The history of American slavery is brutal, immoral, and unapologetic. Despite the premise on which slavery began- privileged white men deciding they were “superior” to a race that was something “other” than what they were, and therefore they feared they couldn’t control- the simple fact that people justified this because somebody looked different than you still appalls me.
The conditions that both men and women in slavery experienced are beyond my comprehension. While I have been educated to learn about such conditions and the pain these men and women endured, I still cannot even begin to imagine what they went through. Instead- my heart still throbs for the circumstances they were subject to.
While it is not my intention to lessen the brutality male slaves experienced, I believe that women in slavery had it worse.
Life as a slave woman is excessively degrading due to the fact that their bodies are often used as something their owners have more of a control over. Rape and sexual assault was common for these women. As we know, rapists seek power and control over their victims- a notion that slave owners took advantage of to tighten their chains of control over slave women.
Part of the reason slave owners had no guilt for what they did , despite the deep rooted prejudice of the American people, is because they actively dehumanized their property; their slaves. While the threat of rape always lingered, the terrorizing thought that the female reproductive system would create a new life added weight to every isolated assault. While these women may have accepted their fate, or at least became numb to it, the idea that they could conceive a child who would be born into the same life they were terrified them.
Often times, these children were taken from the mother right from birth and sold, or kept on the same plantation to torment their mothers into watching their children grow up to experience the same abuse right in front of their eyes.
While bearing a child is physically daunting on the body, women were still held to the same standards as men. Men will never know of the maternal instincts that take over women’s lives, and the excruciating emptiness that occurs upon the abduction of their child.
Some slaves in these situations would rather die than watch these circumstances unfold. In Beloved by Toni Morrison, Sethe, a slave woman who experienced these exact cruelties, went as far as taking her child’s life rather than bringing it into a world to suffer the same fate she had. Sethe’s decision to end the life of her child is a simple one for her. Her actions were more of an instinct as opposed to a conscious choice. This is the only way she saw that could ensure the safety of her baby. The love she had for her child was so strong it led her to do this. Death was more peaceful than life, in her opinion. Killing her newborn was protecting her.
Some slaves tried to outsmart this system by using their bodies as a weapon and use their agency to create their own lives, even if it was only just a fraction better than the ones they were living. Life as a slave was all about survival.
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda- a fifteen year old physically mature slave woman, is constantly harased by her slave owner. She begins to devise a plan that would save her from becoming her creepy slave owners sex slave. He begins to isolate her and keep her in prime condition so he can make his eventual attack. His actions are constantly terrorizing Linda. She knows the only way out is to use her body and reproductive abilities to her advantage and seeks the attention of a much older man who promises her children’s freedom.
Due to the fact that she was a virgin, her slave owner wanted to take that away from her which added to his quest for power over her “innocence”. Knowing this, Linda took that desire away from him by sacrificing her virginity to another deeming her undesirable from then on. Linda used her agency to create a different life than she was living: one that eliminated the impeding risk of sexual assault and the same constant cycle for inevitable children.
Overall, women of slavery had added fears that paralyzed them to a larger degree. Women have to deal with constant reminders of sexual assault, and sexual harassment with them on top of their daily duties. Ultimately, because of a woman’s physical ability to bear a child, they have a life much worse than any man in slavery would ever endure.