Men and Women Slaves



Men and Women Slaves

Introduction

Since the late 1960s, ante-bellum slave narratives have experienced a renaissance as dozens of the thousands still extant have been reprinted and as scholars have published major works on the sources, art, and development of the narratives; the people who produced them; and their on-going influence on later work. Drawing upon slave narratives as well among other sources, John Blassingame's The Slave Community (1972), for example, drew attention to the complex social interactions developed in antebellum slave culture. For black women and men, slavery was an equally devastating experience. Both women and men were departed from family and homeland. They were subject to torture and physical degradation, and denied their basic rights. They were treated mercilessly regardless of sex and considered as a property in the eyes of law.

The Similarities and Differences in Men and Women Slaves

Although the gender issue was rarely addressed in research on slavery, there were fundamental differences between men and women in their experience of servitude. The organization and patriarchal mentality of all companies' colonial and post-colonial times have had a direct impact on the operating modes of the slave women and men (Douglas, 125). The woman, first as a woman, then as a slave, had to suffer all the principles and all the drifts caused by a civilization symbolically, socially, economically and politically dominated by men. In Douglass's text, then, we can see how the dual cancers of slavery and sexism create a society in which no one but the white male has control over his own identity, and very human desires and needs of both whites and blacks often result in tragedy.

The Slave Women

Black women bore so many burdens during time of slavery. Besides taking care of children, families, and chores, they had to face threat of sexual exploitation (Douglas, 36). When Harriet Jacobs first talks about bringing her new-born babe into this world, first thing on her mind is realizing that her daughter will have to endure all pain and suffering that she has. Black men did not have to worry about being rapped, like black women did. Slave masters used black women for their sexual pleasures. If the slave woman rejected her master's advances, punishment was unbearable:

"Occasionally when my expert discovered that I still refused to accept what he called his kind boasts, he would threaten to deal my child.' Perhaps that will humble you, said he' “(Douglas, 222). If someone were to hear these words, what would they think? A mother would do anything for her child, even if that meant giving up her beliefs and values in order to protect her innocent, this meant giving into slave masters advances for protection of her young.

Frederick Douglass tells his account in his narrative about his awful situation: "Whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true, and true or false, it is of great importance, but I did all the aim is, in all its heinous blatant, that the holders of ...