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Slavery in America in the 1600s to 1800s
Slavery in America in the 1600s to 1800s
Slavery in America in the 1600s to 1800s
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Recommended: Slavery in America in the 1600s to 1800s
“Chains” by Laurie Hale Anderson is a riveting historical fiction novel that changes your perspective on slavery in colonial America. Isabel, a slave, and her younger sister Isabel have been sold to the Locktons, a Loyalist couple in New York City, despite being promised freedom upon the death of their former owner, Miss Mary Finch. Isabel’s only concerns are protecting her sister and herself, but when she is approached by a young Patriot, Curzon, who offers her a job spying on the Lockmans in exchange for a shot at freedom, Isabel accepts. This begins her harrowing journey of fear, heartbreak, and ultimately, whispers of hope. Hale establishes themes of courage and family by detailing Isabel’s love for Ruth and her willingness to risk her
safety for her sister. Hale’s incredible attention to detail creates an illusion of actually being in the story, experiencing the story next to Isabel. She also weaves a parallel throughout the story, comparing Isabel’s struggle for emancipation from slavery with the American Revolution. As Isabel fights for her freedom, soldiers fight for liberation from Britain. Everyone, not just historical fiction fans, can appreciate Isabel’s story, and learn from the discrimination she faces. This book is an amazing read that will change your views on slavery.
On July 20, 1958, a doctor by the name of Artemio Bracho contemplated the idea of a World Friendship Day. The World Friendship is a foundation that honors friendship and fellowship among all human beings, regardless of race, color or religion. This day has been recognized in several countries and is used today. Friendship is established on loyalty and being there for your friend in their time of need. In Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, the protagonist, Isabel, created several relationships with other characters that were constructed on loyalty.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
Celia, a Slave, a book by author Melton McLaurin, shows the typical relationship between a slave woman and her master in America during the 1850s. The story is the perfect example of how relationships between slave and their masters and other non-blacks within the community. This is shown through Celia’s murder of her slave owner, Robert Newsom. It was also shown through the community’s reaction that was involved in unraveling her court case. The Celia personal story illustrated how slave women was treated by their slave owners and how the laws wasn’t effective at protecting slave during the 1850s. Celia’s story help shed light on woman injustices, unconstitutional rights and most importantly racial issues/discrimination.
After my assigned nightly reading, the biggest idea about the book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, was what does the scar symbolize? I thought the scar meant power, because it shows how Isabel is strong. “This is my country mark.”(286), said by Isabel. This quote is showing how Isabel finds out that this scar makes her strong and how she was her fathers daughter. What I’m trying to say is the scar changes from showing pain, now the scar makes her stronger. When Isabel was looking at the mirror she said, “This mark stands for Isabel.”(286) This made Isabel believe that the scar wasn’t bad, but it was a good thing. She has to go through pain to find freedom, and to be shown that she has hope.
Jacobs, Harriet, and Yellin, Jean. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press
Celia, A Slave by Melton McLaurin tells a true story of a female slave who was sexually exploited by her master and the trial she faced as a result. At the young age of fourteen, Celia was brought to Callaway County under her new master, Robert Newsom. Celia later murdered Newsom, in an act of self-defense, and was placed on a trial challenging the institute of slavery and the moral beliefs of anyone involved with slavery in the South. The short life of the young Celia revealed a slave girl who had pushed beyond the ideal limit of a system that denied her humanity and threatened to erode the base of the antebellum southern society.
Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and gender through the years of slavery and Reconstruction. The novel also depicts the courage behind the female slave resistance to the sexual, racial, and psychological subjugation they faced at the hands of slave masters and their wives. The study argues that “slave women were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be (22).” Essentially, White declares the unique and complex nature of the prejudices endured by African American females, and contends that the oppression of their community were unlike those of the black male or white female communities.
Morgan, Edmund S.. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. : George J. McLeod, 1975.
Brent, Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Ed. L. Maria Child. San Diego:
Valerie Martin’s Novel Property is an engrossing story of the wife of a slave owner and a slave, whom a mistress of the slave owner, during the late 18th century in New Orleans. Martin guides you through both, Manon Guadet and her servant Sarah’s lives, as Ms. Gaudet unhappily lives married on a plantation and Sarah unhappily lives on the plantation. Ms. Gaudet’s misserableness is derived from the misfortune of being married to a man that she despises and does not love. Sarah, the slave, is solely unhappy due to the fact that she is a slave, and has unwillingly conceived to children by Ms. Gaudiest husband, which rightfully makes Sarah a mistress. Throughout the book, Martin captivates the reader and enables you to place yourself in the characters shoes and it is almost as you can relate to how the characters are feeling.
The history of slavery in America is one that has reminders of the institution and its oppressive state of African Americans in modern times. The slaveholders and the slaves were intertwined in a cruel system of oppression that did not yield to either side. The white slaveholders along with their black slaves became codependent amongst each other due to societal pressures and the consequences that would follow if slaves were emancipated with race relations at a high level of danger. This codependency between the oppressed and the oppressor has survived throughout time and is prevalent in many racial relationships. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor can clearly be seen in Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred. In this novel, the protagonist Dana Franklin, a black woman, time travels between her present day 1977 and the antebellum era of 19th century Maryland. Throughout her journeys back to the past, Dana comes in contact with her white ancestor, Rufus Weylin, a white slave owner and Dana ultimately saves his life and intermingles with the people of the time. Butler’s story of Dana and her relationship with Rufus and other whites as she travels between the past and the present reveals how slaveholders and slaves depended on and influenced one other throughout the slaves bondage. Ultimately, the institution of slavery reveals how the oppressed and the oppressor are co-dependent; they need each other in order to survive.
Celia’s remarkable and fascinating account illustrates the complex issues that lie in the American foundation of a slaveholding society in Callaway County, Missouri. The slavery system grew into a nightmare of cruelty and abuse during this dark period. In the book Celia, A Slave by Melton McLaurin, the historian succeeds in conveying the story of a slave girl by the name of Celia who suffers repeatedly sexual exploitation by her master and ultimately hanged for his murder. This event took place during a dark period of the antebellum America. Celia’s trial opened a new chapter in the world of slavery: socially, politically, and sexually, pushing beyond the limits of a system that didn’t see slaves as humans but viewed them as property.
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
A slave woman's body was not of her own, but for property, for control, and for pleasure of the one who owned her. In Gayl Jones's Corregidora, Four generations endure the brutal and harshness of sexual and emotional abuse from slavery to marriage. This trickling factor of abuse must be continuously retold and soon manages to uncover a secret that has been kept silence from the very beginning. Gayl Jones illustrates that future generations of men and women are affected by the sexual exploitations that women in slavery experienced.
This narrative begins with Linda Brent remembering the strange “blessings” that happened in her early childhood years. Growing up during her early years, Linda did not realize she was a slave, because her father was a very skilled carpenter. In fact his skills were so immaculate that he was granted the many privileges that a free man would have. Linda also has a mother, an uncle, a grandmother, and a brother. At the age of six Linda’s life changes when her mother passes away. She