If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.
Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the complex dynamics of relationships and societal norms, particularly in the context of racism and gender roles.
Harriet Ann Jacobs, through this quote, critiques the moral indifference of Southern women who marry into a system of slavery. It reveals not only their complicity in a deeply unjust system but also reflects on how personal relationships can be intertwined with social and ethical dilemmas, prompting a deeper examination of conscience and responsibility within the context of societal injustices.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on historical injustices, this quote can illustrate the moral complexities of personal relationships in oppressive systems.
More from Harriet Ann Jacobs
All quotes βThe war of my life had begun; and though one of God's most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered.
No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery.
But I now entered on my fifteenth year - a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not remain ignorant of their import
I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a jealous mistress.
If you want to be fully convinced of the abominations of slavery, go on a southern plantation, and call yourself a negro trader. Then there will be no concealment; and you will see and hear things that will seem to you impossible among human beings with immortal souls.
Similar quotes
No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.
It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.
She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one story to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea.
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter β the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.
Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
I am Albanian by birth. Now I am a citizen of India. I am also a Catholic nun. In my work, I belong to the whole world. But in my heart, I belong to Christ.