The master-slave relationship is based on the fearful relationship that runs on both sides. The element of possession lies in the mindset of a master who thinks slave is his possession just like household things for a house owner. The masters posed dominance over the slaves and treated them with brutality. The master’s perception of the slaves of the black community was that they lack willpower and moral values. The beginning of the slavery started as the justifiable thing where masters used to justify that they would train slave’s discipline. Slave women were a matter of sexual assaults they were targeted by both the masters for their desirability and their mistresses for jealousy. The paper will talk over the nature of the masters, the sufferings of the slaves along with the narratives from the interviews and condition of the slaves in which they worked. The slave’s codes and punishment in different regions would also be a part of the paper.
The enslavement was begun in 1630-1640. The onset of slavery as the system emerged with the advent of colonial America by 1740. The antebellum era before the civil war 1812 renowned for the supporters of slavery. This period had the famous inculcation of ownership seed and property practice. This period also marked the industrial revolution Chad luck in his book, “The body of property…” talks about the nature of ownership and possession of masters in antebellum culture. He raised questions like, what does it feel like to own something? Or how something becomes a property of oneself? He stated that ownership is not abstract legal form but a lived relationship that is emerged within a space in the 18th-19th century. He showed a correlation between the loss of property and anxiety. [1]
The case of possession that how does one feel that something belongs to him. The possession or ownership discussed in perspective of the law in the 18th century. The view of John Locke that ownership builds when owner combines his efforts with the thing. But the ownership also linked to the title and claim. The hypotheses were checked through a legal wild case of Pierson vs. Post. Stating about the declaration of possession to the one who has a certain control over the thing. [2]
The mindset of the white community in early time was based on the enforced labor so it started to build at the institutional level after the legalization of possession by the common law. The slavery law was built on the base of the dominance of the masters and their right to exercise power over the slaves. Slaves were considered as “chattels” that is owned or possessed by the owner by the law and he had the right to do whatever he would like in his possession. The slaves were just as an entity a chair or just like a cow who was totally under the control of the owner and the owner behavior is entirely his own affair. [3]
The slave codes happened in1661 that gave authority to the masters or owners over the life and death of the slaves. The code imagined the slaves “brutish” and “heathenish”. The slave code banned the slaves from possessing any weapon, horse or a mule, and from meditation. Slave codes all varied with the variation in the culture. For instance, the Bermuda slave was prohibited to wear bright color clothes or to carry a stick until they were declared lame. The Bahama slaves could be beaten if they were found selling eggs, liquids or gambling. Saves were not allowed to have their own land or property. The slaves could not file any charge against white otherwise they would be doomed and no testimony would be offered in their defense. [4]
The punishments given to slave varied with the region and cultural background. The punishment act of Montserrat 1663 empower the white masters to kill ay slave for stealing crime. The virginal act 1783, passed the membrane cutting or nose slitting on the crime of stealing. The punishment on the personal level was coercion along with flogging. The mutilation also adhered to the flogging. The Barbados act defined harsh punishment on the common offense, as to hang the slave to death with hunger and thirst; he could have hanged and then cut into pieces or he could be burnt to ashes. [3] Pain or physical torture was added along with solitude and labor in the American prison system. The punishments were solitude, watchfulness, cutting off communication and physical pain in the Auburn prisons.[5]
With the emergence of the domestic slave trade in the 18th century, many slaves sold out from the upper south the slave traders settled up business and they used it as a threat to slaves for their work. The slaves were so frightened that if they would sell out they will never see their family again. The slaves and their closest family people were sold frequently. It is evident from the slave’s narrative written in Léonard narrative:
“As near as I can remember, my mother and sister were sold and taken to New Orleans, leaving four brothers and myself behind. We were all placed out. At six years of age, I was placed with a Mr. Bradford, separated from my father, mother, and family.”
The slaves market of antebellum was the famous market for new or lean and people used to sale the slaves for compensation or buying a land or paying the debt. Traders used the ads to expand the trade business. Even if a person died in that time without the division of its property or slaves, the state was authorized to divide the saves by the law of inheritance.[6]
Talking about the expectation of master from slaves, and the attitude of the masters toward slaves, it came out through the interviews of the ex-slaves in save the narrative collection. Slaves took the paternalistic approach, they showed that slaves were told that they were not masters of their destiny, and they are depended on heir masters for everything. In another interview, ex-slave berry smith told about ex-master, “de Bullwhip an’ de paddle”. The master did not teach us anything but forced us to labor. [7]
The autobiography of Fredrick Douglas who wrote about the experience of slavery and the epiphanies he found through the journey to freedom explains about the crucial sufferings of the slave in the master-slavery relationship. The loss of the family described by Douglass,
“He was immediately chained and handcuffed, and thu…………..by a hand more unrelenting than death. (3.5)”
In the above quote, Douglass explained about the biggest fear of slavery which is separation from family. He didn’t see his father. And he barely remembers his mother when she died and he was not allowed to see her on funeral because he is a slave. [9]
Slaves earned fewer material benefits. Mostly, they were fulfilled with basic things like food, cotton clothing, and crude lodgings. The chances for plantation slaves were high for cash, they sued to get the small cash as a reward for their good task. Wages were different according to the contracts and type of working condition. The self-hired slaves who allowed to hire by the masters earned around $100 per year. [8] Slaves men and women along with children worked 16 hours per day.at harvest time and 6 days a week with half Saturday. They used to work as a group of 25 members. Skilled slaves who worked as a cabinet maker’s earned equally to white people.
Men and women both were exploited under the act of slavery through sexual assault. The fertility of the woman in the 19th century was much pronounced with childbirth rate with proper time. The frontiersmen used the enslaved women as legal wives for raising children as bondslaves, prostitutes also. The north women were sold into brothels in North America.
Furthermore, the use of power by the masters as to create dominance was expected from women and sex was used as a mode of authority over submissive women. The master used sexual harassment and sexual abuse to punish the slaves. The punishment of the slaves as rape was desirable to the masters as it gave them the sense of power and control over the slave that she would comply with whatever the master desires.
Another brutality was the slave-breeding in which the enslaved women were forced to reproduce without the consent. The reproduction was done by the masters and sometimes through an arranged marriage between slaves of choice for reproduction planned by the master.
The control of the married women over their sexual life was also under the control of the masters. If women produced healthy offspring, she was forced into rape or sexual assault for the profitable business of reproduction by the masters. The freedom of their personal sexual relationships was snatched from them. According to the narration from ex-slave mentioned in harlot Jacob,
“Women are considered of no value unless they continuously increase their owner’s stock. They are put on a par with animals.”
The sexual abuse was one of the most brutal and intervening ways for showing control over the lives of the slaves by the masters. Likewise, male slaves were also used by the female masters for pleasure, punishment, and dominance in the master-slave relationship. It is explained through a narrative from anonymous slave from Georgia
“In the time’s white men when [went] with colored gals and women bold. Anytime they saw one and wanted her, she had to go with him, and his wife didn’t say nothing’ bout it.”
The women master used men slave to feel that they have control over her life. The wives of the slaves were not allowed to stop it from happening. [10]
The Master-slave relationship is dominate-submissive and has imprisoned brutalities in the history. The relationship worked benefitted both sides but the masters of the equation achieved more than they were supposed to get. The slaves were handled by the feudal of the 18th and 19th century who treated them as animals, possession, or part of their settlement for their public and personal gain. Slaves were sold out and preserved because they were seen as the investment for the future profit. On the other hand, the slaves were abode by the necessities of life and by eh law. The women faced brutal relationship realities and physical torture in form of sexual torment. The end of the slavery happened after a revolt of 1822. Slaves became rebellions and struggled to fight for their own survival.
References
Carl, M.Rose. “Possession as the Origin of Property.” Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository (1985): 73-87. http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2829&context=fss_papers.
Haslam, Jason. Fitting Sentences: Identity in Nineteenth and Twentieth-century Prison .Narratives. Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2005. https://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=RcxNT3IjZlQC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=HASLAM,+JASON.+“‘Cast+of+Characters’:+Problems+of+Identity+and+Incidents+in+the+Life+of+a+Slave+Girl.”+Fitting+Sentences:+Identity+in+Nineteenth-+and+Twentieth-Century+Prison+Nar.
History Extra. Slave labor. 4 April 2012. https://www.historyextra.com/period/slave-labour/. 4 April 2012.
Luck, Chad. The body of property: Antebellum American fiction and the phenomenology of Possession. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014. https://books.google.com.pk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gExGCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=LUCK,+CHAD.+“Anxieties+of+Ownership:+Debt,+Entitlement,+and+the+Plantation+Romance.”+The+Body+of+Property:+Antebellum+American+Fiction+and+the+Phenomenology+of+Possession,+Fordha.
Mamrak, Skylar. “Victims of Lust and Hate: Master and Slave Sexual Relations in the Antebellum United States.” Valley Humanities Review Spring (2016): 0-17. http://portal.lvc.edu/vhr/articles/2016-Skylar%20VHREssaySubmission%20Lust%20Hate%20Edited.pdf.
Musher, Sharon. “Contesting ‘The Way the Almighty Wants It’: Crafting Memories of Ex-Slaves in the Slave Narrative Collection.” JSTOR: American Quarterly (2009): 1-31. http://www.academia.edu/12070940/Contesting_The_Way_the_Almighty_Wants_It_Crafting_Memories_of_Ex-Slaves_in_the_Slave_Narrative_Collection.
Reclaiming Kin. How Were Slaves Sold? 9 January 2016. http://www.reclaimingkin.com/how-were-slaves-sold/. 9 January 2016.
Shmoop. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. n.d. https://www.shmoop.com/life-of-Frederick-douglass/family-quotes.html.
The Save Laws. “The control and Treatment of the Slaves.” n.d. https://sjchistory.weebly.com. https://sjchistory.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/4/6/5146401/the_slave_laws.pdf.
U.S History. Slave Codes”. n.d. http://www.ushistory.org/us/6f.asp.
