ipl-logo

Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

941 Words4 Pages

In August of 1619, the most terrible timespan for blacks in America commenced. The process of acquiring enslaved people from Africa was a part of the Triangular Trade. Triangular Trade is the trade between the United States, England, and Africa. The United States gave raw materials to England, England created manufactured goods and gave them to Africa, and in return, Africa traded their inhabitants to the Americans. The people sent to the Americans were criminals or people captured in battle. The people sent over underwent the most grueling times of their life. American slavery is undoubtedly immoral due to the justifications and the sheer lack of rights, power, social class, freedom, and much more.
The enslavers stated many justifications …show more content…

Everything was taken away from them and many during that time felt that this was justifiable, they felt like it was moral. American slavery is the complete opposite of moral ideas due to the enslaved people's stolen rights, power, social class, and freedom. An example of this absurdity is in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl when it described the limitations of an enslaved person's freedom by writing that a 15-year-old girl, Harriot Jacobs “began resisting the sexual advances of her master, Dr. Flint. Even when Jacobs had two children with another man, Flint pursued her”. Even 7 years later Dr. Flint pursued her. This shows Jacobs’ immense lack of freedom and stolen rights because she was unable to become free from the attic as Dr. Flint was still doing one’s utmost to find Jacobs. He even attempted to bribe her children while Jacobs herself was cramped in a claustrophobia-inducing attic (Jacobs). Jacobs had no freedom from Dr. Flint and she had no power against him because of the racial difference and social class/status. Another article about the same topic simplified an example of the wealthy whites' effort to make blacks have little to no rights. Due to the high population of enslaved people in Virginia, “Virginia passed a law that said that masters had to give white servants some money and corn when their term of service ended”. Because of this law poor whites would be “less unhappy with their place in society” leading to the servants being “less likely to side with the black slaves against the white masters”. This greatly demonstrates the enslaved people's lack of social class and respect because the rich whites were doing as much as they could to keep the white social class higher than the blacks so slavery could last longer and fewer people would be against slavery if the poor whites were kept happy (Zinn 32). The law passed brought the enslaved people to be outcasted because there was no class equivalent to

Show More
Related
695 Words | 3 Pages

Although she did not receive any physical punishment by her master, she lived in a tight-knit community and was aware of the conditions of other slaves who received brutal punishments. For example, Jacobs notes that “every where men, women, and children were whipped till the blood stood in puddles at their feet.” (page 56). Female slaves lived in fear that they would be raped by their masters. Jacobs’ master, Dr. Flint, often made relentless sexual advances at her, and justified his behavior by saying that she was “made for his use.”

Read More
677 Words | 3 Pages

The African slave trade was very harsh for many reasons. This is because the idea of capture/sale was inhumane, blacks were kept in cages, conditions of ships were horrible, and one out of every three blacks died on the way over. By 1800, ten to fifteen million blacks had been transported as slaves to the Americas; while in Africa, fifty million human beings lives' were lost to death and slavery in those years. Blacks were easier to enslave than whites and Indians, but still were trouble to keep under thumb. These Afro-Americans rebelled by often running away and attempt to find family or sabotaging their work.

Read More
2005 Words | 9 Pages

It was suppose to improve the lives of slaves so that they would no longer be treated as objects, as inferiors to their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. However, Anne Moody’s comparison of her living space and Mr.Carter’s castle paints a painfully obvious reality. African Americans were still inferior to their Anglo-Saxon counterparts because they were living in the dark shacks whereas the wealthy plantation owners were living in brightly lit castles. Similar to the former system of slavery, African Americans were kept in the dark, stripped of their basic rights, and forced to endure disproportionate hardships. Anne Moody and her mother also had to endure other hardships.

Read More
616 Words | 3 Pages

Slavery was immoral and degrading to the many people that were

Read More
750 Words | 3 Pages

Today’s society can not comprehend what it would be like not having basic rights, but for slaves back in the 1800s their basic rights did not exist. Imagine being a slave. They work in the fields or in the homes if they are lucky, for six days a week under the hot blazing sun. Out of all the work that they do they don’t receive a single penny. Slaves were also treated like animals, with horrible living conditions.

Read More
884 Words | 4 Pages

In Jacobs’ case, her master, Dr. Flint, was the offender, “When he told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his, never before had my puny arm felt half so strong” (Jacobs, p.13). She describes the horrors of being raped whenever her Dr. Flint wanted to. Jacobs was never physically harmed while working because she had a special place in his heart and did not work field jobs, but even when she was threatened with death for her actions, she was not scared until she was threatened with rape. Jacobs was not the only victim of sexual assault, many other women had the same treatment, “My master was, to my knowledge, the father of eleven slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children…

Read More
627 Words | 3 Pages

One of the most significant ways in which free slaves were not truly free was their lack of voting rights and jury rights. Even after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which granted African American men the right to vote, many former slaves were still unable to exercise this right. Document A gives a vivid example of the places free black men could vote, in a graph it shows how Massachusetts was the only state that could tolerate the blacks and gave them rights. They could vote and have jury duty. If they were only allowed to do both in this state this shows the feelings people had against them and the restrictions

Read More
141 Words | 1 Pages

The information included in incidents in the life of a Slave girl reveals the nature of slavery as inhumane and cruel. Slavery, as it is evident from the text, has significantly affected the southern area. Many women became a victim of sexual harassment and were mistreated by slave owners. The people of the south especially the slaves had to work hard in the fields. Slaves were viewed as fugitive and every day suffered from their cruel masters.

Read More
500 Words | 2 Pages

Flint, whom she loathes” (Robinson 42). Her lover is a free, black man who has proposed to her, but she realizes that her status as a slave and the law forbid marriage. Her master, Dr. Flint, confronts her about the marriage, telling her “if you must have a husband, you may take up with one of my slaves” (Jacobs 914). Jacobs boldly opposes this suggestion, demonstrating a newfound sense of agency. She challenges that even a slave can have some preference about who they love, asserting that who has access to her body will be on her own terms.

Read More
680 Words | 3 Pages

The sentence, “The influences of slavery had had the same effect on me that they had on other young girls; they had made me prematurely knowing, concerning the evil ways of the world,” refutes the stereotype concerning slaves and sexual immorality by

Read More
387 Words | 2 Pages

I believe that Jacobs’s treatment of gender in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is utilized to emphasize the challenges and hardships that were unique to enslaved women. Jacobs’s focus on enslaved women helped to garner sympathy from her audience that was made up of primarily white, Northern women. The audience is also educated through her autobiography and many misconceptions about slavery held at the time are dispelled in her narrative. An example of an idea about slavery that Jacobs’s narrative corrects is the idea that enslaved women are “sapphires” or “jezebels” who seduce men. White male slave owners used this idea of black women as a way to justify their rape and sexual assault.

Read More
520 Words | 3 Pages

She talks about how she was treated by Dr. Flint " But Dr. Flint swore he would kill me, if I was not as silent as the grave." Although in Jacobs narrative she was treated, in Douglass' his grandmother was whipped "The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped the longest." He also talks about how bad women had it "He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome, would he cease to swing the blood-clooted cowskin." Then he talks about how slavery was like hell "It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass."

Read More
577 Words | 3 Pages

Throughout this school year I read a bunch of book, text, theme, and issue like for example:The Scarlet Letter,Common Sense, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and etc. This book, text, and theme all taught lesson that can be contribute to bettering the modern American society. The book I am going to choose is “The Scarlet Letter” this book taught three lesson that can better the American society which are Be Confident, Don’t Judge Other, and Be Humble. In this essay I am going to go in details of how this can better the society today.

Read More
2053 Words | 9 Pages

The beginning of the 17th Century marked the practice of slavery which continued till next 250 years by the colonies and states in America. Slaves, mostly from Africa, worked in the production of tobacco and cotton crops. Later , they were employed or ‘enslaved’ by the whites as for the job of care takers of their houses. The practice of slavery also led the beginning of racism among the people of America. The blacks were restricted for all the basic and legally privileged rights.

Read More
1613 Words | 7 Pages

On the ships, the slaves were kept in tight spaces, shackled together living with disease and little food and water. When they arrived in the Americas, the slaves were sold and forced to work for their new masters. The slaves had to be mentally, physically and emotionally strong to survive this awful experience. Through every phase of this awful experience, the slaves were dehumanized and

Read More

More about Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Related Topics

Open Document