Blog #5

Textbook: Chapter 3
1. White women and black women in the south led completely different lives. Elite women in the south prided themselves in their lack of responsibilities and excessive time for leisure. They were seen as dainty women who need not to participate in labor in or outside the home. Even child rearing was their slaves' responsibilities. Non-elite white women worked along side their families in the plantations due to the lack of funds for slaves and did not have leisure time as did the elite women. They also raised their own children. Black women as slaves were not even considered women. There was no divider between men and women's work in the field. Some black women did housework and raised the white women's children Black women were more likely to raise a white women's child than their own. They were often separated from black men and even if they did have children it was very likely that they would be separated in selling. White men often sexually abused their females slaves and if the women and child survived the child took on its mother's status. The opposite case very rarely occurred.

2.Often white families and their slaves developed a personal relationship. In the case of Phyllis Wheatley her poems showed excellence and because of her close ties to her masters, she was able to publish her work and was also freed. Since this often happened, slaves came to look up to and rely on their masters for protection and stability. Harriet Jacobs is a case where none of the above was granted to her. Her master abused her to a breaking point at a very young age. Since she was seen as “the other woman” to her master's wife Harriet was regarded with disdain. The wife was jealous and angry over her husband's affair, but since she was the wife to a plantation farmer she had no ability to do anything about it. Harriet Jacobs story was not unique. Her words depict a dark picture of a women slave's experiences is this era.

Textbook document
1 .Some assumptions about black people may be that they are not very smart or have feelings. Both these stories proved that assumption wrong. In the first story, William and Ellen were very smart and were able to trick the system. Ellen dressed as a white man, spoke and interacted with white men and still outsmarted the men, as a woman. They used their master's adultery as their way out. Because their master had an affair with a slave, Ellen's skin was very pale and was easily mistaken as a white person. They used this mishap to their advantage. The other story showed us how a tear in a bond can change one's attitude. The slave in the second story was devastated when he found out he had been sold because he had been seeing a slave woman on another plantation and had a child with her. These two stories depict slaves with emotions and intelligence which, contrary to popular belief at the time, slaves had neither.

2. Memory and placement plays a great role in any story told. Since the Craft's story is their own the accounts illustrated in the story will be much more authentic. They have much more memory of what they themselves did and said. Polly Shine on the other hand is retelling a story about another slave. These facts may be distorted due to several reasons. She may have or may not have witnessed first hand what happened with the slave in her story, contrary to the Craft's experiences. Shine's interview took place seven decades after the fact, while Crafts' was only one. The amount of time passed and the placement in a story will affect the credibility of a retold story.