Lesson Title: The Plight of a Slave -- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
By: Kathryn L. MacKay, Teacher Consultant, Wasatch Range Writers Project
Burning Question:
How can students better understand the plight of a slave?
Objective/Introduction:
Students will explore the life of a slave by making a close reading of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.
Context:
For high school students studying slavery in America.
Materials:
, Modern Library Classics.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Statistics about slavery
Writing supplies for students
Time Span:
2 or 3 class periods
Procedures:
1. Students will read the first 5 chapters of Incidents and write one or two paragraphs in response to Jacobs statement: “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away” (125). What does this statement convey about the conditions of slavery?
2. Students will work in small groups to discuss the following questions, handed out randomly. They will create a short written statement:
1. In what ways was Harriet’s mistress kind? How does she hurt Harriet?
2. Describe Harriet’s grandmother. How is she unique? What is ironic about her situation as a slave?
3. Harriet writes that her kind mistress taught her to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (127). How is this a hypocritical statement?
4. After her mistress’s death, Harriet is bequeathed “to a child of five years.” What does this demonstrate about the situation of a slave?
5. Read pages 17-18 in which Harriet relates the confusion her brother has with his role as slave versus son. What has slavery done to the family unit?
6. How does Harriet characterize Mrs. Flint? What traits does she have that seem incongruous to that of a proper Southern woman? (focus on page 132)
7. On page 23-24, the story of a young slave giving birth is told. What was her situation? How was he treated? Why did she feel happy to die?
3. Students will report orally their written group statement
Extensions:
1. Students read additional sections of Incidents and follow the same procedures. Discussion/writing questions could focus on the sexual abuse of slave women. In the 19th century writing about this was taboo. Harriet had struggled over whether or not to expose herself so publicly. But she realized the significance of her story and so decided to go ahead, although she wrote under the pseudonym, Linda Brent, and assigned fictitious names to everyone mentioned in the book.
Maria Child, a prominent white abolitionist, agreed to edit Jacob's book. Child, too, was aware of the provocative nature of Jacobs’ descriptions of slave women’s lives. She wrote in the book's introduction:
"I am well aware that many will accuse me of indecorum for presenting these pages to the public; for the experiences of this intelligent and much-injured woman belong to a class which some call delicate subjects, and others indelicate. This peculiar phase of Slavery has generally been kept veiled; but the public ought to be made acquainted with its monstrous features, and I willingly take the responsibility of presenting them with the veil withdrawn."
2. Some chapters of Incident focus on issues for slave mother. In the chapter “The New Tie to Life,” Harriet describes how her plan has not worked; her master does not sell her to the father of her child. Illness precedes the birth of her child; Harriet and her child are close to death. Harriet writes, “Alas, what mockery it is for a slave mother to try to pray back her dying child to life! Death is better than slavery!” Discussion/writing questions could focus on children and families. Students could compare the sentiments expressed by Jacobs with those expressed by her contemporary Frances Ellen Watkins Harper in her poetry.
Rationale:
Students will come to understand the challenges for slaves in America–particularly women.
Resources:
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave & Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, introduction by Kwame Anthony Appiah
- When Jacobs reached the age of fifteen, James Norcom tried to manipulate Jacobs into a sexual relationship. Jacobs resisted his attempts, but for years she lived in fear of her master’s sexual advances. From North Carolina Digital History is a guided reading of the section from Jacobs’ autobiography which documents her struggle with her master: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-antebellum/5340
- The Slave Mother, by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1854
Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seem’d as if a burden’d heart
Was breaking in despair.
Saw you those hands so sadly clasped—
The bowed and feeble head—
The shuddering of that fragile form—
That look of grief and dread?
Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.
She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kyrtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide.
He is not hers, although she bore
For him a mother’s pains;
He is not hers, although her blood
Is coursing through his veins!
He is not hers, for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart
The only wreath of household love
That binds her breaking heart.
His love has been a joyous light
That o’er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life’s desert wild.
His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart,
Their lives a streamlet blent in one—
Oh, Father! must they part?
Frances E. W. Harper was one of the most productive African American authors of the nineteenth century. She wrote poetry, essays, stories, and was avidly involved in the Anti-Slavery movements. Her collection Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects deals with themes of equal rights, racial pride, female self-reliance, and the horrors of slavery.
•For statistics on slavery in America, see “Slavery in the United States,” by Jenny B. Wahl, for the Economic History Association: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us