In many senses then, Jacobs’ “novelesque” autobiography gained both its authority and impact through the very aspect of gender and especially would have had this effect on women readers who were adherents to the principles underlying the cult of true womanhood with their dedication to piety, purity, being submissive to the wishes of their men, and the preoccupation with domesticity. This is especially prevalent with the cult of womanhood’s preoccupation with children as being the center of one’s life. The book begins with the narrator talking about her father, saying that “his strongest wish was to purchase his children” (Jacobs 12) which is an inconceivable notion to white women in the north. She also talks about her mother who “had been weaned at three months old, that the babe of the mistress might obtain sufficient food” (14). This preoccupation with mother’s milk is central, particularly in the beginning of the story and numerous accounts of mother’s being forced to share their milk or deprive their babies from it are present. For instance, Mr. Flint, as she notes, was known for locking away his servants from their nursing babies (23). It is not simply the male slaveholders who are depicted as cruel and completely out of line with the central tenants of the cult of domesticity. “Mrs. Flint, like many southern women, was totally deficient in energy. She had not the strength to superintend her household affairs; but her nerves were so strong, that she could sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash” (Jacobs 22). This same woman could see a dead baby and sneer at the mother, calling the dead child a “bastard” and being glad of the death. These more domestically-inclined details, coupled with the explicit sexual violations made a compelling case, not to mention highly uncomfortable reading for women of this period and of this particular mindset. This narrative, which relies on an emotional appeal to its, many of whom might have subscribed to all or most of the tenants of the cult of womanhood, is entirely persuasive, jarring, and most importantly, credible—both due to the prefaces and the intent.

It should be noted that the preface to Shakur’s autobiography, Assata, also contains some “verification” that is, in many senses, akin to that produced by Harriet Jacobs’ editor in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Instead of leaving it to the reader to simply trust the accounts of Assata in her narrative, this preface, which is written by a leading scholar on human and civil rights, both lays out the case that was brought against his subject and furthermore, immediately states the purpose of what the reader will encounter as, “Assata leads us all to understand more about the society we live in” (Hinds in Assata VI). Instead of just suggesting what the purpose of the text is and what historical events led up to the writing of the autobiography, Hinds goes to great lengths to both legitimize and prove (thus lending narrative authority to the rest of the text as it has been “verified” by an outside party) Assata’s assertations in her writing.

One of the footnotes that supports some of Hinds’ historical backgrounding is, “The information presented here is based on federal and state court records and files, FBI memoranda, secret service files, police records, and information in the media” (Hinds in Assata VIII). While this helps verify the information as historically accurate it serves the dual purposes of legitimizing her story through white authority. Just as in the case with the preface from Jacobs’ editor, the story cannot be told first without clear attempts at validating it with the white authority. Even though the historical circumstances are quite different than when Jacobs was writing, this same measure is being enacted, arguably for the same purposes. It suggests that without grounding in the sources and views of white power institutions (the FBI, the media, court records, etc.) it is rendered questionable. The purpose in Jacob’s editor’s comments was also to soothe over the possibility of offended sensibilities but again, there is the thread of legitimizing. Interestingly, both prefaces ended with a plea for the general benefit of humankind with the words, “make change together for the common good of the peoples of the world” (XIII).

Unlike in Jacobs’ far more gentle, easier-to-swallow narrative format that relies on a stylistic appeal to her white, genteel, northern female readers, Assata Shakur does not mince words. Since the women whom she is appealing to, who are quite likely those who already sympathize with her cause or are familiar with her movement, come from a different era of femininity, the tone and approach to narrative authority are radically different. She does not try to soften horrors—she emphasizes them for full effect. She does not change the words for the “indelicacies” that Jacobs’ editor was concerned with; she says them: rape, pigs, murder… She does not quietly condemn the institutions responsible for her enslavement in constant prisons or exile; she calls them for what she sees them to be, saying, “Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery” (Shakur 65). Her declarations are bold and are catering to a new understanding of womanhood that was beginning to emerge (and in some areas, had long-since emerged) that was all about free open expression and limitless gender equality. With this, she was free to assert, “I have declared war on all forces that have raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied. I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who life to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless robots who protect them and their property…. I am a Black revolutionary woman…[accused of] crimes in which only men were supposedly involved” (50). Interestingly, she still needed that credibility offered by her white-based power structure to begin this tirade which while establishing credibility and some degree of narrative authority, slightly diminishes the revolutionary call to arms that is present.

These texts both present women in historical disparate circumstances in terms of actual state of slavery—at least on the surface. While both are bound by the white system in their own respects, they both rely on this power structure to legitimize their struggle, even when those aspects of the white authority are expressed by those sympathetic to their causes and are working with them to spread their message about the nature of racial injustice. While the tones of the narratives change based on shifting senses of women, whether readers are liberated or idealize the domestic, the nature of the pleas of both pieces is not lost on any reader—regardless of feminist or anti-feminist stances.

Related Articles

Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects

Race Cycles Model and Racial Democracy

Race and Hypocrisy in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn