Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, and edited by L. Maria Child. Harriet writes this story as Linda Brent; a girl born into slavery, suffering and fighting for her freedom (and later for the freedom of her children). Although Linda was born a slave, she didn’t realize it until the age of six. As a child she was taken care of by a kind mistress who promised Linda’s mother to take care of her and protect her. When this mistress passed away Linda hoped for her freedom. Sadly, she was handed over to the Flint family, where she grew into her teenage years. Her life in this house was miserable and like many slaves there were many times she wished her life could have ended. Her first true love was denied to her. She hoped that this free man could get her freedom. The only way this could happen was to be put on the market for sale. Mr. Flint denied her this, using the excuse that she was the property of her daughter and he could not sale her. After having to give up on her first love, Linda’s only hope for escape was Mr. Sands; her white lover and father of her two children.
The life of a slave was tedious and full of pain, many of them hoped for death to come and take them away. They were constantly being whipped, locked up in jail, starved; and unfortunately the young beautiful girls, abused by their masters. When Linda and Benjamin (her brother) were taken to their new owner’s home, Benjamin said that they “[were] dogs [there]; foot balls, cattle, everything that is mean.” Their old mistress would take such good care of them, that when they stepped into the Flints home, they immediately felt how cold this family was towards their slaves. Harriet states that “No pen can give an adequate description...

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...hat “it made [her] sad to find how the north aped the customs of slavery”.
This story told by Harriet portrays the reality in how bad the slaves were really treated in the south and how they didn’t really obtain the freedom they looked for in the north. Using primary sources to study the history of slavery is very important, because this is the only way to get the real picture of what being a slave was really like. A secondary source can only teach you what we can all say, “slavery was evil”. While a primary source has stories of their sufferings and their daily hopes for freedom.
In conclusion, although the north offered more “freedom” to slaves, they were still not an egalitarian culture and society. The south did exploit them a lot more but the north still cheapen them by giving them the least and worthless things, while the white left the best for themselves.

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