Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by: Ana Plasencia
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs, is Jacob’s account of her life as a slave. She changes the names of everyone in the book so it is told in novel form. The events in the book are very detailed and they engage the reader into the book right away. Slavery in the southern United States at the time was very prominent with White people that could afford to have slaves. Even free African Americans had to put up with stereotypes and discrimination. The name of the main character in the book is Linda, she is a mulatto slave, meaning she is racially mixed, that grows up as a slave.
Her story starts off in her childhood; she lives with her grandmother on the Flint plantation. She describes Flint as a ruthless master and also goes into detail about Flint’s wife and mentions that she enjoys punishing the slaves. As the story continues, Linda describes the fate of her family members being sold at auction and also how they are punished. At one point she mentions that the masters punish a slave with 500 whiplashes describing that they are beat until their blood drips on the ground. For a child to encounter all this violence is very traumatic and as they grow up the violence continues.
When Linda reaches the age of 15, Dr. Flint who is still her master begins to come onto her in a sexual manner. He whispers into her ear all the things that he wishes to do with her while she still does not understand what those things mean. At this age, she decides to sleep with another slave owner her reasoning being that if she sleeps with that man, Dr. Flint will be disgusted with her and have to sell her. When Flint finds that she is with child he is enraged because he did not get to her first. Instead of selling Linda, Flint tells her that he will never sell her and takes out his anger by verbally abusing her while he cares for her during the pregnancy. Dr. Flint at one point gives Linda a proposition stating that if Linda agrees to stop talking to the father of the child, he will put this behind him and will give Linda her own house and also guarantee freedom for the children. Linda does not agree to this because she knows that he cannot be trusted; this enrages Dr. Flint and he tells her that he will not come to visit her anymore and lets her know that the baby she bears is also his property and will be a slave.
This story is interrupted by an event that happens in the city where they live once a year known as a muster. This muster consists of White people going through every African American person’s home in search of “conspiracies” to overthrow the government. Those that conducted the search were usually the uneducated White folk who did not own slaves and wanted to have a source of power. Linda describes that she fixed the house up real nice because she knew that these people hated coming into houses where African Americans were living comfortably. On some occasions, the White people conducting the searches would steal from the African Americans; if a White person was accused, the slave that had accused them would be punished for “telling lies”. African Americans that were accused with the slightest bit of suspicion were whipped publicly 500 times not caring if they were men, women, or children.
Slave owners created a church for African Americans in order to give them religious beliefs. Slave owners provided them with a gathering place and a preacher and it seemed like this was a good thing for African Americans to be able to have religious services. But, the preacher assigned to their church only spoke of being good servants to their masters and if the slaves were not good servants that God would punish them. So basically the church was created to keep the African American slaves from revolting against the masters.
The book then goes back into the Linda and Flint story by stating that again, Linda was found with child by the same man. When Flint finds out about this he is enraged and goes to Linda’s cabin and cuts all of her hair off. Flint continues to verbally abuse her while he cares for her during that pregnancy. After the child is born, Flint makes the same proposition to Linda as before; if she agrees to stop talking to the father, Flint would forget about the action and guarantee freedom to the children and such other promises. Linda again does not accept the offer, but this time around there are more consequences. Flint lets Linda know that if she does not accept the offer then her life would be miserable and he would sell the kids into slavery. Linda only complies with Dr. Flint’s threats because she fears for her children. Within that time period, Linda is put to work on the plantation, but she is sent to Flint’s son to work at the son’s plantation. Linda puts in countless hours of work and it pained her to see her child treated like a slave. As time went on, Linda began plotting her escape. Her children were safe at their grandmother’s home because they were both sick so Linda continued to work. When Mr. Flint gets married, his wife likes Linda and gets along with her well so there are no problems between them. As soon as the children come back to the plantation, Mrs. Flint decides that she wants Linda and the children to stay inside the home. That same day Linda leaves the home and begins her get away.
Linda has a hiding place chosen the entire time and goes straight to it. The Flints search for days for her and when they are close to her hiding spot Linda makes a move to the next hiding spot, in which she is for 5 years. The Flints do not rest because Dr. Flint, the father, feels the need to find her again. Throughout all these hardships, Linda finds free soil but is never really free. The daughter of Mr. Flint still seeks to find her so Linda is always on the move. The freedom she has is through the letters written to her with warnings about where to hide and also the fact that she does not have to work as a slave.