Unit One: Assignment Seven: Primary Source Document Reflection

For this assignment I choose to read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriot Jacob, in particular the chapters entitled "The Trials of Girlhood" and "Sketches of Neighborhood Slaveholders". In reading this document I learned much about the details of a slave's life. Their cruel treatment, though of course known to me, was clearly revealed in this intimate first-person autobiography. Slaves in this period of time were more often than not treated as mere animals; without human feelings; to be sold as an animal, to be beaten as an animal, to be slaughtered as an animal.
What surprised me most about this narrative was learning exactly how common sexual exploitation of slaves was. Though I knew it occurred; being myself an ancestor of Landon Carter through his son by a slave mistress; I was not aware of its prominence in 16th century America. How slave woman and even men lived in constant fear of catching their owner's eye was henceforth unknown to me.
While many modern Americans are confident in their belief that slavery has been completely abolished, the sad fact is that a present day slave market is alive and thriving. Though there are many laws that prohibit the use of forced labor, the CIA estimates that some 50,000 men, women, and children are currently enslaved in America; 4% in restaurant and hotel work; 5% in sweatshops and factories; 10% in agriculture; 27% in domestic servitude; and a full 46% in prostitution and sex services. Though the government is fully aware of these transactions and the cruelty wherein, few actions have been taken against those who blatantly steal others of their most basic human right: the right to be free.
In conclusion I wish to say that by learning the history of our country, we must take actions to change the future for the better. Please; dear reader; dear American; listen to the voices from a tormented past. Listen well and let your own voice be heard, cry out that all men are created equal, and that to stand idly by while so many suffer in the oppression and yet to openly condemn against the sins of the past is snot only to be a hypocrite but to be as cruel as those who committed those sins.