In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861/2016), Harriet Jacobs reveals the inescapable harm that slavery causes all members of society. Born in 1813, Jacobs spends her childhood and young adulthood enslaved in the American South. Later in her life, as a free woman in the North, Jacobs reflects on the unique consequences of slavery for specific groups of people. Harriet Jacobs discusses the distinct hardships of enslaved black women and enslaved mixed-race children, and also highlights the detrimental effects of slavery on white people, both wealthy enslavers and poor white people.

Enslaved Black Women

Jacobs draws on personal experience to communicate what enslaved black women endure. She insists, “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own” (p. 71). Jacobs recognizes that enslaved men and women struggle equally with many realities. She indicates, however, that there are additional violations, from sexual harassment to rape, that enslaved black women sustain. Jacobs explains how the abuse begins:

When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission to their will. (p. 46)

The enslaved women have no protection against verbal manipulation or physical violence. Thus, the women have very little power to evade predation. Harriet’s own white enslaver, Dr. Flint (as she calls him in her autobiography), begins to sexually harass her when she is fifteen years old.

Enslaved black women are also vulnerable to the white wives of their enslavers. Dr. Flint’s wife confronts Harriet, and Harriet honestly discloses Dr. Flint’s behavior towards her. Harriet reveals how Mrs. Flint reacts:

[Mrs. Flint] felt that her marriage vows were desecrated, her dignity insulted; but she had no compassion for the poor victim of her husband’s perfidy. She pitied herself as a martyr; but she was incapable of feeling for the condition of shame and misery in which her unfortunate, helpless slave was placed. (p. 28)

Mrs. Flint focuses on her own wounded pride, and tarnished marriage, rather than the exploitation of Harriet, and the injustice of slavery. Harriet believes that Mrs. Flint responds predictably, for Harriet argues that typically, “The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings towards [the slave girl] but those of jealousy and rage” (p. 23). Harriet, like many other enslaved black women, lives caught between the unwanted attention of the white man and woman that bind her.

Enslaved Mixed-race Children

According to Jacobs, Dr. Flint fathers more than ten children born to different black women he enslaves (p. 30). Dr. Flint’s mixed-race children, however, do not inherit his free, white status. Instead, the children are born into slavery. Harriet understands: “…for slaveholders have been cunning enough to enact that ‘the child shall follow the condition of the mother,’ not the father, thus taking care that licentiousness shall not interfere with avarice” (p. 70). The law that children born to enslaved mothers are also enslaved, accommodates white, male enslavers. While a white man loses money if he frees his mixed-race child, he also pays a social price:

At the south, a gentleman may have a shoal of colored children without any disgrace; but if he…[sets] them free, the example is thought to be dangerous to their ‘peculiar institution,’ and he becomes unpopular. (p. 118)

White men may father mixed-race children, but to free a mixed-race child crosses a line that the male dominated slave society draws. Thus, the mixed-race children of enslaved mothers are necessarily born into slavery, with little hope of freedom.

The children do not go free, but they are not likely to stay with their mothers. The wives of enslavers generally take offense to mixed-race children on their properties, and demand the sale of the children. The wives pass their husbands’ mixed-race children, “…into the slave-trader’s hands as soon as possible, and thus [get] them out of their sight” (p. 31). Specifically in the case of Dr. and Mrs. Flint, Harriet maintains: “[Dr. Flint] never allowed his offspring by slaves to remain long in sight of himself and his wife” (p. 39). When mixed-race children must leave their family members for a new plantation, they suffer for the crimes of their fathers.

Wealthy White Enslavers

Jacobs witnesses the corrupting effects of slavery on free white people, and understands that white people also become victims of the institution. She writes of white families that enslave black people:

I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks. It makes white fathers cruel and sensual, the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched…Yet few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin occasioned by this wicked system. Their talk is of blighted cotton crops - not the blight on their children’s souls. (p. 47)

Jacobs believes that the ownership of other people leads enslavers to behave in evil ways. Slavery gives free white men license to rape, and silences white women. Jacobs says of one enslaver, “Had it not been for slavery, he would have been a better man, and his wife a happier woman” (p. 46). Finally, the depravity of slavery impedes the healthy development of the enslavers’ children. Jacobs argues, however, that financial gain distracts enslavers from a true assessment of how their families languish.

Poor White People

Jacobs highlights not only wealthy, white enslavers, but also lower class white people. Under slavery, poor white people stay poor while wealthy enslavers use them to help maintain society the way it is. Following a substantial slave rebellion, wealthy enslavers call on the poor white population to help them intimidate local black people. Jacobs recalls the difference between the wealthy and poor of the militia: “…the so-called country gentlemen wore military uniforms. The poor whites took their places in the ranks in every-day dress, some without shoes, some without hats” (p. 58). Jacobs illustrates that tremendous discrepancies exist between the social classes of white people. Although the wealthy enslavers have the poor white people fight alongside them, the two groups are not equals. Jacobs remembers of the poor white people:

They exalted in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders; not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation. (p. 59)

Jacobs points out that while wealthy enslavers benefit financially from slavery, the institution actually keeps poor white people disadvantaged and uncompetitive. Jacobs suggests that poor, uneducated, desperate white people live more like enslaved black people than they do like wealthy white people.

In order to show slavery’s all-encompassing evil, Harriet Jacobs provides evidence of injustice for several groups of people. Jacobs calls attention to the sexual exploitation of black women and the particular contempt towards mixed-race children. She insists that slavery allows evil to enter the homes of white families, and keeps the poorest white people from any social mobility.

References

Jacobs, H. (2016). Incidents in the life of a slave girl. Clydesdale Press. (Original work published 1861).