Gohare Blog #5

Gohar Blog #5

 

1.     Slaves are people who are owned and controlled by others in a way that they have almost no rights or freedom of movement. Life for slave women was much more difficult than men. They worked hard at home and farm. Their owners sexually harassed them. Slaves were not permitted to bind marriage contracts. The slave man couldn’t visit his wife or children.   Slave’s baby was born as a slave and worth a great deal for the owner. The bottom line was the slave’s status as property. Slave mothers had difficult task of teaching their children to survive their owner’s power and at the same time to know their own worth as human beings. Both white and black women suffered in the slave system, slave women knew they didn’t get any emotional attention from their owner. White southern women were premised on the forced labor and sexual oppression of her slaves. Slavery turned black and white women against each other.

2.     There are so many stories about slave women and Harriet Jacobs’s real life was one of them. She was born at 1813 in Edenton, North Carolina. She had a happy childhood. Her mom’s owner, a kind woman, thought her how to read. At age of 12 she moved to the new owner’s house. Dr. James Norcom. This man was the cause of a great deal of misery. He sexually abused her. She becomes friend with a caring white man and she asked of her owner to marry him, but he didn’t let her go. She hides in neighbor’s home and from there she could see her children. Harriet made her escape to freedom. She traveled to different states and became involved with the abolitionists associated with Frederick Douglass’s paper.  During war she raised money for black refugees. After war she worked to improve the conditions of the recently freed slaves.

3.     In these two stories we read about all the troubles that the slaves had to go through in order to reach their destination and their goal in life. In Poly Shine, the slave is willing to not sleep at nights so he can be with his girlfriend and when he finds out that he is sold and is going to another state, he begs his owner to let him see his girlfriend once a week and the rest of the week he would be willing to work full time.  In Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, both William and Ellen are willing to risk their lives for the love that they have for each other. William mentions in a part of the story that he was ready to turn around and run, but then his fate in love and God made him stay and go through with their plans.

4.     I think memory plays a huge role in both stories, because they were written a long time after slavery was over. In Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, William is willing to wait 7 years before publishing his story, because he wanted to learn how to read and write so he could be able to write their story. This shows that how great his memory had to be in order for him to remember all the details and how everything happened. Polly Shine was almost ninety years old when her story was published and she was able to remember all the details of the slave who was punished for going and visiting his girlfriend. I think that when something happens to a person that changes their life, it is very difficult to erase that incident from their memory and would always be on their mind.