In chapter 1 of Out of the House of Bondage, by Thavolia Glymph that shows that story of Lulu Wilson that was a slave and the idea of being persuasive to demonstrates and the plantation house was a political space, where enslaved women, white women battled over the idea of labor and autonomy during slavery and then over the definitions of freedom and citizenship that had happened after the Civil War.
Thavolia Glymph stated that “Course I’se born in slavery, ageable as I am. I am a old time slavery woman and the way I been through the hackles I got plenty to say about slavery.”(18) This quote illustrates if a woman is born in a slave environment, they will become slave and that other slaves might have said that their slaves for a long time when they are at a certain year in their life. Thavolia Glymph talks more about the how even if you’re born a slave they will concert you as a class or race, that it states that “Juxtaposing the claims of this ideal against the violence to which Wilson, Robinson, and Benton testified brings to fuller view the literal as well as grammatical antagonism in the conjoined usage of the adjectives “delicate” and “slaveholding.””(20) This quote illustrates that woman was used a negative idea of them either being as delicate woman or as a slaveholder that the violence idea was made to show antagonism.
Furthermore, it also states that “The plantation household was just such a site of contact between women whose access to power, privilege, and opportunity, much less food, clothing, and citizenship, was vastly unequal.” This quote means that woman was treated poorly that they will get less power, food, and equal rights for their own self that woman was like nothing to anyone that person that we’re using those women as slaveholders were horrible people.
All in all,Thavolia Glymph idea was to so how horrible slavery was and that through Lulu Wilson experience of being a slave was not easy to get use to or understand that some slaves are either born or sold to masters to make more money to own more slaves, Thavolia Glymph used Lulu Wilson quotes to show to reads that has a slave your life was never normal. Women had to become slaves at birth, at a stage in your life you can’t make choices or have a say in to having to life almost all your life as a slave or your skin color showed the idea of if your black, white or any race your privilege was just the same like the lack of importance like food, clothes shelter was not given to any race. That in pass history men, women and children where treated poorly but the idea of white slave masters had bought and sold black slaves in pass history but women where treated poorly despite their race.
A good effort to untangle this challenging introductory chapter. A few passages here are less than clear, as in the first sentence, although I think you get the gist.
To that end, the quote you use at the top of the second paragraph is from Lulu Wilson, a former slave, not Glymph herself—be sure you are aware when reading of who is “speaking,” the author or the historical subject. How does Glymph use quotes like Wilson’s and other evidence from enslaved people to construct her argument? How does her interpretation of white, slaveowning plantation mistresses differ from that of previous historians?