The loss of motherhood- the forcible separation of mother and child through death or sale- is one of the most prevalent horrors in slave narratives. Uncle Tom’s Cabin started off with a fictionalized account of the common experience of a Black mother being forced to handle the imminent theft of her son, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ends the second chapter with a visceral description of a young enslaved girl and her newborn baby both dying in childbirth in front of the former’s mother and their mutual mistress.
The juxtaposition of the three is utterly damning. “Seven children called [the mistress] mother,” while the dying girl and her own mother both lose the title within seconds of one another. Being enslaved deprives them of the right to any sort of ownership, any sort of identity, beyond their status as slaves. Motherhood is always understood to be something which can be forced on them through assault, as is heavily implied in the case of the young girl, and just as easily taken away by forces outside of their control. It is one of the major components of slavery’s dehumanization.
A pervasive myth (and one perpetuated by the Shelbys in Uncle Tom’s Cabin) is that the wives of slaveowners were somehow less complicit in slavery than their husbands. What is also key here is the lack of empathy exhibited by the mistress in this situation. There is no attempt at kindness, or comfort. Neither the mistress through her actions nor the writing of the text itself put in any effort to soften her callous approach to the horrors to which she’s bearing witness. She is as much to blame for the outcome as her absent husband.
I agree! Beyond stolen motherhood, I’m reminded of when Jacob depicts a poignant scene involving black and white children playing together, fully aware of the “inevitable blight that would fall on the little slave’s heart” (Jacobs 48) and the eventual separation they will face. There’s almost an inevitability towards fractured relationships in the slave institutions. Though in that sense there are somewhat kind moments, such as her experiences with her first owner’s wife. However, despite acting as a maternal figure to Linda, she still regards Linda as property to be inherited in her will. This illustrates how, ultimately, these relationships are destined to be shattered by the overarching laws of the system they inhabit. Through Jacobs’ exploration of these fractured relationships, she portrays the system’s capacity to inhibit the formation and preservation of normal, human connections. Mothers are robbed of the opportunity to live and raise their children, the sanctity of marriage holds no weight, and pseudo-familial bonds between black and white children can be severed at the whim of the institution.
“Motherhood is always understood to be something which can be forced on them through assault…”
You articulated the point well, and I feel this is what most significantly separates Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, we get the sense that Eliza is a mother in the traditional sense that she’s completely dedicated to her child and has her entire motivation centers around the child. And to add to it, Stowe deliberately made George and Eliza to be mixed slaves who have relatively fair skin, which is a point of controversy around the narrative. Jacobs’ story provides a more complex relationship that reflects more of what was happening at the time – enslaved women being forced to bear children as a result of SA from slave owners, and it was perhaps reality that some did not have that pure motherly connection to their children, since they were born not from love but from assault.