After reading both "A Slave Tells of His Sale at Auction" and "A Slave Girl Tells of her Life," briefly comment on how the theme assigned to you is exemplified in the readings. You will have more time to discuss your theme at length in class.
Corporeality (of the flesh) of slavery/Value of the human being vs. value of the flesh -- Andy, Abdoulaye, Emma, Hannah
Mind-control of slavery/importance of withholding information from slaves -- Mikey, Mitch, Ashley, Sophie, Robert
Master/Mistress-slave relationship/Sexuality of slavery -- Jack, Alice, Nicki, David, Trent
I believe that mind-control plays a big part in slave masters stradegy. They try to keep as little information as they can from their slaves, so the slaves don't truly understand how unfair and horrible that slavery is. Slave owners wanted their slaves to be as ignorant as possible. They believed that if the slaves truly understood what was going on, they might start to revolt or not work as hard. They wanted their slaves to feel as if what was happening was natural and ok. We see in writing and stories now, that this didn't always work. Most slaves knew what was going on and some even did revolt, which was the opposite of what the slave owners intended.
ReplyDeletei believe that mind-control was essential to keeping the slaves under the rule of the slave masters. now i want to point out that the mind control used wasn't just restrained to speaking, but rather physical abuse would be used to send a message and control the slaves. in the passage "A Slave tells of his sale at auction", it is described how the auctioneers/slave handlers would beat the slaves before the customers came in to send a message that there would be no outbursts and to behave yourself. In the passage "A slave girl tells of her life", the slave master wouldn't go around bragging about how he was raping his slaves but told/implied that if the girl told anyone then he would kill her and her family. now this is an extreme threat for our time but back then is was common place for a slave master to till many slaves just to keep his reputation in tact.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to read about the slave girl's emotional reactions to the relationship with her and her master. She describes her slavery as almost corrupted by this sexual relationship. It is interesting as to how the masters went about this saying that the women will "be subject to his will in all things." Not only are they to be tortured throughout the days working for the master as a slave, but there is an entire unseen "slavery" that is occurring in the affair between the slave and her master. The slave girl kept detailing how she was guilty of breaking the "pure life" her grandmother had always taught her. To be forced to go against her will each day must have been an incredibly difficult thing to do. In addition, the fact that she is threatened into secrecy heightens the internal struggle these slaves must have been going through.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the relationship between a slave and his/her master (in most cases) is flat out awful. In the second reading, "A Slave Girl Tells Her Life", a women named Harriet Jacob describes her life as a slave. She mentioned how in the first couple of years everything is fine. She would play with the children and would have a good time. But then she says it's now her fifteenth year as a slave and life is dreadful. She would walk down the hall and the master would be behind her whispering foul statements. She would be working and he would come up and hit her even though she wouldn't be doing anything wrong. And her master says if she says one thing about what happen, he will kill her. And the Master would realize that she wouldn't dare speak of it and would continue to abuse her because there was nothing she could do about it. She wants to revolt. But how? There is no where to turn to.
ReplyDeleteI believe that mind control was very important for slave owners. They tried to keep as much information from the slaves as possible because they wanted them to feel as if nothing was wrong. In "A Slave Tells of His Sale at Auction" Henry Watson explains how his mother was one day taken away from the house where they were working. Despite asking, Watson could not find out any information regarding the whereabouts of his mother. This shows that slave owners didn't want their slaves to know that what was going on was wrong. This helped them to create a situation where the slaves had nowhere to turn if they did figure out something was wrong. i.e. Harriet Jacobs, in " A Slave Girl Tells of Her Life", couldn't do anything to get herself out of her situation.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the masters' views on their slaves in these readings, it is accurate to suggest that the value of the actual human being is not much higher than the value of solely their flesh. In "A Slave Tells of His Sale at Auction", Watson explains that, "The auctioneer was busy examining the salves before the sale commenced," which created an image in my head of something similar to what people do when they window shop. One can argue that there was no value in the actual human being aspect of the slaves. As another example, in "A Slave Girl Tells of Her Life," Jacob's described how, "[My master] told me I was his property."
ReplyDeleteThe life that this girl lived was filled with suffering. She details her exploitation and assault at the hands of her master. She is only 15 when it starts. Her grandmother had taught her that she must stay chaste and that anything other was unacceptable. She had a very hard time coming to terms with how everyone around her refused or could not help her. She can talk to no one about it because her master had threatened to kill her. Her master seemed to think that because she was his slave he could assault her, it also seemed that this wasn't an uncommon happening in that household because there was an unspoken rule about not talking about it. This type of slavery appears to be almost commonplace from the way she describes it. That is perhaps the most upsetting piece of this, the fact that it was a normal occurrence and that few people stood up to such a vile practice.
ReplyDeleteHenry Watson referred to the slave trade as the trade of flesh, and he was right when he said that. Slave owners for the most part saw no value in the human mind of their slaves, it was their ability to work in which their value was derived from. To be human is to be able to critically think among other things, and slaves performed the most mindless, mundane tasks whether it be picking cotton or cleaning the house. Slaves were simply viewed as things that performed tasks that needed to be done. It could even be said that the more substance and intelligence a slave had, the less valuable it became, like the men who "had the devil in them".
ReplyDeleteReading these two textes You can definetly say that a slave was nothing more than an article to the slave owners an the slave auctioneers. A piece of flesh which can be bought, sold, used fot whatever and trashed away when it isn't needed anymore. In "A Slave Tells of His Sale at Auction", this is shown very clearly by the reaction of the slave salesman who is securing a few "unwilling" men with the argument, they "had the devil inside". Probably he didn't even considered them able to feel pain and rage about being taken away from their families.
ReplyDeleteThere were several occasions where master would subdue those much younger than himself. Either trough for or by occasionally (more frequently than not) whispering or subliminally suggesting lewd, immoral and disgusting ideas and thoughts into the possibly young child's mind. Masters also slept with their slaves rather commonly. Usually leading to the birth of child who would be the sister or brother to a antipodean "fair" brother or sister.
ReplyDeleteI believe that that sexuality of slavery / the slave -master forced relationship is exemplified almost throughout the entire second reading passage. The master - slave relationship was a way of carrying out the master's sexual desires, and also a way of controlling and instilling fear in the slave's heart. Although the master is harsh in his treatment, it is necessary, in order to get away with his behavior. If he is too nice and fair to the slave, the slave will try to gain more and more power, or may tell someone, considering they have no threat to be weary of when deciding whether or not to tell of this taboo relationship. Naturally, the misstress of the plantation would be terribly jealous and resentful of this relationship, and the slave would be in bad standing with everyone in the house, for something that he/she is forced to do.
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ReplyDeleteThose two tales of slaves's main complaint are pretty clear that back in time, slaves were treated like livestock which could be used as animals, could be sold and be punished if they try to run away or whatever that they do against the master's will. It seems like that slave trader and their master are used to regard them as animals, and called them as creature with devil inside of them. The way i look this is that i think those slave trader and masters are the people with devil inside, once they let the devil inside their heart out and take a breath, it won't be easy to hold them back.Just like drugs, the feeling of hurting the others and without being censure make those been so addicted to it that they are not even awear of that.
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