Slave Diary

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Recommended: Roles of women during slavery

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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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