Mistreatment of Slaves

Since grade school, students have been taught in their respective history classes about slavery. They were taught about the various aspects of slavery for example, the lack of formal and informal education, their mistreatment, abuse, both verbal and physical, and the everlasting slaughter of innocent slaves. Though there are occasions where one hears that there was a master that didn 't mistreat and abuse his slaves. Those types of master-slave relationships were extremely rare. According to many text and history books slaves were often mistreated and abused on a daily basis. The question, now is, did the mistreatment and abuse of the slaves, in particular the women slaves, in the autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs actually occur to that extent. Were slaves really treated in such a way presented by Ms. Jacobs in her autobiography? Slaves were definitely mistreated and abused by their masters and overseers, but what extent did that mistreatment and abuse actually go, is what needs a deeper look.
Harriet Jacobs had to use a pseudonym, Linda Brent to be able to publish her autobiography. Ms. Jacobs will be referred to as Linda for the sake of this paper. The autobiography begins with Linda by stating the, "I was born a slave; but never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away". By this statement, one would begin to question, how could a child born into slavery not know that she was a slave? If one is born a slave, people would believe that mistreatment and abuse starts from, very early ages like around one and two years of age. According to Paul E. Scott, in the novel Slavery Remembered, "It was possible a young slave to grow well past infancy in a naïve, childish happiness, oblivious to the painful gulf between his blood relations and his master". (Escott, 29) Thus this statement validates, those of Linda. The master and mistress did not begin to instill in them at a young age that they were their

Cited: Bayliss, John. Black Slave Narrative. New York City: The Macmillan Company, 1970. Escott, Paul. Slavery Remembered. Charlotte: The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill, 1979. Garrison, Mary. Slaves Who Dared. Shippensburg: White Mane Books, 2002. Press, Arnco. Five Slave Narratives. New York: Arnco Press, 1968. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Boston, 1861.