Comparing African American Slave Narratives and Literature

Introduction

The two stories selected for this first comparison — Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs and the short letter from Jourdon Anderson, "To My Old Master" — are both extremely touching, honest, enlightening, and historically precious pieces of literature. Together with James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues," they form a revealing portrait of African American literature across vastly different historical moments.

Jourdon Anderson's Letter: Christian Forbearance and Economic Shrewdness

Anderson's letter to Colonel P.H. Anderson reveals a number of key things about the life of a male slave during the Civil War era. It comes as an almost shocking irony when Jourdon writes to a man who kept him as a slave and tried to kill him. The reader senses that Jourdon is a practicing Christian even before he writes that he would be interested in returning to work for the colonel: "Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living." Yet the reader also understands that the former slave is seeking compensation for the years of hard labor he provided without pay.

Consider the full weight of that for a moment. Here is a slave master who tried to kill Jourdon as he fled, and here is his former slave expressing hope that the colonel is well. Jourdon goes on to ask what wages the colonel would offer should he return. The reader already knows that Jourdon is a Christian — he reports in the second paragraph that he attends church regularly — and it is clear he has at least partially forgiven the colonel: "Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master," he writes. Or perhaps Jourdon simply wants to be paid for the hard work he performed over so many years. Christian attitude or not, this is a powerful letter, packed with intelligence and a reserved respectfulness toward the colonel.

It is also clear that Jourdon is shrewd and has absorbed economic lessons along the way. While he says he would consider returning to Tennessee to work for the colonel, he wants to witness some sincerity first. Rather than stating this himself, he lets his wife speak for him: "Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly… [and to test your sincerity we ask] you to send us our wages for the time we served you, which was 32 years. Mandy served for 20 years."

Does he genuinely expect this former slave master to pay 32 years of back wages at $25 a month, totaling $11,680? Probably not — but committing those thoughts to paper must have provided something of a relief, if not actual liberation. He does suggest deducting for clothing and doctor visits, yet the letter is a remarkable document for several reasons: it establishes that former slaves now sought education for their children; it articulates the harm inflicted upon enslaved people; it draws a direct comparison between the treatment of slaves and the treatment of "horses and cows"; and it confronts the sexual assaults to which female slaves were routinely subjected. Jourdon Anderson's letter has been celebrated ever since as one of the most dignified and quietly devastating responses to slavery ever written.

Harriet Jacobs and the Weight of Bondage

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Chapter V, Harriet Ann Jacobs uses her narrative every bit as economically as Jourdon Anderson used his letter — albeit Jacobs has over 300 pages to tell her story. There are many passages in the book that bring the reader near tears. While Jourdon was a free man when he wrote his letter, giving him the flexibility to state exactly what was on his mind — particularly in his final sentence, where he asks the colonel to thank George Carter for taking the pistol from him while the colonel was shooting — Jacobs recounted her life as though it were actually unfolding in the present moment. Whether she kept a journal or diary is uncertain, but she clearly possessed a powerful memory for the incidents of her enslaved life.

The way she addresses the fact that her master forced himself upon her was handled with remarkable composure and dignity. It is well documented that some enslaved women would rather have died than submit to a white master's sexual coercion. Jacobs's priorities were shaped by the brutal reality that resistance invited further abuse. "My soul revolted against the mean tyranny," she writes (p. 45), yet she had nowhere to turn for protection because there was "no shadow of law to protect her from the fiends who bear the shape of men."