In Douglass’ Narrative, in Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and with Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the issue of how families are affected under slavery is very prevalent. And for the latter two readings, where the issue is at the forefront, the female perspective is quite powerful. There is a universality to the mother-daughter relationship that is beyond race or geography – and time – which the authors employ to evoke at the very least sympathy, or ideally empathy, from their white audiences. 

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl establishes and brings to light many new ideas on how slavery impacts the family (or maybe how we must perceive family in this historical context). In particular, in Chapter 11 (The New Tie to Life), Jacobs reflects on what her grandmother said of her parents’ death, that “‘Perhaps your mother and father are taken from the evil days to come”’ (53). Yet, Jacobs has just encountered these “evil days”, which prompts her questions, “But why, thought I, did my relatives cherish hopes for me? What was there to save me from the usual fate of slave girls? […] How could they hope that I should escape?” (53). These are hard questions to answer and probably do not mean to be answered. Rather, they reflect a deep internal conflict that involves Jacobs’ identity. Who is she to become when there are expectations held by her family, expectations held by herself, and expectations held by the institution of slavery (which is the harsher and more inescapable reality)? In the following chapters, many of the decisions she has to make emphasize this inner battle.

Furthermore, these questions are prompted by her recent pregnancy, where these questions seem to reflect her regret or shame in being responsible for bringing a child up under slavery. Similar to Cassy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she often thinks of how it would be easier if her children were to die, so they did not have to suffer under slavery. Yet, her children are what give her a new reason to live. A few chapters before, Jacobs states that “the condition of a slave confuses all principles of morality, and, in fact renders the practice of them impossible” (48), and I think is the only perspective that needs to be taken or to be reminded of. Nevertheless, the deep complexity that this situation presents forces the reader to reflect and think about family in a new way – generationally. And in connection to this, the hope that arises for the new generation, which is rooted in doing better than the previous generations.