Sexual Harassment Of African American Women In 1861, By Harriet Jacobs

Back in the day being an African American was not a good thing, since most African Americans were enslaved to serve the white people. African American Women had the worst conditions since they would be sexually harassed by other slaves or by the white owners. Slaves would have to work in the fields under the sun for hours in the heat without a break or a glass of water. Slaves were not allowed to eat the products that they were harvesting. Slaves had unacceptable living conditions that caused them to get diseases and die due to lack of proper treatments. African Americans had it rough since they were forced into slavery, women faced sexual harassment, workers had bad working conditions, harsh punishments, and bad living conditions. African
Harriet Jacobs wrote narratives in 1861 that were published later by a woman and in her narratives, she wrote about the sexual harassment that she experienced from her slave owner. Jacob’s narrative says that as soon as she turned the age of fifteen her master would start whispering terrible things in her ear (Jacobs). She would try to ignore it and show that she has no interest in his intentions, but doing that did not help her since she later says that her master had diverse ways of getting what he wanted (Jacobs). Although these girls were being sexually harassed nobody in the community would care because the slaves are considered the slave owners’ property and they could do whatever they want with them. Jacob says “I turned from him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master.” (Jacobs). Her narrative gives us an insight of what they had to live with as they were slaves no matter what happened between their masters and them
Frederick Douglas said that one of the hardest jobs to do was working the garden, but it wasn’t much due to the work they had to do, but the temptation they had to resist of eating the fruit (Douglas, 16). Slaves had temptation towards the fruit because they were not fed very well by the owners and, so they were hungry and while working near the fruit they wanted to eat and satisfy their hunger. Although some slaves stole the fruit from the garden, it did not happen very often because the ones that were caught were severely whipped by the chief of the garden in front of the others to teach the others not to steal (Douglas, 16). Uncle Ben during his interview in 1910 talked about his experience as a slave and said that “they’d whip a man until he’s so warm the blood creep thru his shirt..” (Hollitz, 228-229). The worst part of the whipping is that they would be whipped while they are working and so they would need to keep bending down and the scars would keep touching their shirts and making them feel the pain. Being whipped by the chiefs was awful because they had no remorse towards the slaves and would whip them until they decide to