Women and the enslavement

"Slavery is awful for men; but it is far more awful for women. Superadded to burden common to all, they have wrongs, sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own" (Brown, 223).

This excerpt is such the strong and powerful statement, but it is an excerpt that shows some direct evidence of suffering of African American enslaved women. African Americans carried the huge burden because of slavery, but black women had to carry the double burden because of their biological makeup. To be the black woman in slavery was absolutely lowest point in society, for an enslaved woman, it was an experience of emotional, mental, and physical anguish.

Black women bore so many burdens during time of slavery. Besides taking care of children, families, and chores, they had to face threat of sexual exploitation (Douglas, 36). When Harriet Jacobs first talks about bringing her new-born babe into this world, first thing on her mind is realizing that her daughter will have to endure all pain and suffering that she has. Black men did not have to worry about being rapped, like black women did. Slave masters used black women for their sexual pleasures. If the slave woman rejected her master's advances, punishment was unbearable:

"occasionally when my expert discovered that I still refused to accept what he called his kind boasts, he would threaten to deal my child.' Perhaps that will humble you, said he' " (Brown, 222).

If someone were to hear these words, what would they think? A mother would do anything for her child, even if that meant giving up her beliefs and values in order to protect her innocent, this meant giving into slave masters advances for protection of her young.

Some slave women were even bought at auction blocks just for fact of mere sexual gratification. This can be seen in William Wells Brown's account of Clotel, during time in her life when her mother, sister and she were auctioned off to highest bidders. It is very disturbing to see what auctioneer says in order for men to pay the higher price for Clotel: "The chastity of this girl is pure; she has never been from under her mother's care; she is the virtuous creature.”Thirteen." "Fourteen." "Fifteen." "Fifteen hundred dollars," cried auctioneer, and maiden was struck for that sum. This was the south auction, at which skeletal parts, muscles, sinews, body-fluid, and nerves of the juvenile woman of sixteen were traded for five century dollars; her moral feature for two century; her advanced intellect for one century; her Christianity for three century, and her chastity and virtue for four century dollars more" (Brown, 260).

When William Wells Brown is writing this, he makes it known to reader that most important thing to these bidders was her purity. It states that Clotel was beautiful and it is made obvious that these white men wanted her for only one reason, sexual pleasure.

Innocent slave women also had to deal with fact that master's advances on them would drive wives of masters to build up ...