"Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the slave-trader's hands as soon as possible, and thus getting them out of their sight. I am glad to say there are some honorable exceptions. ".

I find this part of the Jealous Mistress: from Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl to be interesting in the worst way. Historically it was common for slave owners to get young female slaves pregnant and sell those children off. It was something that was swept under the rug most of the time but every once in a while a case would be brought up. Most often these children would go on as slaves and never know who their biological father was.

This is a story with a sad beginning between two people and ends with four. It starts with a horrible interaction between the slave owner and the slave and ends with her, him, their child, and his wife. Some of these woman would marry a man knowing that he was already the father of many slaves others would go into the marriage and be naiive to the fact that he was forcing himself onto his female slaves. The later were the women that were mortified to discover his transgressions just as the case Harriet describes with her own situation.

These young girls are violated in every possible way. They have no privacy, no individual identity, their sexuality is violated and they are humiliated. This chapter clearly describes the way that they are used as a tool between husbands and wives and on plantations to acquire more slaves for the trade.

As a Student Hall Director I have many important conversations with young women on a daily basis. Sadly, some of these conversations remind me of the experiences described by Harriet and other young women affected by the slave trade. The emotional and physical abuse that occurs in the relationships of highschool and college age women is unreal. Many women have been subjected to this kind of abuse and have not been able to achieve healing or redemption because they first cannot forgive themselves for choices which may have led up to the assault or like the girls and women in the slave trade, they are manipulated beyond their own understanding. Manipulation is a key factor in all of this. Harriet mentions learning how to write and the way that her master would have frowned upon this and forced her to stop until he realized that it could be an advantage to him because he could write her notes; so that her verbal/emotional abuse could be received in a more secretive way. This is the same type of manipulation that goes on in relationships today.

We saw prime examples of this relationship aggression in the video clips from Wedding Crashers that we watched in class. Those men wanted one thing from those women:sex; they were going to do anything they could to reach that goal. They lied about everything and made up complete persona's in order to win the hearts... no not win the hearts but to get those girls to sleep with them. They didn't care about their hearts; again there was only one thing those guys wanted form those women.

This is the same mentality when characterized through men that leads to the stereotype: "all men are dogs".

How does this relate to Harriet Jacobs and the life of a slave girl?

All slave masters were men; most married; most "cheated" on their wives by soliciting their slaves for sex; or essentially raping them. All slave masters are characterized as brute forces, forcing themselves on women and children a like to get what they want; manipulating women into marrying them only to disregard those marriage vows for sex.



This brings me to another thought: the modern slave trade. All across the world young women are being prostituted by their own family members for money to by food in order to feed other children in the family. Or they are bought as sex slaves, there are entire massive rings of these being discovered everyday.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=676587n

"Hundreds of thousands of young, desperate girls are trafficked each year as sex slaves. Some are lured overseas with the promise of a good job, only to be enslaved once they arrive. Others are simply abducted". (This article from CBS news found at the link above) hosts videos and more information about the sex trafficking currently happening around the world.

As I said before there are multiple victims in these stories. Each page presents a new opportunity for someone to be made a victim. Harriet tells us that she felt sympathy for her masters wife because he was supposed stick to his marriage vows and make her happy yet he was doing the exact opposite.

Do you think some women in slavery used this jealousy factor to their advantage?

If all of these cases from the 1800's were revealed how many children in the slave trade do you think actually belonged to slave owners?





shoes of Holocaust Victims


What are the implications for slavery and power in the future if we have traveled a long journey from the 1800's with the African Slave Trade to genocide during the Holocaust to Sex Trafficking all over the world?