Incidents #2

    When we first got the book Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl, Ms. Edwards said there wouldn't be much emotion in the book because it was meant to inform rather than tell a story. Well, after reading chapter 9, I can disagree with this. All of chapter 9 is the stories of different slaves and how they were punished or even killed. The beginning of the chapter describes how a man was suspended off the ground. Then "A fire was kindled over him from which was suspended a piece of fat pork. As this cooked, the scalding drops of fat continually fell on the bare flesh"(46). Another example is a man who insulted his master and was then tied to tree in the middle of winter with only a shirt for three hours which killed him. Also, if a slave resisted punishment like whipping  the master would let his dogs eat them.
    She also says that slavery is a curse to whites as well as blacks. It makes the sons violent, the wives wretched, contaminates the daughters and makes the fathers cruel. Jacobs wrote "I do not say there are no humane slaveholders...but they are...few and far between"(50). After that is about a white girl who married a freeman and was emancipated by her mother right before the wedding.Her emancipating her daughter made one more example supporting how slavery has poisoned her.