Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Freedom. I suppose we don't go about our every day lives thinking about such a concept. I have the freedom to choose whether I go to class or not, what I wear, who I talk to, and how I spend my free time. As an American, I have my rights and the freedom to vote. As a fortunate woman living in the year 2010, I still have these rights and the freedom to vote, without being denied them because of my sex. However, this is now. What about then? What about those people who lived as property? What about those people who were denied their total freedom? To submit to others' power over them? What would it be like to live like this? Would you not constantly be fearing for your life? Would you be brave enough to stand up and fight back or would you lie down and let everything happen, knowing that there is little that you can do? These dilemmas were faced by African Americans in the early life of America. In the book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Linda, a young black woman, recounts her life experience; born into the chains of slavery, breaking free and escaping, and finding her true freedom at last.

Can you imagine if you were born into slavery? Would your parents protect this knowledge from you for as long as possible? Would it be right or wrong to do this? Is ignorance in this situation truly bliss? Linda begins her story talking of her parents and her grandmother and how they worked hard for the sake of their family. She says that her father worked extremely hard, in hopes that he would eventually be able to buy the freedom of his children. Can you imagine this?!! A father practically killing himself with work so that his children won't have to themselves. Maybe this is what kept him living and fighting in his own way. This is an idea that never ends, no matter the circumstance: loving parents want the best for their children. We still see this today. Linda's parents protected her from this knowledge that she was a slave with no freedom or choice of any kind. Linda noted: "When I was six years old, my mother died; and then, for the first time, I learned, by the talk around me, that I was a slave (133)." Would you have wanted your parents to keep this a secret from you for as long as possible? Would you do this for your own children? I honestly believe that those six years of happiness would be worth it. Why ruin that time by blemishing it with thoughts of things yet to come? Childhood should be sweet innocence and happiness. Unfortunately, many slave children were not as fortunate as Linda, and were well aware of what they were.

As the story proceeds Linda talks of how her uncle runs away to freedom. She describes how her Uncle Benjamin journeyed to New York and that her Uncle Phil met him there when he was ill. Phil gave Benjamin money and clothes and nursed him back to health. The saddest thing that came from this story was that her family never saw Benjamin again. When her Uncle Phil returns home to tell Linda and her grandmother that he has seen Benjamin they are overjoyed and immediately praise God. By knowing that one of her children was free, Linda's grandmother was given the motivation to continue hoping that her other children would be freed. She eventually did save enough money to buy her son Philip. Linda recalls that they were so happy and proud of what they had accomplished. They had proven to themselves and to the world that they could take care of themselves. However, in order for this to work they would all have to take care of each other. Linda ends the chapter saying:"He that is willing to be a slave, let him be a slave (157)." She clearly takes the views that you should stand up and fight against the wrongs that are being committed. "He that is willing" seems to be an unfathomable idea. Who is willing to be a slave and submit to the demands of others? Perhaps this was Linda's point: if you are willing then you go right ahead...To tie into taking care of each other, Linda was also talking about others outside her family, her state, and her race. This idea that we all need to take care of each other seems to make a very strong statement about humanity. Linda cries out after reflecting: "In view of these things, why are ye silent, ye free men and women of the north (161)?" This is such a powerful question!!! Linda pleads that all people break the silence and help those who cannot break the silence by themselves.

I found a book at the library called Slavery and the Making of America. It was written by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton. The book is full of information and pictures. While reading the book I discovered that having freedom for African Americans was an extremely dangerous thing. I found it interesting that Ohio, a northern state, wasn't as welcoming to the slaves searching for freedom as one might think. According to the book: "Ohio's state constitution of 1802 prohibited free blacks from voting, holding political office, or testifying against whites in court. After 1804, any black person wishing to reside in Ohio was required to register with the county as a prerequisite to employment (89)." Although they were considered "free" they really had not freedom when it came right down to it. They couldn't vote?!! They couldn't even testify against whites in court!!! I'm not really sure how much "freedom" they really had at this time. The book continues on page 90: "John Malvin, a freeman who migrated from Virginia to Ohio in the late 1820s, expressed his disappointment. "I found every door closed against the colored man," he reported, "except the jail and penitentiaries, the doors of which were thrown wide open to receive them." Isn't this horrible?!! Here in Ohio the colored people were still mistreated. Reading this passage reminds me of Linda's family being put in jail...

Dr. Flint, Linda's master, is the most disgusting character that I have read of in a long time. The most appalling aspect about this is that this story is true! As Linda grew into adolescence Dr. Flint began to haunt her. He wanted to rape her. This need and want for absolute control and power over another person's body goes beyond the physical realm and digs into the emotional and psychological. Dr. Flint wanted her to know that he could control all aspects of her humanity: she could consent and be "loved" as a "human" or she could refuse and be considered nothing more than a pet or a piece of furniture. Linda, however, was a strong woman. She refused and would not accept that she was anything less than what he was: a human: flesh, blood, soul. Later in the story, she runs into Dr. Flint who warns her to never go near her lover again. Linda ends the relationship, knowing that his life of freedom and her life as a slave would never work. This must of been one of the hardest things to do. Sacrifice love because of the danger that lurks nearby. Linda asks: "Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I never shall again. Somebody has called it "the atmosphere of hell;" and I believe it is so (174)." Her hate for Dr. Flint is so powerful at this time that it consumes her and replaces the love that was once in her heart. She calls it "the atmosphere of hell." I find this amazing because she has gone through all of these horrendous events and it is only at this one time that she chooses to hate. There is something to be said of Jesus' statement "Love thine enemies." I think it takes a person with an incredible amount of character to go through such things and not hate more than once.

Linda's stories of how the slaves were treated sound as if they could come from a horror film. In particular, the story of the young slave man who was placed in between the press of the cotton gin comes to mind. This poor soul was trapped there for four days and five nights and was later found half eaten by rats!!! Linda wrote: "Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities (182)." Wow. What can I say about this?!! Reading about all the poor whites who did not OWN any slaves, going around and abusing them just because they could, angered me. These poor whites did this because they had no power in their community. They did this to give themselves the feeling and the allusion that they had more power than the slaves ever could. I think that Emerson and Thoreau would agree with Linda and would also be disgusted with this idea. The majority helping to spread misery upon others would not have been supported by Emerson and Thoreau. Besides the actual physical abuse I think that it would be unwise to overlook the emotional and psychological abuse that occurred as well. Slaves were ripped from their families and sold in different states. Young children were taken from their mothers and sometimes never saw them again. This breaking of family bonds is a kind of cruelty that cannot be expressed in words. I think that if I were in that position and torn from my family, never to see them again, I would lose my will to fight and survive. I don't think that we can fully understand the cruelty that the slaves were forced to endure. The quote that I found most eye-opening was on page 189: "I was twenty-one years in that cage of obscene birds. 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 the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation." Wow. Powerful. Linda was so observant of her surroundings and of how others behaved. She says that "slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks." BAM! She couldn't have shocked me more. I never thought about it before and now that it has been brought to my attention, I understand and agree. The whites were cursed and stuck in this hideous cycle of power; ruling over others, ordering them around, heightening their own self-respect and self-worth by lowering those around them. I find it amazing that Linda saw it this way.

In the book, Slavery and the Making of America, Horton and Horton discuss the difficulties that the colored people went through. They make the point that family was especially important in the slaves' lives. What else did they have, but each other? The book notes: "...even in the most dire circumstances, as their lives were shattered by the trade in human cargo, slaves might try to shield themselves and their loved ones from further harm as best they could...(105)." Family was extremely important to them. While it seems that the slaveholders were aware of this they often contradicted themselves in their actions and words. An interesting passage that I read was the following: "Planters' realization of the power of family ties and community relationships among slaves contradicted the contentions of some slaveholders that African Americans did not suffer from the family separation that was an increasingly common part of slavery with the ever-expanding internal slave trade. Many slaveholders answered charges that the trade was inhumane by arguing that slaves were limited in their ability to form human attachments and thus were not affected by being separated from other family members. Clearly their use of family as a means of slave control contradicted such assertions, and these claims were rendered ludicrous by plainly visible evidence to the contrary (107)." Hmmm....Interesting. So it was important to have human connections...but not....I cannot imagine not having my family near me. I really cannot.

As the story goes on we learn that Linda takes a lover, Mr. Sands, a white man. She does this in order to have some freedom by denying Dr. Flint what he wanted. She said: "It seems less degrading to give one's self, than to submit to compulsion (192)." Linda refused to submit to the wishes of such a monster. She wrote of how she had wanted to remain good and pure. She wrote of how she worried about her mother and what she would have thought if she were alive. She worried that she was now forever a ruined woman. This makes me wonder what I would have done if I were in her position. Would you have submitted to Dr. Flint? Would you have taken another lover just so that you could exercise the freedom to do so? I really don't know what I would do. I do know, however, that this power and control over one's own body is a powerful theme, especially when she denies this power and control to Dr. Flint.

One of the most interesting aspects of this story is Linda's trip to England. I never thought about the possibility of her traveling!!! I suppose that I just thought that slavery (even though she was "free") also meant being tied to the ground specifically. She recalled: "The relations of husband and wife, parent and child, were too sacred for the richest noble in the land to violate with impunity. Much was being done to enlighten these poor people. Schools were established among them, and benevolent societies were active in efforts to ameliorate their condition. There was no law forbidding them to learn to read and write; and if they helped each other in spelling out the Bible, they were in no danger of thirty-nine lashes, as was the case with myself and poor, pious, old uncle Fred. I repeat that the most ignorant and the most destitute of these peasants was a thousand fold better off than the most pampered American slave (349)." These people were "a thousand fold better off than the most pampered American slave." Linda's views of her freedom as a human being come through here. She would rather be extremely poor and still have the opportunities that these poor English people had. I would have to agree.

What encourages my hope in the human race is that Linda does find many people who try to help her. She is helped and supported by her family. Most importantly, however, she was protected by white women. Linda was helped by both the late Mrs. Bruce and then the later Mrs. Bruce. She said of the later woman: "Friend! It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling; but when I speak of Mrs. Bruce as my friend, the word is sacred (370)." Linda loved Mrs. Bruce because she was not afraid to help Linda find freedom for herself and her children. I think that by having this friendship Linda saw that there was hope and the possibility of change for the better. This would be most important to her, especially if she saw this change as the freedom of all her people. As long as there was the encouragement from friends, such as Mrs. Bruce, freedom would be a possibility. I will end with a quote from Slavery and the Making of America: "Suicide was rare among African American slaves; few gave up all hope. The vast majority managed some resistance to the dehumanizing and emotion-numbing impact of slavery. Relationships to family and community, humor, and music all became weapons of resistance (131)." Wow. This is incredible. The constant glimmer of hope along with connections to family and their community kept the colored people fighting for what they knew, and what we know, was right: their total freedom.

Horton, James Oliver and Lois Horton. Slavery and the Making of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.