Group 1

Group 1- Giulia Russell, Meaghan Pickles, Negusu Hizkias, and Gage Battles

The readings for this past week highlight some of the most atrocious acts human beings are capable of. These readings bring together and recognize the horrendous lives led by these slaves. However, they also emphasize how African Americans rose up against the constant prosecution, manipulation, and white “dominance” they were constantly exposed to while enslaved.

In Envisioning Emancipation, Deborah Willis and Barbara Krauthamer explore the effect of Emancipation on African Americans. They did this by contrasting images of slaves from before emancipation to pictures of African Americans in post-emancipation. For example, an image African American shown frowning in the first image and then seen with a wide smile in the second photograph. These images brilliantly displayed the impact of emancipation on African Americans. These illustrations include images of free African Americans in the Civil War Era. Willis and Krauthamer’s included a variety of images from African American soldiers in the Union Army, to slave reunions in church, to emancipation statutes of white Americans that helped push for emancipation. These images show not only the effect of emancipation on African Americans but also the ways it impacted all the other Americans of different colors and genders.

In chapters 5-7 of Incidents in the life of a slave girl. Written by herself, a young girl brought up as a slave struggles to identify herself as “owned”, and brutally comes to the realization that she will never be the “master” of her own life. Not only was her master inappropriate with her, but he thrived on his constant manipulation. The power he had was so strong he was not afraid to hurt her in ways that caused her to feel as though death was the only way she would be freed. Slavery and sexual abuse was not the only form of power her master, Dr. Flint, had over her. The constant manipulation he fed off cut to the core of her identity as a human being. Not only was she physically violated, but was also mentally and emotionally wounded. His ability to take her “lover” from her was harmful in the act itself but also stripped her ability to love. Love is one of the strongest emotions humans bestow on other humans. By stripping her of this, he tore away a piece of her humanity. In his eyes, she was less than human. In the beginning of chapter 7 she even questions this normal human emotion. She says, “Why does the slave ever love?...at any moment be wrenched away by the hand of violence?” (pg 58). As a young girl, she was stripped of all the “normal” human emotions people develop as they grow. By doing this, Dr. Flint stripped her of her own body and soul.

Remembering Slavery offers some insight into the different experiences that African Americans had during that time period. One of the most interesting aspects of the reading was the way that former slaves described the difference of having “good owners and bad owners”, as if there's any such thing as a good owner. The book states that some owners “exercised their dominion subtlely as to almost be invisible, while others were omnipresent, intrusive, and heavy handed”. This is interesting because it shows the range of perspectives that slavery induced.  While the reading shows the many atrocities that came with slavery as well the good memories and strength that the slaves found in each other. It is very clear that without this community, slavery would be near impossible to endure.

Saidiya V. Hartman’s Scenes of Subjection frames a biting legal context for the degradation of black slaves, especially the emotional and sexual vulnerability of black women. Since black women were not considered citizens, they were not protected from the constant sexual harassment and assault on the part of white owners. Hartman states that “as the enslaved is legally unable to give consent or offer resistance, she is presumed to be always willing”, creating a living hell for female slaves in which they have no right to express that their sexual contact was nonconsensual, and a particularly vile aspect of the total abasement of personhood slavery has the power to cause. With the heartbreaking example of State of Missouri v. Celia, a Slave, a young girl was sexually assaulted for four years before finally reaching the height of desperation and humiliation, killing her owner. It would be ridiculous to assume that Celia would have received a fair trial, as “neither slaves nor free blacks were allowed to testify against whites” and the crime Celia purported was acted against her did not technically exist in a court of law.