Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl

Slavery was brutal in the early times. African Americans were constantly being beat, whipped, starved, and all around tortured. They were also traded like they were toys and won like they were prizes. Slaves were only given the bare necessities to survive. Most were given enough cloth to make one outfit, two if they were good at making clothes, and nine-thousand calories of food a day. When working in a field all day long, nine-thousand calories is the minimum that you should have. Slaves were not the healthiest people. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs talked about her life as a slave, speaking through a narrator. Linda Brent (Harriet Jacobs) was born into a happy home. When her mom died, she got traded down through …show more content…
This would keep their spirits high knowing that they weren’t the only ones going through the madness. Most of the things that were created and shared in the African American slave communities have become part of our culture today; the music, the food, the dancing, and the stories. They even came together to talk about their spiritual culture. They had certain areas and times where they were allowed to do this, most of the time on Sundays, that the Masters were not allowed to bother them. African American slaves were denied learning how to read and write. Even though it was not allowed, slaves still found a way to do it. Some slaves even became preachers to the slave communities’. If it weren’t for me reading this book, I would have been surprised that Jacobs could write a book so incredibly detailed. After reading the book I learned that Jacobs was taught how to read and write, not only making it believable, but also making it understandable. It gave her one thing that stood out compared to all of the other slaves. Slaves were also torn apart from their families just so the White Americans could make more money off of them. Sometimes, the slaveholders would sell the slaves just to punish them for doing something …show more content…
Most people would believe that this is why the Civil War came about, but it wasn’t. The White Americans believed in getting rid of slavery, but they wanted to send the African Americans back where they came from. The White Americans were threatened by the slaves and all that they have accomplished, they believed that they could take over America since they knew how to work the fields and so much more. But the Civil War was way more than just slavery, it was also about States’ Rights. The North told the South that they could only sell their products to certain people and put a tax on them. The South didn’t believe this to be right, so they did something about it. Most of the Southern states didn’t own slaves or plantations, they were Yeomen. The Civil War favored the boycott against Britain in a way. In both, there was an unwanted tax on crops and other products and there were strict rules on who you could sell the stuff