With the new quarter starting, and new books being read, I’ve
considered changing the theme of my blog quite a few times, but decided against
doing so because I felt this topic deemed very relevant with this particular
war.
During our last lecture, we came across various influential
women that were present through the civil war that obtained very little
recognition, we even came across paintings/pictures of women that were dehumanized.
One example being the picture that excluded the only woman in it when posted
in a newspaper:
(http://hcc.humanities.uci.edu/humcore/Student/gallery/index.html)
Professor Fahs went on to say that this was a mechanism to display that women needed to always be under the power of men.
One other thing that sparked my interest was the ad that was put out for Harriet Jacobs:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1541b.html
It was very alarming for me to see this, mostly because, in
that time, African-American’s were seen as property, so much in a sense that I
just assumed they meant little to nothing to the owners. But, upon seeing such
a serious documentation of a missing slave, it made me think that Harriet
Jacobs’ “master” sent out an ad specifically in regard to her, mainly because
of the physical attraction he held for her.
It is to my understanding that because the slaves were
treated with such degradation and seen as property that the owners would have
every right to do as they pleased with whomever they pleased. I may be mistaken
and may have misinterpreted the rules of slave-to-master, but if this were the
case, I assume that her master had seen Harriet as more than a slave.
Not to say that I believe the owner held infatuation with
Harriet, or loved her in any way, but it is suspicious of what he thought of
the rest of the slaves on his plantation. If it were any other slave, would he
had sent out an ad for them, too? Would any other slave holder send out that
ad?
