1) Harriet Jacobs, with herself as a prime example, makes it clear to me the lengths some slaves were willing to go to in order to avoid the egregious ownership and back breaking work that comes with it. She made it clear multiple times in “The Loophole of Retreat” excerpt. Assuming the worst of cases, in which a runaway or slave in hiding was caught? One cannot even begin to imagine what sort of punishment they may face. However, those slaves knew the consequences, but still took the risk knowing that any ounce of freedom is almost always likely to be better than what they go through every day as a slave. Jacobs’ message differs from Douglass’ ever so slightly. They both paint a clear picture of their time as slaves, but Jacobs describes how the owners would taint the mind of slaves. Slavery definitely took a psychological toll on Douglass, but many of his troubles came from slavery and its physicality. Jacobs told how her owners deliberately made several efforts to damage the minds of all of their slaves. That they know their place in society and that they know what it is like in the outside world. The result would be completely broken slaves; they know what they’re missing, yet they know how unachievable it may be. Tired, depressed, and continuously dragged lower, work becomes all they know and all they will ever do.
2) Although slavery has been illegal for some time now, it is important that the social definition is understood aside from the dictionary definition. A slave is not just one who is owned by a master, a person who’s superior has complete control over him or her, regardless of pay (as little as that may be), can still be considered a slave.
The most shocking stat may be that it is estimated that at least 21 million people are considered enslaved, today.
As many slaves in the world are undocumented, immigrants or not, it is very easy for them to remain in forced bondage. Whether paying back an insurmountable loan with work, or being forced into labor by threat these people have no recourse with the law and nowhere to turn. So, they remain as slaves until this day.
Elliot,
Yes, the fact that Jacobs considered hiding in an unventilated attic crawl space for seven years preferable to spending even one more day as a slave gives us some sense of how unendurable it was for her. I hope you understood the actions she describes in the first excerpt and why she is afraid that her readers might judge her harshly.
I think there’s room to dig more deeply to try to understand the 21 million people figure that you cite above. I don’t think that is referring only to people whose legal or immigration status leaves them vulnerable to exploitation from employers. That also includes sex trafficking, child labor, indentured servitude and other atrocities.