Slavery: historical contexts and social impact

¶ … former slaves and compares and contrasts the experiences of Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass. The writer explores the differences between the treatment of male and female slaves using the texts written by the two former slaves as a guide. The writer also compares any other differences that can be found. There were four sources used to complete this paper.

The days of slavery in America left a permanent black mark on the nation's character that can never be fully erased, however, by working to understand what African-Americans were forced to endure at the hands of their masters and society during that era Americans be sure to never let the desire for slavery enter the picture again. Two well-known former slaves have placed their experiences in writing so that readers can understand with a first hand account what the humans called slaves had to face every day during their childhood and adult years at the hands of those who "owned" them. If the two experiences are placed side by side it becomes evident that there are many similarities that apply to all slave treatment but there are also differences that must be attributed to the gender differences.

HARRIET

Before one can understand the differences and similarities that are important to the examination of the experiences of Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass it is important to know a little bit about each of their lives.

Harriet Jacobs was born into slavery and as a young girl she had to fight off the sexual advances of her master for many years before running away and going to the North.

Harriet's childhood was a happy one.

We] lived together in a comfortable home," she wrote in her autobiography, "and, though we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed that I was a piece of merchandise." She even found happiness after her mother's death, when she moved into the home of her mother's mistress -- a kind woman who nurtured the young Harriet, teaching her to read and sew, and seeing to her well-being. The happiness would not last, though. Upon the death of the benevolent mistress when Harriet was 12 years old, ownership of Harriet was transferred to the mistress' niece (Harriet Jacobs (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2923.html)."

The niece was all of three years old and the master of the house, the niece's father took over the ownership of Harriet and he decided she would perform for him sexually. It was then that her hell began and she fought his advances until getting old enough to escape and run north.

Before her escape however she first got pregnant by a white man hoping it would disgust the master enough to sell her and her child away but he didn't.

When she learned he was going to sell her children as slaves she ran away and had a white attorney friend buy her children and bring them to her.

She lived in an attic crawlspace as an escaped slave for seven years but got to peep out a tiny hole and watch her children play and grow.

In 1842 she escaped to freedom by sailing to Philadelphia and after staying there for a short while she moved further north to New York. In New York she lived with her fugitive slave brother and they began to get involved in the abolitionist movement.

She worked closely with those associated with the Fredrick Douglass newspaper called the Star. Before the Civil War she gained celebrity by penning her life as a slave. It was titled

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and was the first open account of the sexual harassment and abuse that female slaves endured.

The book made many uncomfortable but drove its point home and she became famous. Years earlier to escape the wrath of her former owner she arranged to have friends purchase her and set her free so by the time the book was published she was a free woman.

FREDRICK DOUGLASS

Frederick Douglass is famous for his written illustration of what life as a slave was like. He was born the son of a tryst between his Black slave mother and a white man who was never named. He grew up with out a mother as was tradition and his mother was sold away from him when he was just a baby. She died when he was seven and he never found out who his father was (Douglas, 385-452).

After the sale of his mother he was raised by his grandmother and aunts.

During this time he was exposed to the degradations of slavery, witnessing firsthand brutal whippings and spending much time cold and hungry. When he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld. There he learned to read and first heard the words abolition and abolitionists. "Going to live at Baltimore," Douglass would later say, "laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all my subsequent prosperity (Fredrick Douglass (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html)."

He was in Baltimore for seven years and was then sent back to the rural country side when he was hired out to work at a farm. The treatment he received there was brutal and animalistic (Douglas, 385-452). He was beaten on a daily basis and provided enough food to hover just above starvation. At that time he would later write he was broken of body, soul and spirit (Douglas, 385-452).

He was jailed once for plotting to escape but after he was released he followed through on the plan and escaped to New York City. He had to fear that the slave catchers would come find him and kill him but he joined church, began to get educated and other things that he had always wanted to do and not been allowed to.

He published his work, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave before he was a free man. He knew it might endanger his freedom but he wanted to the world to know what was being done to slaves in the South.

The book made him famous and he toured the world on speaking engagements about his life as a slave before beginning is North Star newspaper in Rochester New York.

Douglass supported the United States Constitution and believed it could be used as a weapon in the fight for emancipation.

Following the Civil War he continued to fight for the rights of slaves until his death. He also supported women's rights movements.

THE DIFFERENCES and SIMILARITIES

In examining the lives of Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass one can easily point out the similarities that the two shared as slaves in America. One of the most glaring similarities the two of the experienced was the fact that they both escaped their circumstances and successfully fled to the North. Another striking similarity that the two of them share is the fact that they each became famous by writing books about their experiences as slaves. Within their lives as slaves they also shared similarities. Each of them at one point had owners that could be considered kind, and they each later experienced masters that were brutal though they displayed their brutality in different manners.