Women in Slave Comunity
WOMEN IN SLAVE COMMUNITIES Slavery is the saddest period of human’s history. What slaves went through was really hard and it takes strong people to survive to that’s situation. They not only had to work every day of their lives without any compensation, but they were also broken down morally and separated from their families. Slaves were not treated as humans. They were treated as objects and machines and the only thing they were supposed to do were to obey to their masters, and if not, they would get beaten up, whipped or even killed.
This is clearly shown on the Angela Davis’s essay, Reflection on the Black Woman’s Role in the Community of Slaves. But if slavery was hard for men, for women was so much harder because they had to work all day on the plantations like animals and at the end of the day they had to take care of the master’s house, cook, clean, and take care of everything else. They had no other choice. The next morning they had to wake up early in four in the morning and do the same thing fro the rest of their lives; no future, no hope, nothing to keep them going. Slaves didn’t even have the support of their families because they were separated from them.
The mother would get separated from their child as soon as they were born and they were not supposed to see their own blood. They had no right to the family, to get married ect. If two slaves would be in love with each other, they would have their rituals and ceremonies to “get marries” within slavery, but still they didn’t have the right as a woman or as a husband. The masters could have sex with any woman they wanted and the “husband” could do nothing about it; they had no right on their own lives and of course they didn’t have any rights in protecting their women.
What stood up to me is that, how did these women, having this huge role in slave communities, how did they find the time to fulfill their duties? They didn’t have any motivation. Even when they tried to rebel against their masters by poisoning the food or put the house in fire, they would get killed, burned, hanged ect. It is funny how women in today’s days complain about the smallest thing; they complain that they have to go to work and take care of their babies and houses, and they complain that it is too much.
All I hear around me is the expression “I am so tired,” “Didn’t get enough sleep last night,” etc and when I think about these woman that had to work on the plantations all day long in the worst weather and with no brakes, they had to go home back to their maters and take care of the house as well, and they had to wake up really early in the morning to do the same thing over again. That is really sad and not fair. I am glad that that type of slavery is over but I don’t understand why there is still discrimination and racism out there.
