identity, relationships, and motherhood.
Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl Essay Educating the North of the dismay of slavery through the use of literature was one strategy that led to the questioning, and ultimately, the destruction of slavery. Therefore, Harriet Jacobs’s narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is very effective in using various tactics in order to get women in the North to pay attention and question the horrifying conditions in the South. By acknowledging that not all slaveholders were inhumane, explaining the horrific abuse and punishments slaves endured, and comparing the manner in which whites and slaves spent their holidays, Jacobs’s narrative serves its purpose of arousing Northern women to take notice of the appalling conditions that tons of Southern slaves continued to endure. When you think of slavery, you think of whites controlling the black and owning them. When reading Incidents of Life as a Slave Girl, think about how she caught the audience’s attention she was trying to inflict and see the depth in meaning of slavery.
The Jezebel was another origin of the hypersexual nature of African American women. This stereotype developed after Sarah Baartman era. The term jezebel is heard in the Bible.“The negative jezebel stereotype also has a long history in American culture. She is usually a young, exotic, promiscuous, oversexed woman who uses sexuality to get attention, love, and material goods”(Tyree, p.398). Being defined as one’s body was not enough, the jezebel ideal elevated. Sexual assault took over and women were left dealing with the title of, jezebels who wanted this type of behavior happen to them. Understanding that rape was not illegal when the victim was an African American woman. History points to the fact that “white men were probably never convicted
“Portraying African-American women as stereotypical mammies, matriarchs, welfare recipients, and hot mommas helps justify U.S. black women’s oppression” (Patricia Hill Collins, Feminist Thought Sister Citizen 51). In early American history, racial stereotypes played a significant role in shaping the attitude African Americans. Stereotypes such a mammy, jezebel, sapphire and Aunt Jemimah were used to characterize African American women. Mammy was a black masculine nursemaid who was in charge of the white children. The stereotype jezebel, is a woman who wants sex all the time. White Americans saw black women as loose, oversexed and immoral. This stereotype still lives today because men especially whites look for black women to be their prostitutes.
Sojourner was an advocate for women’s rights and an inspiring leader for abolishing slavery and enabling slave’s rights. In 1851, Sojourner Truth delivered her speech about racial inequalities, “ain’t I a woman”. I am choosing to use this speech as my primary source for my paper. This speech speaks to the underlying cause regarding sexual harassment that African American slaves endured. It did matter that they were women; all that mattered was that they were enslaved. Thus, being treated with the respect was stripped away from them. In fact, African American women slaves more than often; were victims of sexual harassment by the white women, white men, and even black who perpetrated these terrible acts for their own advantage. At the time of slavery, it was very
Further along the vein of sensitivity, slave narratives would sometimes depict white women as sensitive enough to reject the more abhorrant aspects of slavery, but not sensitive enough to reject the idea that slaves were anything more than “brute creatures” (Carby 28). A white woman’s place within the sphere of the cult of true womanhood would cause her to “affirm the superiority of white sensibilities,” especially due to the widely-held belief that black slaves could not have feelings (Carby 28). Contradictorily, as in Frederick Douglas’s description of his white mistress, the influence of the harshness of slavery could still cause “a physical and spiritual decay” of the white woman (Carby 28). White female slave owners could have worked more to help end slavery, but as demonstrated from the diary of white plantation woman Mary Chestnut, many women thought that slaves were unlovable, but could do fine if they were not treated harshly and kept at a distance from white people.
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
Jacqueline Jones argues that “the burden of transition from a slave to a free black population fell most heavily on mothers whose offspring perpetuated the system of bondage.” Even after a state emancipated slaves, a woman’s child was bound, much as indentured servitude, to the freed slave’s master. Once freed and migration to northern cities occurred, the ratio of men to women changed drastically since the Colonial period. However, black women provided services much as they did while enslaved: cooking, cleaning, or tending to white children.[4] Although they received wages, emancipated women remained at the low end of the social hierarchy despite their ability to embrace the domesticity of
The Jezebel archetype was often an identity forced upon the slave women of the American south by their white masters. The Jezebel and other ideological influences have been studied by scholars like Deborah Gray White in order to discern their exact impact on the lives of those slave women. The few female slave narratives that exist, like the antebellum account of Harriet Jacobs, detail experiences with this gendered form of slavery in which the decisions and attitudes of the white masters / overseers were based around the false assumptions of slave sexuality. The Jezebel persona credited them with being sexually permissive, fueled by desire, and without the dignity of their white counterparts. While little to none of these characteristics are
Analyzing the narrative of Harriet Jacobs in the context of the writings of W.E.B. Du bois serves to demonstrate how slavery prompted the weary and self-denigrating attitudes of Negro Americans during the subsequent Reconstruction period. However, it is important to note that Harriet Jacobs does not embody the concept of double-consciousness because slavery effectively stripped away her sexuality and femininity, therefore reducing her to one identity--that of a
This occurred regularly in the world of young girl and women slaves. Slave women were humiliated by their masters during punishment by having their dresses pulled over their heads, leaving them exposed and vulnerable (212). A pregnant slave women might be able to be spared a harsh beating, to protect the baby because masters had ownership over their young (212). Slave women were also being sexually abused by their masters. Though the sexual abuse was to not be spoken about, it was occurring (213). Harriet Jacobs, an African American slave woman, began enduring sexual exploitation around the age of fifteen by her master. During this time, it was common for young slave girls to perform sexual favors for their masters in order to earn or gain something (214). So just like Harriet Jacobs, she performed these sexual acts, to keep her master happy. A slave named Sally Hemings was also sexually exploited at the age of fourteen and ended up with having several of her master's children (215). Over the years, Harriet Jacobs was sexually abused by her master who became aggressive (216). Due to this abuse, Harriet met another white man and he became her lover and confidant (214). Harriet also had children with her lover and escaped her master by hiding in a nearby attic, to still carry a relationship with her children (216). As slave women were violated by their masters, the master's mistresses were also taking their anger out on them as well. Because the master wives knew what was going on and would never confront their husbands, they would instead take everything out on the slave women as if everything was their fault
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
For much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in America, Black women were an after-thought in our nation's history. They were the mammies and maids, the cooks and caregivers, the universal shoulder to cry on in times of trouble. Often overlooked and undervalued, Black women were just ... there.