Grossmont College Slavery in America Discussion
For this discussion board you are to write a response on your thoughts/reaction to slavery after reading the letters and narratives on the website on slavery and the family (See 2.4 Primary Sources website).
Yousif Issa
I read all four excerpts, and I have had mixed feelings about them. So the first excerpt I read was honestly heartbreaking because it is painful to see someone separating from his wife and kids. That is precisely what happened to Henry Bibb, who ran away from his slaveholder and sought to get his family with him so that they could go to Canada. Unfortunately for Henry, his wife was being watched closely by the white people. So that is when Henry realized that he couldn’t escape with his family, which was heartbreaking for him to know, he even goes further to describe it as “tearing off the limbs from his body. In the second excerpt, my feelings changed slightly as I was still sad to see what Solomon Northup has gone through and where he eventually ended up. It was nice to see him reuniting with his beloved family. Still, at the same time, it was also sad to read about what they had gone through and how they were telling Solomon everything that had happened with them and how he was telling them about everything that had happened to him. In conclusion, their reunion was bittersweet, but I was, delighted that he is reunited with his family, and I was happy to see that he saw how much they grew up. The third excerpt gave us a description of how Charles Ball’s life was pleasant and slightly sad at the same time. Even though he is not with his biological family during slavery, he still ended up in a family, and he respects and respects him. He was even nice enough to split it with his new family, however much money he earned. Last but not least in the fourth excerpt,
“INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL. WRITTEN BY HERSELF,1861 Courtesy of the University of Michigan Library, Making of America”, Jacobs describes her thoughts and conflicts with her son’s illness. Harriet thought that death is better for her son. Slavery and so her thoughts were a little bit odd for me at first because death and separation from a loved one is the hardest thing in life but then, after a while, I realized how much slavery impacted the lives of those under it. It just shows the amount of cruelty they were receiving as they are doing their tasks. Slavery was always something that hurt many people, and every time I read about slavery, I feel sad because of what every slave had gone through. Unfortunately, some people had to go through all this because no human being deserves that kind of life.
Emily Summers
When I was reading those narratives I noticed one thing about myself when reading them, I wanted them to become free and live what I think would be a normal life of modern ages, especially when it came to the one about the girl who prayed to have her child die, but when it actually came time in which there would be a chance for him to die, she took back what she thought, and instead just wanted him to live. There is a powerful message in there in which says, I’ve always wanted him to live, but not the live that is going to be brought upon him, because he is my love and joy. There is something however, that brought me immense joy, with the story of Solomon Northup along with Henry Bibb, they are both amazing in everywhere. With Henry Bibb and his determination to escape with his family and not leave them behind and actually escape fully, despite being watched for and heavily searched for by his old owner, it makes me feel like it would be a cool novel to actual read. To then with Solomon Northup, who got kidnapped and eventually got freed one day and can finally reunite with his old family members in which he was forced away from. I felt joy and glee from being able to read about him getting to see them again, along with being able to see all the differences in which has happened as time has changed. It really puts into perspective of how bad times where then.
