Slave Diary

Today was one of the hardest days of my life since I’ve been living here on the plantation in Virginia. I rose at 5 am, read a few chapters in Hebrew while I drinking my morning milk for breakfast. I then made my way to the cookhouse to help Millie, our cook, ration the food for the week’s meals. It is very hot outside at this time in the Province of Virginia, and The cookhouse or kitchen was almost always in a separate building in the South until modern times, sometimes connected to the main house by a covered walkway. I do not know which season I dislike more, winter or summer. This is a hard task in itself because as the Mistress of the house, I am responsible for making sure our kitchen garden and field crops produce enough food

for all of the servants as well as my own family, and of course have enough left over to sell.
As I’m walking to the cookhouse, Abraham, our slave overseer of the plantation, whose main job was to make sure that the slaves were doing a good job and that the crops would produce at its best in exchange we gave Abraham a portion of what the crops yielded that season .

Anyway, as I am walking to the cookhouse, I could hear Abraham screaming my name “Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Come quick! Something is terribly wrong with Fanny!” One of the duties of the mistress of the house is to provide medical treatment to the slaves, and I took this responsibility very serious. After all, the slaves’ health was crucial to our crops being successful; however if a slave was faking an illness and took to bed out of laziness, that also affected the crops so I had to investigate and fix the problem as soon as possible So I take off running behind Abraham towards Fanny’s slave house. This building was one of four identical slave quarters located behind the Big House. Designed in the so-called "dog-trot" pattern, two families were expected to occupy this house and share the benefits of the covered breezeway that ran between the two rooms. Fanny is a young black slave who had given birth to her 3rd stillborn just 3 days before today. I had heard from some of the house slaves that Fanny was not doing okay with accepting the loss

of yet another child. As I walk into her slave house, I see Fanny hanging from a thick rope in the center of the small room. A small brown straw chair lies on its side underneath her lifeless body. I summon Abraham to help me cut Fanny down from the rope, and to summon some of the male slaves to help with preparing her body for burial. She was to be immediately buried near the back of the plantation where Noah had designated a certain parcel of land to be the slave cemetery. It would be extremely cruel of us not to allow the other slaves, even from different surrounding plantations, to come and pay their respects to Fanny so I will be setting up a funeral in her honor within the next week or so. The slaves referred to the funeral as the “second burial” when all the slave’s family, friends, and preacher could gather to celebrate Fanny’s life. Noah disliked slave funerals. He said they frightened him. Most likely because the funerals occurred at night and they would eat, drink, and play drums throughout the night during their celebration . However, it never frightened me. I thought it was a great tribute to the life of the deceased, and it was one “party” that I did not mind planning. I could fault Fanny for what she had done. I could relate to her in some ways. Yes, I have 7 healthy children of my own; however I had suffered two miscarriages along the way; however, I could relate to her on a much deeper level as well. Like Fanny, I too was a slave. I had no powers in the house. My husband, Noah, controlled me and every person and thing as well. Some even gossiped that Noah was the father of all three of Fanny’s stillbirths. I was not given a choice in how I felt about the infidelities of Noah. I was expected to turn a blind eye to all his infidelities so that I could cope and carry on all of the household duties that were expected of me. Although different, the lacks of rights that both Fanny and I shared as women, was a common thread linked us together. The feeling of oppression is what made me emphasize with Fanny and other women slaves that worked the plantation. I did what I could to help soften the hardships that these women were going through, but sometimes, like today, it was just not enough. I felt like a failure and that I had let Fanny, myself, and of course, Noah down. He would not be pleased with losing a slave, for any reason, especially suicide.
As sad as I was, my responsibilities to the plantation were not going to disappear just because Fanny was gone.

So I must make my way back to the house to finish my duties. By this time, Millie had already served a breakfast of porridge to Noah and the kids. So I begin to wash the dishes using soap that I have made myself. Every fall after the butchering of the animals on the plantation, I would use the excess lard and make enough soap to last an entire year As I am washing the dishes my mind begins to wonder about all the responsibilities I have on the plantation, such as soap making and tending to Fanny’s corpse this morning, and I begin to wonder if the rumors I have heard throughout the years--about Noah being the father to Fanny’s miscarried children—are true. At that moment, I realize the irony in how very different; yet similar, my life is compared to Fanny’s. “I am a slave of slaves” to this plantation and, also to my husband—just like Fanny was most of her life. I could not discuss any of these feelings I was having with Noah, he forbid me to even talk about Fanny and her demise this morning. Noah believed that “If a man has Money, Negros and Land enough he is a complete Gentleman.” I had no choice in the matter but accept his philosophy. Just like Fanny, my only escape from this life will come through

death.
Until that day comes for me, my life must go on and so should the rest of my afternoon and chores. I spent the rest of the day with my oldest daughter, Victoria, spinning thread and weaving cloth, taking care of poultry, milking cows, producing butter, and tending the kitchen garden.
From the outside looking in, one may assume I live a glamourous life; but if the walls of this plantation could talk, they would most definitely tell a different tale. One filled with chores, heartbreak, oppression, sadness, and loneliness. Well, I better get off to bed now, one only knows what kinds of chaos or problems will be awaiting me when I wake again at 5am tomorrow morning.