Slave Women

Harriet Jacobs:The Difference in the Lives of Women Slaves

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.

Growing up as a slave Jacobs was constantly exposed to sexual abuse from her master. She was forced to learn what it meant to be a slave that was a women and the exploits that she would have to endure. A...there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men."(Jacobs,361)

The insults and violence that Jacobs endured from her master shaped the choices she made in life. He whispered foul words to her, causing Jacobs much pain. She was forced to lose her innocence early in life. Her master owned her so he was able to treat her and violate her innocence as he pleased. By losing her innocence Jacobs felt that she had done something wrong. She soon realized how she was different by being a slave that was a women. "She will become prematurely knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master's footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child."(Jacobs,361)

The choices that Jacobs took in life were influenced by the position that she was in. She gave birth to two children, hoping they would help generate a new way of life for herself and a means of escape from her master. He used them against her and she was only scene as a sexual object. When she wanted to escape into freedom, her bonds to her children were so great that it was hard for her to leave them. Jacobs couldn't stand the suppression and constant abuse of her master. She couldn't leave her children. Her grandmother told her, "Stand by your children, and suffer with them till death. Nobody respects a mother who forsakes her children: and if you leave them, you will never have a happy moment."(Jacobs, 417)

The slave women's choices in life were not limited to her happiness, but she had to think about her children. A mother had different responsibilities that she had to deal with. By having to deal with sexual abuse and thinking about children women were less able to leave their chains and people behind. According to Deborah Gray White in "Aren't I a Women?","...for those fugitive women who left children in slavery, the physical relief which freedom brought was limited compensation for the anguish they suffered."(White.62)

A great hot link to look at: http://www.gc.va.us/~gcadamj/hjhome.htm

Sally Hemings

Recent DNA test results that have concluded that the Nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child, Eston Hemings, with his slave, Sally Hemings. The study has shed new light on the aged debate, forcing society and historians to recognize what had previously been ignored. Although America is obsessed with race, our society does not recognize the central role slavery has played in the nation's development. The continued and persistent effort to separate and distinguish the two races does not correspond to the reality of a complicated mixture of cultures in our history.

Historians have continually rejected speculation that Jefferson had a continuing relationship with his Alight colored and decidedly good-looking" (Smith and Wade 3) slave, who was 28 years his junior, because of a lack of documentation, calling the possibility "virtually unthinkable" and Apathetic" (Smith and Fletcher). The insistence upon a separation between black and white is to deny the result of 200 years of slavery, and the integration of the two races. The status quo, which has remained mostly unchanged since Jefferson's time, views African-Americans as only "marginally human" and a "threat to white racial integrity" (Staples 1). Descendants of mixed race relations continue to question their place in a society that denies their identity, counting them as some "middle category" (Staples 1).

The descendants of Sally Hemings are not surprised by the findings; and have said that they have known their entire lives, through strong oral history, that they are related to Jefferson. However, now that science has proven what those who chose to ignore is true, how does our opinion about Jefferson, and the Hemings family change? Does it change at all? May we now begin to recognize those who do not fall into the two black/white categories that society has provided?

The study also concluded that Hemings' first son, Thomas C. Woodson, was not a descendent of Jefferson. Descendants of Woodson, disappointed with the results, continue to believe that they too are related to Jefferson, also through familial oral history. But how does their place in history now differ from their relatives, the descendants of Eston Hemings? The acceptance of the results by society, are, to the descendants, the beginnings of the vindication they can experience as science has shown very clearly Athat we're not two separate people, black and white; we are a people who share a common culture, a common land, and it turns out a common blood line" (Gordon-Reed 4).

If the results of the DNA test are the markers of a new period of recognition for many in our society, does this mean the downfall of the status of those leaders such as Thomas Jefferson? We were already aware of Jefferson's hypocrisies involving his idealistic writing of the Declaration of Independence, and his ownership of slaves. Does his relationship with Hemings further taint his accomplishments? If Thomas Jefferson was the "Founding Father" of our country, does that make Sally Hemings the "Mother"? Perhaps he can be viewed now as more human and less as the epitome of equality and morality, which he quite obviously was not.

What remains tragic is that the results of a DNA test has been what the descendants of Hemings, and others like her have had to pin their status on. Some descendants of the fair skinned Hemings passed for white after emancipation, highlighting the fact that the definitions of black and white are as arbitrary now as they were in Jefferson's time. More discussion and complete recognition of Jefferson's relationship with Hemings is "a good vehicle for exploring" racial identities in contemporary society "Gordon-Reed 4).

Other related lynk to view: http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/

Beloved

In addition to looking at slave narratives it is also interesting to see how a real fugitive slave's experience was portrayed in the novel Beloved written by Toni Morrison. Sethe's character in Beloved is based on a fugitive slave named Margaret Garner who is from Kentucky and escaped to Cincinnati Ohio. Morrison was captivated by Garner's strength to murder one of her children to prevent them from returning to slavery. Garner "would rather imbue their hands in the blood of their offspring than allow them to wear the shackles of slavery..." ("A Tale of Horror" The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer, January 29, 1856). Rather than seeing her children sent back to slavery after her escape, Garner took a butcher knife and cut the throat of her daughter with one cut. Clearly, for Margaret Garner motherhood was inhibited because of slavery. However, the question is can she be considered a heroine for delivering her child from the evil forces of slavery or is it pure murder?

In Beloved Sethe portrays Margaret Garner in her desperate attempt to prevent her four little children from going back to slavery. Sethe's ability to be a good mother is ruined because of the painful legacy of slavery. Sethe was force to murder her child rather than to see it sent back to slavery. However it did not stop there; Sethe was haunted by the child that she murdered Beloved. Her two boys could no longer deal with the haunted house and left the family leaving Sethe with her other daughter Denver. This clearly had an effect on Sethe's ability to be a good mother. Even while Sethe was enslaved her masters son forced himself on her and drunk the milk from her breast. Breast milk is though of as one of the initial aspects of motherhood and this clearly affected Sethe in a very negative way.

It is necessary understand how Sethe's duties to motherhood was inhibited because of slavery. First of all, she killed her child so that clearly inhibits motherhood. She would rather see her child dead in peace before she saw her child as a slave. However this did not happen this way because Beloved came back to haunt the family which resulted in her two boys leaving because they could not stand the pressure of living in a haunted house. So, again motherhood was inhibited because with out any children there is no mother hood and this is all because of slavery.

Although Sethe prevented her children from being put back into the evil forces of slavery, there is a greater question of importance. Can Sethe be thought of as a heroine for releasing them from slavery or is it murder? These questions must also be related back to the real-life character Margaret Garner.

Other interesting links are: http://www.movies.com/beloved/index.html and http://www.luminarium.org/contemporary/tonimorrison/beloved.htm

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Ransom House, 1987

Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the life of a slave girl,1861.