Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

We've been reading Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent (aka Harriet Jacobs) in class the last week or so. It is exactly as the title describes it - incidents in the life of a slave girl in North Carolina (I believe).

It makes for harrowing reading - Linda is almost obsessively stalked by her master once she enters puberty. He determines that he wants her. Luckily, he is afraid of losing status in town if anyone finds out, and is afraid of her grandmother, a godly woman (freed in the course of the book) that everyone in the town admires. At some point, Linda takes her sexuality into her own hands, and enters a relationship with the only type of person her master cannot control - another white man, of equal status with her master. She ends up having 2 children with this man, who become the property of her master (as the children of a slave follow the status of the mother). Linda flees when her master threatens to sell her; she spends seven years hiding in the garret of her grandmother's house. She eventually makes her way North, and is ultimately reunited with her children.

The book horrifies me on so many levels. On the one hand, it is hard to fathom someone treating another person as property. That level of cruelty is hard to wrap your mind around. Having 2 children myself, I can't imagine either one of them being born, and belonging to someone else. And not only that, but to belong to someone who does not have mine or their best interests at heart flabbergasts me. I cannot even imagine what I would have done in that situation.

One of the worst parts of the book (and there are many) are the times when her master uses her children as pawns, threatening to sell them if she does not comply and grant him her sexual favors. The horrific position of having to choose between controlling your body or protecting your children - what a choice to make! To use another human as a pawn, to threaten to sell them so that you can never see them again - I can't imagine sinking that low.

Despite the discomfort in reading such stark suffering, I think slave narratives are something every person should read at some point. It gives you a better understanding of why racial relations are so twisted in this country. How we can we have honest discussion and debate about race issues if we don't all understand where we came from, where the problems started? If I ever do realize the dream and become a professor, slave narratives are going to be required reading in as many classes as I can manage.