Introduction
The book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the work of Harriet A Jacobs. In this sentimental work that with sheer plain language manages to bring out the life of slaves in the slave-holding Southern states of the United States of America, Harriet has managed to accomplish what someone in her position as not only a slave but also a female would not have easily accomplished.
The presentation of the aspects of her life right from the time she is born, the relationship she has with her family members especially her loving grandmother and the colored man who later loves enable her to have a mental reconstruction of the circumstances in which slaves were living in the South. Her escape to freedom in the North marks the climax in a long journey of a soulful search for the practical and divine meaning of life
The plot
Harriet is born into slavery. She thereof has to start to perform the duties of a slave at a tender age. The turbulence that is common in any family and is, therefore, part of the masters’ families affects their slaves too. Deaths and movements are some of the turbulences. Other experiences are however uniquely a preserve of the slaves. For example, being sold to a new master is just for the slaves. For example Harriet’s grandmother’s son, Benjamin was sold, an experience that left her grandmother heartbroken.
Down the family, Harriet’s family tree are true stories of siblings violently split through sales to new masters and unreasonable separation of children from their parents. With all these bad actions by the racist, slaveholders, how did they manage to keep these slaves? What tactics did the slave masters use to continue keeping the slaves as their property?
To begin with, the slave masters employed the tactic of separation. Related slaves who had the chance of coming up with any plan of making any move were split and sold to different plantation owners. This made it difficult for the new slaves to begin making any plans or sharing any ideas regarding their freedom. For example Harriet’s uncle, Benjamin was sold to a new master (Jacobs 13). The same was done to Benjamin’s brothers.
All were sold to different masters thus breaking the connection. This kind of slave family breakup made it difficult for the slaves to come up with any sensible plan for working towards attaining their freedom. This can be equated to the rule that is commonly referred to as divide and rule whereby the slaves were divided, but in a practical and literal sense and then subdued by their masters.
Secondly, the slave owners in the south made the African slaves feel that they were not able to operate on their own as human beings, and therefore needed to be owned. This came out in direct talks and actions. The sales of the African slaves from one master to another and the assertions made by the masters to the slaves from time to time made the slaves lose confidence in themselves. An example in the text is where Harriet’s abusive master, Dr.Flint, tells her that he owns her and therefore she has no right of talking to her the way she did (Jacobs 62). She is completely shaken and makes a quick apology by telling him that he is the one who has made her talk she has done.
This shows that she somehow thinks that Dr.Flint has rights over her, although her response may be out of fear both from her position as a slave, her age in that she is only sixteen, and the trauma emanating from the sexual abuse she has suffered from Dr.Flint.It is possible that the psychological impact of the evil experiences the slaves were taken through by the savages who were their masters had an impact on their thinking, a scenario that ultimately made it difficult to think in an upright way, of any sensible means of salvaging themselves. The Biblical confusion that befell the Israelites when they left Egypt that made some even desire to go back to the whip of the Pharaoh is a good comparison in this case of mentally brainwashed African slaves.
Thirdly, the racist southern savages who enslaved these Africans had the trick of always telling their slaves how benevolent and loving they were to them. They told the slaves of how bad the North was and how the Northern slave masters mistreated their slaves. Harriet talks of these southern masters telling them how slaves who had escaped to the north realized how bad it was and begun begging their masters to be allowed to come back to the south (Jacobs 62-63).
For slaves who had no means and no permission of travelling to the North, they had no alternative other than listening to the stories being told by their masters and be contented. They, therefore, lost the desire for freedom and settled in being owned by these savages who mistreated them by beating up the males and sexually abusing the females.
Survival Mechanisms Among The Salves
Despite the yoke of slavery that was characterized by hostile treatment by their savage masters, the slaves were able to cultivate a social bond. This was achieved in several ways. The first method through which the slaves maintained a sense of community is through the perpetuation of their kind through marriages. The book talks about elaborate slave families that thrived despite the bad treatment from their masters. Harriet herself has a mother and a grandfather. She had a father too who died. Through these marriages, the slaves were able to maintain a sense of community and a social bond. This enabled them to form a consolation reservoir in moments of loss through death or heavy beating by their savage masters.
Slaves also come up with other means of survival in bondage. They take up the initiative of working and buying their freedom from their greedy masters even though the freedom of the slaves came at a small sum of money compared to the huge plantations these masters owned. Through the purchase of their freedom, the free slaves were able to maneuver their way and try to form families, although with great difficulty.
Treatment of Blacks in the North
After Harriet escaped to the North, she was surprised by what she met. What she expected to be freedom was an extension of slavery but it was far much better than what was going on in the south. Her reaction to the circumstances she finds in the North is not a surprise to me given that she has heard of freedom in the north as opposed to the South. The North, as Harriet found out allowed slaves much more freedom and the only thing that seemed to complicate matters for her is the fact that slaves who had escaped from the south were supposed to be returned to their masters or sold with consent of the southern masters.
The requirement was the fugitive slave law, and it complicated matters for Harriet upon her arrival in the North. What does not surprise me is the fact that she chose to settle in the North and Boston Massachusetts in particular. This is because the conditions for people of her kind were far much better as noted earlier compared to the south. The letter to her mistress to allow her Harriet to be resold makes a dark spot in a fairly bright journey to a semblance of freedom.
By saying that she “earnestly desires to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of 2 millions of women at the South, still in bondage,” Harriet meant that she wanted through the book and her other efforts reach out to people and especially the women living in the Northern part of the United States by revealing to them the high degree of suffering that women in the south were going through. The suffering she went through herself such as the continued sexual abuse by her master resulting in colored kids is the testimony of what she had to tell these northern women who never knew what their southern counterparts were going through.
How I Feel After Reading This Book
Upon reading the book, I now have a stronger hatred for slavery and all forms of human mistreatment. I am amazed at the hypocrisy of the savage slave masters who pretended to undervalue their slaves especially women only to end up abusing them sexually. How possible and logical is it to have intercourse with someone you think is not worth it? I also wonder how possible it was that this level of savagery would be practiced by people who were always carrying their Bibles to church.
Which God were they worshipping, who allowed them to subject children of as young as fourteen years to both hard labor and sexual abuse? My questions on what the government of the day did during all these times are still unanswered. I still find it difficult to believe that a nation that was founded on freedom and the equality of humanity would let some of its citizens mistreat others based on assumed differences and fabricated inferiority. How was the world able to do business with the United States with bad treatment of African Americans?
This book has opened my mind to the level of evil that the human soul is capable of. It has also made me understand the level of hypocrisy in the church and the psychology of treating others badly. I assume that the southern whites who owned and mistreated slaves were uncivilized given the lack of education and connection to the outside world. When Harriet arrived in the North, she met came face to face with a developed place with schools and big towns with established commerce and people with open minds. There seems to be a connection between prejudice and lack of information. The most racist individuals have less information and little knowledge. This is what I consider one of the advantages of reading this book.
In conclusion, the slaves went through horrendous experiences. It is also thought that they did their best to survive under hostile conditions. My experience from reading this book is dissatisfaction with history and how man has treated the man.
Works Cited
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1996.