The Slave Experience and Outcome of Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent) VS. Booker T. Washington

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The Slave Experience and Outcome of Harriet Jacobs (Linda Brent) VS. Booker T. Washington

By: Akeel Dixon 

 

Harriet Jacobs and Booker T. Washington despite both being slaves had many differences such as gender roles, households, and the means of which they were freed. These depictions do not exclude them from similarities such as, them both being slaves but also both of them having to find footing after they were free. This blog post intends to go in depth on the experiences of being a slave for each person (However I might cover the experience post slavery in a separate blog if I want to do that later). 

To start off with Harriet Jacobs she was born into slavery but didn't realize it until she was six years old and her mother had died. This experience happened because presumably her mother tried to keep the reality of being a slave from her so when she died and became exposed to more of things that were being told around her she figured it out. Even though Jacobs had lost her mother her mistress was very kind to her and gave her the treatment that any child should have such as being able to play after enough hard work, which led to Jacobs feeling like she wasn't a slave and not caring if she was one at all. This section in the book seems reveals that Jacob's young life as a slave and maybe her owners were a lot more kinder than Washington's, as while Washington admits that his masters weren't mean to him the conditions they left him with, for example a house with a dirt floor and no beds, are clearly worse conditions than the ones Jacobs describes. Jacob's life changed however when her mistress died and gave ownership of Jacobs to her sister's daughter and Jacobs quotes a Bible verse stating "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" Matthew 7:12 and she then realizes that her master didn't see her as a neighbor. She then becomes the slave of Dr. Flint's wife's daughter and that family treats her very poorly especially when she becomes a teenager and Dr. Flint starts trying to seduce her and physically abuse her when she gets pregnant with another man to escape slavery. Harriet Jacobs highlights gender roles though her experience of being sexually harassed by Dr. Flint and attempting to escape slavery by getting pregnant with another man. This incident happens to her around the age of fifteen and she implies it is something most black female slaves faced through the quote "But I now entered on my fifteenth year-a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl." This quote can be seen as highlighting gender roles and it is through reinforced through  Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery. Which is proved when Washington states "Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not even know his name. I have heard reports to the effect that he was a white man who lived on one of the near–by plantations. Whoever he was, I never heard of his taking the least interest in me or providing in any way for my rearing. But I do not find especial fault with him. He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time." This  quote implies that he either sexually assaulted Washington's mother or his mother tried an attempt at freedom similar to Jacobs'. On top of that he also states that his father had a child with his mother because of the circumstances that slavery put him in.

Booker T. Washington on the contrary to Jacobs is shown to be born into slavery as a child but was freed before or around his very early teenage years when Jacobs was around 27 when she was freed. These experiences also probably shaped how the two of them ended up seeing how to move forward after the reconstruction. However I will touch up more on this topic in the final paragraph. His worst experiences with slavery that he describes were when he would get occasionally verbally or physically abused for being late and when he would have to wear a flax shirt which were extremely painful to wear. However Jacobs describes her childhood in a brighter light as her mistress treated her very well, even allowing her breaks when she felt tired. To compare how Washington was treated when working he states "During the period that I spent in slavery I was not large enough to be of much service, still I was occupied most of the time in cleaning the yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill to which I used to take the corn, once a week, to be ground. The mill was about three miles from the plantation. This work I always dreaded. The heavy bag of corn would be thrown across the back of the horse, and the corn divided about evenly on each side; but in some way, almost without exception, on these trips, the corn would so shift as to become unbalanced and would fall off the horse, and often I would fall with it. As I was not strong enough to reload the corn upon the horse, I would have to wait, sometimes for many hours, till a chance passer–by came along who would help me out of my trouble. The hours while waiting for some one were usually spent in crying." It should also be mentioned that Washington was freed due to the Emancipation Proclamation whereas Brent was freed due to escaping to the North using a boat (I had to Google this information because I don't believe we read how she escaped). While it's clear that the experiences for both of these slaves were inhumane and unfair it's obvious that Brent had a much harder time with slavery or experienced more of it than Washington, which is probably where Washington tries to downplay slavery in his Atlanta Exposition Address.

Finally the comparison between the two authors Reconstructionist agenda vs an Abolitionist agenda will be my final comparison. Jacobs had her book published in 1861 when slavery wouldn't be abolished for the next four years and when slavery was abolished Washington was freed. Once these two were both free they had two very different opinions on what to do during the Reconstruction period of the United States. To start off with Harriet Jacobs' Abolitionist Agenda, she states at the beginning of the book that, "READER, be assured this narrative is no fiction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem in credible; but they are, nevertheless, strictly true. I have not exaggerated the wrongs inflicted by Slavery; on the contrary, my descriptions fall far short of the facts." In this section of the beginning paragraphs of Jacob's Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl Jacobs is stating that her narrative is not fiction and that despite how cruel and evil slavery sounds much to the point where it seems fake it is not as this experience and what that she went through is real. At the end she goes on to say that her descriptions fall short of the facts implying that they can't cover the full effects of slavery because so many experiences slaves had differ from one another and other's experiences had the potential to be worse than Jacob's experience.

Another quote from the same section as the quotation above is, "I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two millions of women at the South still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is. Only by experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of abominations. May the blessing of God rest on this imperfect effort in behalf of my persecuted people!" This quote is very important to showing Jacob's Abolitionist agenda because she is being an abolitionist through showing why abolishing slavery is important to the Northern residents and other free black people through her story. She directly says that's what her Abolitionist novel intends to do "Add her testimony to abler pens to show the people of the North the cruelty and moral wrongs of slavery.

Booker T. Washington has a very different perspective taking a more forgiving and futuristic opinion. Washington subtly dropped this opinion with a previous quote where he says that his white father had a child with a slave through the position that slavery put him in. This opinion comes off drastically different from Jacobs as she is saying that something like slavery is cruel and wrong while Washington comes of as dismissing the situation as a negative problem caused by the system of slavery. However, Washington would end up going much more in depth on this idea in his Atlanta Exposition Address in 1895 giving quotes such as "To those of my race who depend of bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are"--cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded." The idea Washington gives is a very interesting approach as Washington is not telling people to forget or ignore slavery but he is telling black people to remove their hatred and untrusting nature of white people, which comes off as a bit ignorant and absurd to many people. Which is because of the fact that history, culture, and humanity of black people has effectively been removed through the abuse and evil white people brought on black people during slavery and seeing an educated former black slave saying to move on from the past and put differences aside looks very dismissive to other black people as well as sucking up to the former white oppressors. This perspective is very different from Jacobs because she wasn't saying that white people and black people should be friends and was strongly supporting the idea that white and black people should be aware of the evils of slavery and some of the people in the south.