I'm a Careless Daughter

For my class this semester at Tufts, which had a fancy name but I lovingly call "Slavery Lit", I read Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. It's her slave narrative, published under a pseudonym, Linda Brent. It was the first written document by a slave that discussed the sexual abuse that women slaves endured at the hands of their masters (and others). She says in the narrative: “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Super-added to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings and mortifications peculiarly their own.” As a feminist, of course I agree, right? Everything is harder for women than for men. But facetiousness aside, her narrative really got to me.

I have no idea how anyone endured what she did and didn't come out broken. Instead, she was able to escape, mend relationships with her children, and go on to do great things. People break in much less horrible circumstances.

In summary, she was born into slavery, sold after her mother died, and then bequeathed from a kind mistress to that woman's niece, who was only 5 at the time. So, while she was technically owned by a child, the child's father was her actual master. In the book, he is called Dr. Flint, but in real life he was Dr. Norcum. When Harriet was only 14 or so, he began following her around through her daily tasks, whispering filth in her ear and making sure she knew to be afraid. Soon afterwards, he took his infant child into his chambers at night, which then required a slave to be there to help so he could get her without interference from his wife. When Harriet confessed everything to his wife when questioned, instead of being protected by the woman, it never came. In desperation, she became pregnant by a single white man in town who was sympathetic to her situation. Dr. Norcum didn't care and the treatment didn't cease. Finally, when she realizes he is going to sell off her children to mess with her, she escapes. For seven years (SEVEN!) she hides in a crawl space above her grandmother's porch. Very few people know she is there, not even her own two children, who are living below her with the grandmother. After 7 years, she really does escape and winds up in New York and eventually Boston. Once Massachusetts passed the Fugitive Slave Law, which they had been holding out on, she was in real danger again. Dr. Norcum had been making trips north looking for her over the course of a decade and once he died, his family continued to pursue her. She was finally bought by friends in the north who then freed her.

I realize slaves were beaten. Horribly. To their death, often. But Harriet shows a different side. A side where your psyche is beaten. Horribly. And die a sort of death because of it. Some would even say a worse kind of death. But Harriet didn't succumb. I have no idea how. And the thing is, when young women are subjected to psychosexual abuse, it's bad; but when it continues into adulthood and then motherhood, it becomes even more powerful.

Anyway, I've been really affected by her story. And so I went to visit her yesterday. I parked at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA and walked through the 25 degree sunny weather along the rows, searching her out. It was easy to find her stone, since I knew through emails with the cemetery people that it is getting some work done to it, so it's laying on the ground at the moment. I didn't know her daughter was buried beside her. That was a nice surprise. I hung around for a bit, took some photos, and had a moment with her. I was having a rare and particularly snarky bad day and thinking of her made me put my shit in perspective and remember what other people have endured.

She says in the introduction to her narrative: “Rise up, ye women that are at ease! Hear my voice, ye careless daughters! Give ear unto my speech.” -Bible, Isaiah 31:9. This is so huge. Before she even begins her writing; a pouring out of her heart in a way a slave women has never done before - she appeals to those not enslaved to hear her story and react to it. To use their innate power to somehow help. And she appeals to women specifically. This isn't unlike some of the female fiction writers of that time (Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lydia Maria Child to name two - the latter of whom edited Jacobs' narrative). They too appealed to Northern white women to step up and get involved with abolition.

I fear that I would've failed. That if I had lived in Boston in 1850 I might've just thrown up my liberal, abolitionist hands in complete defeat. Let me imagine myself then - mirrored from what I am now. I'm a spinster at 37 - having not married, there is no longer a question I will. I have a job, since I must in order to support myself, having moved from my farm-home north of Boston in Chelmsford in my mid-twenties after spinsterhood was clear but my willful ways wouldn't allow me to remain under my parents' roof. I'm not well connected enough or weird enough to have rubbed elbows with Louisa May and her ilk but I'm adventurous enough to have made my way in the big city. Being an abolitionist - an ardent one at that when talking with friends and family - perhaps I do some writing in some of the newspapers focused on that. But, like myself now, do I actually DO anything? Do I protest? Do I participate in the underground railroad? Do I use every extra dime I have helping people get from the South to Canada? Or do I just sit in my little rented room and hope that soon it will end? That's mostly what I do now. I rant. I write a bit. And I throw up my hands in defeat. I hate to think that I would've done the same then.

Harriet, thank you for your strength and courage. Thank you for leaving words for me. They are more powerful than anything else you did: your school, your programs. They allow me, now, 150 years later, to check myself and make sure I am doing enough, which I've determined, I'm not. For what is the real difference between slavery and gay rights? What is the real difference between slavery and predatory lending? Other forms of injustice and prejudice and oppression? (Don't anyone jump - yes - I understand ownership of people versus other things - but I am tired of discounting injustices because, well, they aren't as bad as fill-in-the-blank. This is not a hierarchy of horrid - it is ALL bad.)

I shall reflect on this over my much needed break in the next couple of weeks. While I am basking in the sun and sea of Puerto Rico, which I can afford, with my friends who love me and talking with my family who will miss me over the holidays, I will remind myself how lucky I am. And what a responsibility I have to do for others because of it. And I will maybe decide that this year, to step it up a bit. To consider my role as a "careless daughter" and what that really means.