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State Of Virginia And Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

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American Slavery From the Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia and Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, we can learn something about slavery at the same period. However, Jefferson’s perspective about the condition and the future of the slavery contrasted Jacob’s discussion of the cruel experience that a slavery girl suffered under her owner. According to Jefferson, though black people was inferior to white people, slave owners well treated their slaves, some even educated them. Nevertheless, from the slave girl’s perspective, things were totally different. Masters to them were monsters. They punished and tortured their slavers; they sexually abused them and threatened them. Moreover, Jealous and enraged …show more content…

It is obvious in everywhere of the Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl that the white master Dr.flint’s tortured his slave girl Linda. This narrative shows the cruel and horrible life Linda lived under the slavery owner. The slaves in America were inferiors among equals, slaves were not allowed to live the life they wanted. They were the property of the owners. Just as mentioned in the book: “ He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things…my master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit him “ (jacobs). In this kind of master-slave relationship, rape was unavoidable. Linda suffered a lot from this. She felt shamed, guilty and fearful, but she couldn't do anything to resist the sexual abuse of the master. She was not the only poor girl, because she knew that Dr. Flint was the father of eleven slaves, which means that he raped over eleven slaves. Additionally, the mistress too was forced to sit in a corner submissively as their husbands broke their vows. They had no choice but to put their angry to the slaves due to the jealous. Hence, the slaves of America were tortured both physically and mentally by white men and white …show more content…

According to Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson insisted that blacks were less beautiful and inferior in general to whites not only in beauty but also in reason, and this is why that blacks became slaves but not white. Although blacks were born to be slaves, their masters treated them well. “Yet many have been situated, that they have been associated with the whites, some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and science are cultivated to a considerable degree. ”(Jefferson 120). This was different from the slaves’ discussions of their cruel lives. Jefferson also propounded in the Notes a plan to deport and emancipate the slaves to another place, which could provide them a free and independent life. Nonetheless, Jefferson contributed his whole life to implement this plan, but he

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Many minority groups were vulnerable to enslavement placed upon them by white Americans throughout the 19th century. In the episodic autobiographies Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave written by Fredrick Douglass and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by Harriet Jacobs, both authors present the physiological manipulations associated with slavery. Douglass's and Jacob’s experiences suggest that slaves endured a continuous treatment of brutality, loneliness, and sexual abuse. Slave-owners deprived slaves of positive human qualities because they (slave-owners) became divested from their sense of identity. The dehumanizing institution of slavery caused slave-owners to conform to social roles instituted by society and forced slaves to suffer from learned hopelessness.

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Great observation, I’m surprised you chose the Virginia colony because of their location of being in the south and through my reading and research; I found the south to be a cruel place for a slave. The southern colonies had extreme tough slave code laws as the Northern colonies were more lenient. I stated in my discussion, in the south, the slave population was outweighing the north and as it was stated in the text, slavery that developed in the southern colonies became almost standard (Reich, 2011, p. 124). The state of Virginia pride was tobacco and they need workers to work their plantations and even though Indenture servants existed during this period, they were viewed as being more of financial burdens the African American slaves.

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Today's society can’t even come closely to the heartache, torment, anguish, and complete misery suffered in slavery. Slaves endured this change their entire lives in mental condition as well as physical, there is no joy being there children and families, who were torn away from them and sold, never to be seen or heard from again. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl uses brief detail and clear language tone, to briefly describe what it is life to live like a slave. In the book, “Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl”, Linda Brent tell us experienced of her life in past twenty years in slavery with her master Dr. Flint, and her jealous Mistress.

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl begins when Linda Brent is six years old living with her free grandmother. Linda Brent’s mother and father pass away and she is sent to live with her kind, young mistress who teachers her to read, write, and do household chores all female slaves are required to know. When her mistress dies, her dismal story begins. She is bequeathed by a young girl, niece of her former mistress and daughter of Dr. Flint. On this estate Linda is welcomed by Mrs. Flint and is treated well, until she develops into a beautiful young woman and her husband becomes infatuated with her.

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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.

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Jefferson’s intention of freeing slaves was not as heroic as many had thought, but it is one of the first stepping stones that would eventually guide the country’s objective. Although there is evident hypocrisy in the passage, progressivism of ideas takes time. One could not expect a sudden change of people’s thoughts and perspectives overnight. Thus, following the basis of “all men are created equal”, through many fights and revolutions, black people after rigorous efforts had stood up and proved that they are as equal as any other people. Therefore, the mission of today’s society is to preserve the hard-fought equality among all races and the independence of our

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