A Mother's Tears

Imagine not having any say when you worked, ate or slept. Imagine not being able to leave you "home" except for in chains. Picture yourself not being allowed to read and punished if you attempted to learn how. Think how you would feel if your "marriage" was deemed not legal and you were, by force, seperated from your spouse. Now, after all these above injustices imagine how a woman would feel if her children were kidnapped from her?

Any woman in the world would be devastated if she had her children taken from her. Yet, this is exactly what occurred in the institution of slavery. A female slave's children were the property of the slave owner. The owner could sell any of his slaves whenever her deemed fit. There wasn't any law that stated a mother and child must be sold together and, in fact, many of them weren't.

Therefore, it isn't surprising that female African American literature of this time focused on the outrage of the mother. It isn't seen by white female authors because they weren't faced with the tragically real possibility of losing their children. Every mother wishes to raise and love their children to the best of their abilities. The slave mother often wasn't given this chance and the literature of the time openly reflects this outrage at the lack humane justice.