Kris Maulden's Questions - April 27/28
This week you'll need to finish Clotel and those of you writing on Charlotte Temple will be turning in your papers. After reviewing the papers some of you have written, we'll consider the following questions:
1. What examples do you see of slaves fighting back against their masters or showing what they think about slavery? What do these suggest to you about day-to-day life in slavery, either as an owner or as a slave?
2. Suppose you are a white slaveholder reading this novel in the 1850s. What would you think of the novel's details? How would you respond to some of the statements in it, and how would you make your views known?
1. What examples do you see of slaves fighting back against their masters or showing what they think about slavery? What do these suggest to you about day-to-day life in slavery, either as an owner or as a slave?
2. Suppose you are a white slaveholder reading this novel in the 1850s. What would you think of the novel's details? How would you respond to some of the statements in it, and how would you make your views known?
posted by Anonymous at 8:23 PM
4 Comments:
The slaves showed how they felt about slavery mostly through the songs that they sang. (For example, the one sang by Mr. Peck's slaves on pp.153-154) Of course, running away was an expression of how badly the slaves wanted to escape slavery.
Slave holders probably lived everyday in fear. Fear that their slaves might run away, or perhaps become violent. This fear might have kept the slave holders in check. I mean, they would be careful of how bad they treated the slaves, they knew that terrible treatment they gave would only possibly initiate a rebellion.
-Megan Fible
There were many examples in the book of how slaves fought back against slavery: Nat Turner’s and other slave revolts, slaves constantly running away, and of course, Clotel killing herself to escape the life of slavery. Although slave revolts were eventually suppressed, they had a great impact on slave owners. They were constantly paranoid that this would happen with their slaves, either for the first time, or a recurrence. Also, when slaves ran away, many were caught and brutally beaten, but others became free for the rest of their lives. This probably put slave owners in a constant state of alert because with the knowledge that former slaves became free men if not caught probably enticed many to run.
Slaves fought back against slavery by trying to escape or by being as unproductive as possible without it being obvious. Slaves would even commit suicide to escape the perils of slavery. Slave owners lived in fear of revolts, but in a way many of these slave owners were prisoners of the times.....many inherited a huge plantation, but there was no other way to run a plantation at the time. These owners resorted to brutality and became desensitized to what was taking place. Slavery was a black eye for all society.
Although sslaves did fight back in both violent and non-violent ways such as revolts, running from their plantation, and their songs their day to day life even when behaving must have been unimaginable. I say this due to the fact that even free slaves lived a hard life. They had to have their papers on them at all times and had to be ready to present them at any time. Also if these "free" slaves did not have their papers proving their freedom they would be thrown into special prisons where they would have to pay to get out.. If they did not have enough money they could even be sold as a slave. All of these unfair things would happen to FREE slaves which makes thinking of the life of a true slave unbelievable.
rich rodemyer
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