Throughout the work of Harriet Jacobs in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”, we see described suffering and horribleness that we would not imagine in our current lives, such terror bound to those without the meaning of escaping it. Or at least, not without pain. Pain seems like a currency, but without seeing the bill how do you when is it enough, or what your reward is. And so another day is lived in suffering, fit to change for the worse rather than the better.
And escape is often bittersweet.
“Yet when victims make their escape from the wild beast of Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of bloodhounds, and hunt the poor fugitive back into his den, “full of dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness.” (Jacobs Chapter VI The Jealous Mistress)
, an accurate description of a fate of the book’s protagonists’ friend, Benjamin, who while managing to flee towards New York by sea is apprehended on the way and despite his best efforts, returned.
And it is always the failed escapees whose stories are told, it is never the ones who disappear to never be an item of exchange who are discussed (at least not in public), for that isn’t something you need when you need your slaves afraid of even the thought of escaping.
On the other hand, there is the other escape. The final, painful escape from which there is no returning but there is no suffering no heartbreak no discomfort, just nothing. Death, with all its itchy bedsheets which may feel like the softest cotton with the sting of a whip that layed you low still on your memory.
On that note, here is one such escape,
“From others than the master persecution also comes in such cases. I once saw a young slave girl dying soon after the birth of a child nearly white. In her agony she cried out, “O Lord, come and take me!” Her mistress stood by, and mocked at her like an incarnate fiend. “You suffer, do you?” she exclaimed. “I am glad of it. You deserve it all, and more too.”
The girl’s mother said, “The baby is dead, thank God; and I hope my poor child will soon be in heaven, too.”
“Heaven!” retorted the mistress. “There is no such place for the like of her and her bastard.”
The poor mother turned away, sobbing. Her dying daughter called her, feebly, and as she bent over her, I heard her say, “Don’t grieve so, mother; God knows all about it; and HE will have mercy upon me.”
Her sufferings, afterwards, became so intense, that her mistress felt unable to stay; but when she left the room, the scornful smile was still on her lips. Seven children called her mother. The poor black woman had but the one child, whose eyes she saw closing in death, while she thanked God for taking her away from the greater bitterness of life.” (Jacobs Chapter II The New Master and Mistress)
This is nothing if not a painful but peaceful, maybe, description of death taking a young girl away from a life of pain, along with the child she didn’t leave without a mother, for it went with her unto heavenly embrace. And so many others left like this. Many other uncountable souls left, no longer needing to bear their beating hearts any longer, no longer needing to get up and suffer another day.
One such example of escape is not much from within the enslaved, but from being enslaved. And it came to me from a Beyonce song. Specifically, “Love Drought” from her album Lemonade, an album of hers released in 2016. That album was accompanied by a film and visual album of the same name, depicted in the music videos of said album. And the contents of that combination are described as a “a revolutionary work of Black feminism” by Billboard. This album (and the film and visual album) was shown to me at the end of an English Class a few semesters ago, and it struck me as magical, inspiring, and powerful above all. (Highly recommend y’all listen to it, btw, and catch the music videos too.) Anyway back to “Love Drought”.
In that video is an allusion to the mass suicide of captured Africans at Igbo Landing. The story goes that,
“In May 1803, the Igbo and other West African captives arrived in Savannah, Georgia, on the slave ship the Wanderer. They were purchased for an average of $100 each by slave merchants John Couper and Thomas Spalding to be resold to plantations on nearby St. Simons Island. The chained slaves were packed under deck of a coastal vessel, the York, which would take them to St. Simons. During the voyage, approximately 75 Igbo slaves rose in rebellion, took control of the ship, drowned their captors, and in the process caused the grounding of the ship in Dunbar Creek.”
After which the now free Africans marched to shore, joining their high chief in song before walking into and drowning themselves in the waters of Dunbar Creek, willing to die rather than be enslaved. While the exact number who did this is unknown it is still a symbol of resistance against slavery. But they escaped. And they were free. And their legend would live on in local African American Folklore.
Beyonce’s song depicts this in ethereal beauty and a bunch of other things I struggle to describe.
This and many other such escapes occurred over the centuries of slavery. And all the bloodshed, all the protests, all the movements, all the change is a tide that in its wake made sure such escaping would not need to happen again.
Igbo Landing Mass Suicide (1803) • (blackpast.org)
Beyoncé – Love Drought – YouTube
Visual mirroring the march into the waters. To freedom in death, from a life in chains.
I did not know anything about the Igbo landing mass suicide until I read your post. Death was indeed of the biggest ways to escape from slavery. It is so heartbreaking to see how suicide was used to escape slavery but also as a way to show union and opposition to slavery. Death was definitely their ultimate way to freedom, and slaves cannot be judged for choosing death over a life full of pain and abuse.
I really loved the connection you made between the Igbo landing mass suicide and Beyonce video. It makes me explore the idea of how one gets out of this trap to seek freedom and if death is better than escape. I also liked your argument about how the stories being told are the ones who returned and not from those who never look back. The different levels of escape and its impact on oneself and surroundings, to the race as a whole. In Beyonce’s video, it touches the framework of “Why do you consider yourself undeserving? Why are you afraid of love? Do you think it’s possible for someone like you?” It connects with Harriet Jacobs’s framework of slave women being forced to marry their masters and the sexual assault cases in that time by the masters. The idea of how she wanted to stay pure was explored in class discussion and it connects with the idea of love and worthiness in Beyonce’s video. The framework around slavery and love/marriage, how one can seek free will from forced marriages, seeking self love and freedom.
Slavery was so dehumanizing that those in captivity would rather be free in death than live the life of a slave. While it’s upsetting to realize that’s what many people did, it is very honorable and brave. That is the best way to bring back their humanity, the one that was strip from them by force. The choice of dying while being free reminds me of Linda’s “a kin to freedom”. In which she, in order to reclaim her power, decided to choose who she would have a relationship with. As long as it didn’t align with the master’s wish, it was a satisfaction to know the masters did not have complete power.
I can’t imagine the decision that a slave had to make to gain his/her freedom. Some tried to work and save and buy their children freedom. Many were not so fortunate and had to make the decision to escape and it was never easy leaving your loved ones and taking a chance that you could get killed trying to escape. If you were caught the slave had to be made an example. The beatings were done in front of everyone to put fear in their hearts not to escape. Even when you escaped your life was at risk because the laws did not protect runaways. Fredrick Douglass and Harriet Tubman were the exceptions to the rule. So many unsuccessful escapes are not recorded and the slaves were forgotten.
The enslaved men and women of the Willowbrook Plantation face unspeakable difficulties and terrible treatment at the hands of their owners in the heart of the antebellum South. An inkling of hope emerges among a small number of people who wish for independence amid the savagery.
The group comes up with a plot to break free from their oppressive bonds under the leadership of Benjamin, a strong and intellectual slave who longs for a life off the plantation. They are confident that their combined strength will lead them to freedom because each member possesses special talents and unyielding resolve.
African American history and the larger tale of the transatlantic slave trade have both benefited from historical awareness and education of The Igbo Landing Mass Suicide. It has been researched and taught in academic contexts, advancing our knowledge of the brutalities of slavery and the experiences of people who were enslaved in Africa. By including this occasion in school curricula, builds a greater understanding of African American history and encourages discussions about how slavery has affected modern culture.
Great comparisons in your post and really well in explaining them. I thank you for educating something I did not know, the LGBO landing suicide. It was just so sad how slaves literally were treated in general. At the end of the day, they were also humans and people of this planet. God made those people similarly of how he made the “masta” people. Then why such cruelty in treating them. Not treating them as humans, but way worse, totally unnecessary. The idea of death being an escape to freedom was insane. Imagine not being free for until God knows when and then planning to escape to simply killing themselves. That way, they would have at least met god and complained about it all. The decision to die would remind me of a movie I watched that was also about slavery, I forget its name I believe it is called the Blue or something book and they had a quote from the movie. It was “you might as well leave now (suicide) because the hell we’re trapped in is getting worse by the day”.
Your post was great, the post raises the notion of pain as a form of currency for enslaved individuals and it highlights the absence of a clear measure or reward for the suffering they endure. This observation underscores the relentless nature of their suffering, with each day bringing the possibility of worsening conditions rather than improvement. The mention of failed escape attempts and the hunting down of fugitives underscores the cruel reality faced by those who dared to seek freedom. It highlights the complicity of northerners who would assist in returning escaped slaves to their owners, perpetuating the system of slavery and its dehumanizing effects.