"Slave Narratives" by Harriet Jacobs

In equationticular, Jacobs privationed to stage out the condition of female slaves, and the sexual abuse suffered by most, a taboo subject in the 19th century. Her editor, L. maria Child remarks on this in the introduction:

I am well aw ar that many will accuse me of familiarity for presenting these pages to the public; for the experiences of this intelligent and a lot-injured woman belong to a ground level which some call delicate subjects, and others indelicate. This peculiar phase of thrall has generally been kept veiled; but the public ought to be made acquainted with its monstrous features, and I willingly strickle responsibility fore presenting them the veil withdrawn. I do this for the sake of my sisters in bondage, who are suffering wrongs so foul that our ears are too delicate to listen to them (Child in Jacobs, 2002, p. 442).

Female slaves were seen as breeders for stock, and were "considered of no value unless they continually increase[d] their owners stock. They [were] on a par with animals" (Jacobs, 2002, 495). Overseers examined married couples' huts to ensure that they were sleeping to depressher and producing more "stock." In addition, it was understood that many slaveholders took sexual advantage of their female slaves, which produced conf employ offspring. So a law was enacted stating: "A child shall happen the condition of the mother" (Jacobs, 2002, p. 26). These children, as well as the mo

thers, were usually sold off as briefly as possible by the mistresses of the plantations, who did not want their own children playing alongside their slave half-sisters and brothers. In addition, as soon as female slaves reached fourteen or xv years old, the cycle would start again (Jacobs, 2002). Jacobs' harassment by her master began at that age. Although he never raped her because they lived in a small community where her grandmother was respected, he utilize all other means of persuasion. For example, he told her that, "I was his retention; that I must be subject to his will in all things" (Jacobs, 2002, p. 470). He forbid her to see the one broad man she did love, threatening to harm them both. He struck her and harangued her repeatedly.

He would moderate allowed her a slave husband, because then he would have had easier access to her himself. Through all this, Jacobs kept striving to be a virtuous woman who would only sleep with her husband. She soon felt she had no choice in the matter, however, and allowed herself to be seduced by another slaveholder, Mr. Sands. He had the advantage over Dr. Flint in that he was not her own master, he was single, and he was much more sympathetic and kind. In addition, "revenge and calculations of interest, were added to flattered vanity and existent gratitude for kindness" (Jacobs, 2002, p. 502). In other words, it was a way to get back at her master, Dr. Flint. She was not proud of this choice, but used her life as an example to show her readers that what she had gone with was a mere example of what millions of slave women were going by in the South. Besides the raising of her two children in freedom, she wanted her one accomplishment to be to help the other slaves leftover behind.

Jacobs, H. (writing as Linda Brent). (2002). Incidents in the Life of a Slave girl in The Classic Slave Narratives. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., editor. New York, NY: Signet Classics.

The airfield of influence for a woman of the 19th c
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