LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, Fall 2001
Sample Student Midterm

Craig Sprowl
LITR 5731
February 19, 2003
Dr. Craig White
Midterm

Treated as Animals; the African-American Struggle to Regain Self-Value

            The institution of slavery has long been abolished.  The Slave Narratives allow us in the modern world to get a glimpse of what it was like to be a slave by reading first hand accounts.  The accounts in the Slave Narratives graphically illustrate what it was like to be kidnapped, taken away from one’s homeland, and shipped half way across the world, and documenting the brutality faced by African-Americans once in the United States.  Slavery was foremost a business that involved the supply of labor for the agricultural South and the Caribbean.  Slavery reduced individual Africans into a product by turning them into property to be bought and sold.  The process of converting a human into property had a disastrous effect on the slave.  The slave was taken from Africa (their customs culture and language lost) and subjected to brutal treatment often worse than the treatment of animals.  Once the slave was in this country they were again subjected to separation from any remaining family they had.  A slave lived with the constant psychological terror of knowing that separation could come at any time.  A property owner has rights while property itself has no rights.  Becoming free was the goal of African-Americans, and some managed to become free by reaching the North even before slavery was officially abolished.  After the Emancipation Proclamation, when all slaves were set free, African Americans still faced tremendous obstacles to overcome in order to gain what had been lost.  Slavery had tried to strip the humanity from the African-Americans; however their resiliency was demonstrated in their search for identity, the acquisition of property, the desire for literacy, and writing, all in an effort to regain their dignity as human beings who are free, have rights, and value as human beings.

            The Life of Olaudah Equiano details the journey of a slave taken from Africa.  The narrative is interesting in that we see his extraction from his native land and his account of his first contact with the slave-traders.  Equiano writes that when he first encountered the slave ship, “I was immediately handled and tossed up to see if I was sound, by some of the crew…” (Equiano 57).  Being valued as property is the first step in dehumanization that the new slave must face.  Sometimes slaves are auctioned and other times slaves would be sold by the pound like one would sell a commodity like coal or corn.  Equiano observes, “I have often seen slaves…put into scales and weighed; and then sold from three-pence to six-pence or nine-pence a pound…” (Equiano 115).  For a human to be treated as property is a humiliating thing.  A person is not valued as a human, but instead is valued as a product or property.  Just as one inspects a home, land, or livestock, the slave was subject to inspection.  Over and over in the Slave Narratives there are descriptions of the slave being valued.  The slave was treated as an animal, and auctioned like an animal, and many times auctioned together with animals.  Mary Prince compares a slave auction to an animal auction, they “offer us for sale like sheep or cattle…I was soon surrounded by strange men, who examined and handled me in the same manner that a butcher would a calf or a lamb he was about to purchase, and who talked about my shape and size…I was then put up for sale” (Prince 259).  Frederick Douglass eloquently expresses his thoughts regarding the same dehumanizing auctions that the slaves were forced to participate in.  Douglass writes “We were all ranked together at the valuation.  Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine.  There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination” (Douglass 373).  The sentence structure of Douglass’s observation directly links slave with animal.  Being valued as property, and treated as such was a traumatic experience for African-American slaves.  The slave auction is an attack on the slave’s identity and sense of self.  Having one’s identity equated with animals had to be very destructive to one’s sense of self.

            The animal comparison can be extended further when one realizes that animals often do not have names, and when they do have names it is a name given to them by their owner or master.  In the Slave Narratives we see that the slaves are given names by the master.  Olaudah Equiano recalls, “while I was on board of this ship my captain and master named me Gustavus Vassa.  I at the time began to understand him a little, and refused to be called so, and told him, as well as I could, that I would be called Jacob; but he said I should not, and still called me Gustavus.  And when I refused to answer to my new name…it gained me many a cuff, so at length I submitted…” (Equiano 67).  Equiano is taken by force and has a new name forced on him.  The dominant culture has the right to name.  Brutality and punishment enforce the will of the dominant power requiring those without power to ultimately submit.  Frederick Douglass is given his name by his mother as “Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.”  Frederick went through several name changes before settling on the name of Douglass.  He was known first as Frederick Bailey, then Stanley, then Johnson, and finally Douglass.  Douglass seems to have had choice in determining his names, but at onset of his freedom he states, “I gave Mr. Johnson the privilege of choosing me a name, but I told him he must not take from me the name of “Frederick.”  I must hold on to that, to preserve a sense of my identity” (Douglass).  The first name of Frederick carries meaning because it was given to him by his mother, while the surname of Bailey obviously derived by some association with a master, does not carry meaning for Douglass.  Douglass goes through a procession of surnames in an effort to find one that it useful, but in the end Frederick Douglass allows himself to be named by his master. 

            When slaves were originally taken from Africa not only were they taken from their parents and tribe as in Olaudah Equiano’s case, but he later faces a second separation, that takes his sister away from him leaving him all alone.  Once in America the process of separating family members continued.  All of the Slave Narratives contain accounts of being separated from family members and the heart wrenching effect it had on the slave.  Equiano writes about losing his sister, “she was torn from me for ever!  The small relief which her presence gave me from pain was gone, and the wretchedness of my situation was redoubled by my anxiety after her fate, and my apprehensions lest her sufferings should be greater than mine…” (Equiano 52).  The process of separating families has a great effect on the psyche of the slave.  While in the West Indies, Equiano describes his feelings at witnessing the auctioning of families, “it is not uncommon to see taken from their wives, wives from their husbands, and children from their parents…never more, during life, see each other!  Often my heart has bled at these partings…” (Equiano 116).  Mary Prince echoes the same grief at being separated from family.  She writes, “I saw my sisters led forth, and sold to different owners; so that we had not the sad satisfaction of being partners in bondage” (Prince 258).  Later when she is in her new home she recalls, “I did not know where I was going, or what my new master would do with me.  My heart was quite broken with grief, and my thoughts went back continually to those from whom I had been so suddenly parted.  ‘”Oh, my mother!  My mother!’” I kept saying to myself, ‘”Oh, my mammy and my sisters and my brothers, shall I never see you again!’” (Prince 259).  Frederick Douglass writes about the separation from his mother and the fact that barely knew his mother.  Douglass states, “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant – before I know her as my mother” (Douglass 340)  Douglass describes his situation as typical of all slave children in Maryland, that they are often taken away from their mother before their first birthday.  “I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night” (Douglass 340).  Linda Brent tells the story of her grandmother’s desire to purchase her children back after they were broken up when her master died and they were divided up to the heirs of the master along with the property.  Linda writes that the sale of Benjamin, her youngest child “was a terrible blow to my grandmother…” (Brent 447).  The breaking up of families is similar of how livestock is broken up with no consideration to family ties.  Damage was inflicted on the slave by destroying their family structure.  Already devalued, many slaves had to face their condition without any nourishing support from their immediate family.  The sense of self and identity suffer blows under the system of slavery.

            The slaves faced punishment for trying to escape, and punishment at the hands of cruel slave-drivers or masters.  The institution of slavery was set up to keep the slaves as slaves.  All of the slaves in the Slave Narratives had a desire to become literate and learn how to read, but this desire on the part of the slave was always met with resistance from the authority.  Frederick Douglass recounts Mrs. Auld teaching him the A, B, C’s, and learning how to spell small words.  Once Mr. Auld finds out his wife is teaching Frederick he forbids his wife to teach anymore and gives the following reason.  “Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.  Now…if you teach that nigger (Frederick) how to read, there would be no keeping him.  It would forever unfit him to be a slave.  He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.  As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm.  It would make him discontented and unhappy” (Douglass 364).  As a piece of property, learning to read would diminish Douglass’s value to Mr. Auld, the master and owner.  It is ironic that in order to retain his value as a slave, the owner is required to decrease the slaves self value.  After hearing Mr. Auld speak, Douglass realizes, “the white man’s power to enslave the black man…from that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass 364).  Literacy becomes the first step towards freedom and power.  Kimberly Drake, in her article, Rewriting the American Self: Race, Gender, and Identity in the Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, applies the theorist Elaine Scarry’s idea that “pain destroys the victim’s self.”  Drake asserts, “Slavery’s constant attack upon the body and mind of the slave can result in a destructively circumscribed identity…The slaves’ narratives, then are attempts to speak, to rebuild the self” (Drake).  Learning to read does make Douglass an unhappy slave after reading Sheridan’s speeches.  Learning to read has two effects on Douglass, he begins to finally have words to fit his thoughts, able to more fully express himself, but on the other hand, he is ever more acutely aware of his horrible existence as a slave.  However, Douglass moves beyond his terrible plight asserting and establishing his identity through the writing about his slave experience. 

            The Slave Narratives depict the process by which the dehumanization of the African-American slave is accomplished.  Toni Morrison in Song of Solomon brings us into the post-slavery 1930’s and 40’s, and the main themes in her novel deal with the African-Americans continuing struggle to recover from the trauma of slavery.  One of the major themes in the novel is Milkman’s search for his identity that involves a trip to the South, and the hearing of a song to realize where his family came from.  Through slavery, identity and history had been stripped from African-Americans.  Families were repeatedly broken up, and like Douglass explains, most children didn’t know their mothers.  It’s no wonder that Milkman has a natural curiosity to find out the complete story of his family.

            Morrison’s novel is set in a small northern town in the 1930’s and 40’s, and instead of slavery there is segregation.  It is clear the town is divided racially, with the black community being at the bottom of the power structure.  At the beginning of the novel, the narrator describes some important streets of the town.  The power is held by the white population of the town, which is clear when the issue of who has the right to name the streets is brought to the forefront.  Officially the street is named Mains Avenue.  The only black doctor in town had lived on Mains Avenue, so the black population names the street Doctor Street, which contains meaning for them.  Later more black people move to Mains Avenue, but the return addresses they give on their letters states Doctor Street.  As if to enforce that the whites are the only ones with the right to name, the post office refuses to deliver envelopes addressed to Doctor Street.  The town’s authority puts up notices declaring that the street in question “would always be known as Mains Avenue and not Doctor Street” (Morrison 4).  Taken literally the notice declares that the street has two names which suits the black community who now call the street “Not Doctor Street.”  The refusal for the black community to give up their name for the street shows that they realize they have the power to name even if it’s not recognized by the dominant power holders.  It is also a way to use the dominant cultures’ words against them.  The street is named Doctor Street, while the black doctor was alive, Not Doctor Street after he has died, and Not Doctor Street subverting the white’s edict.  The negation of Doctor Street and Mercy Hospital alter the meaning, and speaks to the use of language as double language.  Words in the dominant culture can have the opposite meaning in the minority culture.  Part of the recovery from the slave condition involves having the power to name.  One’s own name as a slave was something often imposed upon the slave, and most likely carried little meaning for the slave.  Milkman and Guitar’s discussion of the Seven Days briefly includes a comment by Guitar on naming.  Guitar referring to the name X says, “His point is to let white people know you don’t accept your slave name” (Morrison 160).  The power over naming is important and now, after slavery, we see the black population asserting its right to name, and give names to streets and people that carry meaning for themselves.

            The narrator in Song of Solomon explains how Macon Dead scrapes the previous owner’s name off of his door (Sonny’s Shop) and replaces it by painting “OFFICE” on his door.  However, this is not a successful naming by Macon because in everyone’s mind they still think of the place as Sonny’s Shop.  Sonny wonders if he “had some ancestor…with a name that was real.  A name given to him at birth with love and seriousness.  A name that was not a joke, nor a disguise” (Morrison 17).  Sonny thinks about how he was named, “His own parents, in some mood of perverseness or resignation, had agreed to abide by a naming done to them by somebody who couldn’t have cared less” (Morrison 18).  Macon’s father’s name comes about through a drunken soldier’s mistake or joke.  Macon’s father is misnamed, and also his father’s naming continues the tradition of having a white owner figure name you.  Because Macon’s father was illiterate he couldn’t realize the mistake.  The lack of literacy led to loss of power on behalf of the father, his inability to name himself or realize the mistake.  Again Macon’s father’s illiteracy gets him into trouble.  Because he couldn’t read he was able to be tricked into signing a document that allowed his land to be stolen from him and ultimately resulted in his death.  Macon expresses his opinion about the root cause of his father’s troubles, “Everything bad that ever happened to him happened because he couldn’t read” (Morrison 53).  Macon’s father was illiterate and chose names by blindly selecting them from the bible.  Macon follows in his father’s tradition of naming in this way. 

            Slaves were the property of the owner.  The dominant culture are the owners of property.  Macon Dead instructs his son Milkman, “Own things.  And let the things you own own other things.  Then you’ll own yourself and other people too.  While Macon’s desire to be a property owner is equated with a materialism that may not be desirable in the way he cares about the rent money from his houses, and not much about the tenants.  Macon puts his family on display and is concerned with showing his wealth.  Despite some ambiguity, Macon and his father are both property owners, and it is clear by the end of the novel that black families have purchased property on the lake (as Macon predicted, they’ll like the lake when they own property on the lake).  Macon’s strategy for owning property is explained, “He knew as a Negro he wasn’t going to get a big slice of the pie.  But there were properties nobody wanted yet, or little edges of property somebody didn’t want Jews to have, or Catholics to have, or properties nobody knew were of any value yet” (Morrison).  Macon, through property ownership, does not ascend to the top of the town’s power structure, but perhaps he is no longer at the bottom either.  To be sure the town’s black illiterate and a non-property owner population inhabit the bottom layer in the town’s power structure.  Macon can now get the scraps at the table of power where before blacks got none.  But, in an ironic way, Macon is getting scraps of property like the slaves used to get the scraps of food from the master’s house.  Nonetheless, Macon, his father, and others in the black community have refused to be owned, and are now the owners of things instead, which is a complete reversal from the days of slavery.

            The novel Push shows the young African-American girl Precious Jones living in a modern state of quasi-slavery.  Precious does not own anything, and is at the absolute bottom of the power structure in the United States.  Instead of a family torn apart by slavery her family has self-destructed from the inside.  She is black, a girl, illiterate (powerless), and even lacks power over her own body.  The educational system in Harlem has written her off, and only through intervention and a caring teacher does she begin to realize that she can make choices for herself, and have a voice.  The novel demonstrates her resiliency and her accomplishment through effort.  By gaining some degree of literacy she begins to take power over her own life.  Once Precious learns to read she experiences the same feelings as Frederick Douglass wrote about.  At first she is extremely happy with her reading and writing, “I am happy to be writing. I am happy to be in school” (Sapphire 62).  But, quickly the realization of her condition sets in “I go home.  I’m so lonely there.  I never notice before…But now since I been going to school I feel lonely.  Now since I sit in circle I realize all my life, all my life I been outside of circle.  Mama give me orders, Daddy porno talk me, school never did learn me” (Sapphire 62).  Just like Frederick Douglass’s literacy brings sorrow with the enlightenment of one’s condition, Precious suffers the same temporary condition.  But, she moves on and resolves that her baby is going to be able to read.  Later on in the novel we see Precious teaching her baby the alphabet and numbers.  At the very end of the novel Precious is reading to her baby which is a crucial foundation to creating a literate child.  Precious has taken initiative and is resolved that she is going to break her cycle of powerlessness. 

            Slavery was a brutal, dehumanizing system that systematically stripped away identity, family, names, and culture from African-Americans.  The heartbreaking conditions and dilemmas faced by Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, Frederick Douglass, and Linda Brent border on the unimaginable.  Although the system of slavery did its best to dehumanize and break those individuals as an animal is broken, the resiliency of so many African-American slaves is a testament to their strength and courage, and to their humanity.  Despite all of the hardship and deprivation faced as a slave, the desire for literacy, freedom, identity, dignity, ownership, and civil (human) rights is able to triumph over all else.  While Song of Solomon and Push reveal that African-Americans certainly still struggle with many issues stemming from the legacy of slavery, on the other hand it reveals the conscious effort of African-Americans to regain what was taken from them.

Works Cited

Brent, Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Penguin Putnam, 1987.

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Penguin Putnam, 1987.

Drake, Kimberly. “Rewriting the American Self: Race, Gender, and Identity in the Autobiographies of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.”  Melus  22.4  (1997):             91-108.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Life of Olaudah Equiano. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.  New York: Penguin Putnam, 1987.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: Penguin, 1977.

Sapphire. Push. New York: Vintage, 1996.