Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) and Frederick Douglas (1817?-1895): Two Slave Perspectives of the Christmas Season and the “Southern” Christian Religion
...es. On hiring-day slaves were either leased to new masters or retained for an additional year. If a slave refused to go to his/her new master, he/she would be whipped or locked in jail. Immediately following the hiring transactions, the slaves to be sold were auctioned (II. 17). Jacobs tells a sorrowing account of seeing a mother and her seven children sold at an auction block and subsequently separated. In response to this act, Jacobs states: “Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly occurrence” (II. 18). Jacobs experience with “southern” Christianity reveals a very corrupt and hypocritical institution: Sermons were focused only on chastising and rebuking slaves for not being good enough slaves; Christian offices were for sell; Reverends preached one thing and did the opposite; the bible was sent to the heathen abroad, but not to the slaves at home; and married Pastors could have offspring by colored women without fear of reproach or resignation of office (II. 77-83). In addition, Jacobs speaks of the religious conversion of her master, Dr. James Norcom. Regarding her master’s conversion, Jacobs states: “I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after he was a communicant” (II. 83). This declaration will aid in corroborating Douglas’s emphatic statement: “I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me” (I. 1927). Douglas viewed the Christmas season as a time when the master employed schemes to deceive the slaves on the “joy of freedom.” The master’s intent was to sicken the slaves with freedom by letting them only see the abuse of it (I. 1927). This was accomplished by having contests to determine which slave could drink the most without getting drunk, which would invariably lead to everyone becoming intoxicated. Douglas says: “It was deemed a disgrace not to get drunk at Christmas…and he who worked during the holidays was considered by our masters as scarcely deserving them. He was regarded as one who rejected the favor of his master” (I. 1926). In the end, the master’s goal was accomplished if the slaves were as glad of the season’s ending as of its beginning. They would then be eager to resume work rather then continue in perpetual dissipation. Douglas’s views of the Christianity of the “south” parallels Jacobs’s. Like Jacobs, Douglas states how the religious conversion of his master (Captain Thomas Auld) “made him [his master] more cruel and hateful in all his ways” (I. 1916). Consequently, Captain Auld would use religion to justify his punishments on slaves. Douglas sites how he saw his master tie up and whip a female slave; and in the process of whipping her, his master would quote from scripture an adaptation of Luke 12:47: “He that knoweth his master’s will...