Harriet Jacobs – Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

Discussion Question 1:

How does Jacobs describe the way even the younger members of white slaveholders households were corrupted by the influence of slavery? (Chapter IX.)

Discussion Question 2:

Why did Jacobs percieve the racism in England as weaker or less present than that in the United States? (Chapter XXXVII.) 

Fact:

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (mentioned by Jacobs in Chapter XL) was a law that required runaway slaves to be returned to their masters upon capture in all the northern states. It was part of the Compromise of 1850 passed by the Congress, which led to a four year reduction of the sectional conflict.

This compromise also contained laws abolishing the slave trade in Washington, D.C., as well as granting California admission to the Union as a free state. In Utah and New Mexico, territorial governments were established, and a boundary dispute between the latter and Texas was settled. (http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Compromise1850.html; 05/07/2013.)

American Congress A.D. 1850; source: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmsca/09300/09398v.jpg

Source: http://mississippiconfederates.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/the-compromise-of-1850.gif

Frederick Douglass - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

Discussion Question 1:

How does Douglass describe the nature of the slaves' songs at the end of Chapter 2, and what does he criticize about their perception by northerers?

Discussion Question 2:

How are "good" overseers described by Douglass? What were the qualifications needed for this job according to hin, and how do they differ from the concept discussed above? (Capters 1 - 8.)

Fact about Frederick Douglass:

After his first wife had died, Douglass remarried again in 1884. His second wife was Helen Pitts, who was a white feminist. This marriage caused great controversy among friends and family of the couple. (http://winningthevote.org/FDouglass.html; 1/21/13.)

Douglass wrote: 

No man, perhaps, had ever more offended popular prejudice than I had then lately done. I had married a wife. People who had remained silent over the unlawful relations of white slave masters with their colored slave women loudly condemned me for marrying a wife a few shades lighter than myself. They would have had no objection to my marrying a person much darker in complexion than myself, but to marry one much lighter, and of the complexion of my father rather than of that of my mother, was, in the popular eye, a shocking offense, and one for which I was to be ostracized by white and black alike. (Douglass, Life and Times... p. 534.)

Frederick Douglass wrote three autobiographies, each of which he used to accomplish different goals. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was intended by him as a means of enhancing his credibility throughout the public of the time, where he was still seen as an uneducated slave. Many also doubted the stories and experiences he depicted in his public speeches, thinking of them as partly made up or exaggerated. After the book was published, however, this perception throughout the public opinion changed greatly, partly because of the credibility statements by white men in the preface, partly because of the use of real names, places and dates, and the overall coherence of the story. This let Douglass have more liberties among the abolitionist movement, which was at that time still mostly run by white people, who initially did not want Douglass to become too influential. Douglass therefore achieved his intended goal, rising to important positions in the abolitionist movement and eventually even meeting President Licncoln is person.

A short biography of this historically very important man can be watched here: