Class: The Slave Era

 

A slaves connection to a class during the slave era was completely subjective to whom the masters and mistresses were. Some slaves were completely written off as less-than-human and others were treated as members almost equal members of the house hold. In Jacobs "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl", you can see such an example. As a child she did not even know she was a slave. Her father was well respected and it was until he died that she even heard the ridicule of being a slave. As an adolescent she was treated with equal respect and to her the line between class was blurred.  She writes, "No toilsome or disagreeable duties were imposed upon me. My mistress was kind to me...". Unfortunately, this "blissfulness" was short lived. Her mistress died and she was sent off to a new Master. Her new master was degrading and violent. He called by horrible names and physically abused her. She called it, 'the atmosphere of hell'. 

Lydia Child has writes about a similar theme among classes. She illustrates in her story, The Quadroons, that people were ignorant about their ideas of class. Someone could be treated the same as any other person, but if they are found to be of a different race it changes the way they are viewed. Why did this make a difference? It was because blacks were viewed to be a lower class. As seen in The Quadroons someone's entire life, social status, and economic developments could be taken away due to the knowledge of being of black heritage surfacing. In summary, social class in the slave era was more subjective to who you lived under, and peoples knowledge of your past, than your actual skin color.