Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent (highly illogical behavior TXT) ๐
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Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in North Carolina, but, in her words, didnโt realize it until her father died when she was six years old. Six years later, when her mistress died, she was bequeathed to the mistressโ granddaughter, thereby coming into the household of the mistressโ lecherous son. Several years later she escaped, only to have to hide for seven years in a cramped garret that did not allow her to stand or sit up. She was finally able to make her way north, where she was reunited with her children. Many years later, after narrowly avoiding capture multiple times due to the Fugitive Slave Law, her employer purchased her freedom.
Jacobs, writing as Linda Brent, tells the riveting story of her life in the South as a slave. She brings an unflinching eye to โgoodโ masters and mistresses who nevertheless lie to, steal from, and continually break promises to their slaves, and to bad masters who beat and kill their slaves for no particular reason. Even in the North, after her escape, she is disappointed to find prejudice and degrading treatment for blacks. After having been convinced to write down her story, it took years to find a publisher who would print it. It was finally made available to the public just a few months before the shots at Fort Sumter that began the Civil War.
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- Author: Linda Brent
Read book online ยซIncidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent (highly illogical behavior TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Linda Brent
My mistress grew weary of her vigils; they did not prove satisfactory. She changed her tactics. She now tried the trick of accusing my master of crime, in my presence, and gave my name as the author of the accusation. To my utter astonishment, he replied, โI donโt believe it; but if she did acknowledge it, you tortured her into exposing me.โ Tortured into exposing him! Truly, Satan had no difficulty in distinguishing the color of his soul! I understood his object in making this false representation. It was to show me that I gained nothing by seeking the protection of my mistress; that the power was still all in his own hands. I pitied Mrs. Flint. She was a second wife, many years the junior of her husband; and the hoary-headed miscreant was enough to try the patience of a wiser and better woman. She was completely foiled, and knew not how to proceed. She would gladly have had me flogged for my supposed false oath; but, as I have already stated, the doctor never allowed anyone to whip me. The old sinner was politic. The application of the lash might have led to remarks that would have exposed him in the eyes of his children and grandchildren. How often did I rejoice that I lived in a town where all the inhabitants knew each other! If I had been on a remote plantation, or lost among the multitude of a crowded city, I should not be a living woman at this day.
The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition. My master was, to my knowledge, the father of eleven slaves. But did the mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children? Did the other slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No, indeed! They knew too well the terrible consequences.
My grandmother could not avoid seeing things which excited her suspicions. She was uneasy about me, and tried various ways to buy me; but the never-changing answer was always repeated: โLinda does not belong to me. She is my daughterโs property, and I have no legal right to sell her.โ The conscientious man! He was too scrupulous to sell me; but he had no scruples whatever about committing a much greater wrong against the helpless young girl placed under his guardianship, as his daughterโs property. Sometimes my persecutor would ask me whether I would like to be sold. I told him I would rather be sold to anybody than to lead such a life as I did. On such occasions he would assume the air of a very injured individual, and reproach me for my ingratitude. โDid I not take you into the house, and make you the companion of my own children?โ he would say. โHave I ever treated you like a negro? I have never allowed you to be punished, not even to please your mistress. And this is the recompense I get, you ungrateful girl!โ I answered that he had reasons of his own for screening me from punishment, and that the course he pursued made my mistress hate me and persecute me. If I wept, he would say, โPoor child! Donโt cry! donโt cry! I will make peace for you with your mistress. Only let me arrange matters in my own way. Poor, foolish girl! you donโt know what is for your own good. I would cherish you. I would make a lady of you. Now go, and think of all I have promised you.โ
I did think of it.
Reader, I draw no imaginary pictures of southern homes. I am telling you the plain truth. Yet when victims make their escape from the wild beast of Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of bloodhounds, and hunt the poor fugitive back into his den, โfull of dead menโs bones, and all uncleanness.โ Nay, more, they are not only willing, but proud, to give their daughters in marriage to slaveholders. The poor girls have romantic notions of a sunny clime, and of the flowering vines that all the year round shade a happy home. To what disappointments are they destined! The young wife soon learns that the husband in whose hands she has placed her happiness pays no regard to his marriage vows. Children of every shade of complexion play with her own fair babies, and too well she knows that they are born unto him of his own household. Jealousy and hatred enter the flowery home, and it is ravaged of its loveliness.
Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the slave-traderโs hands as
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