Seduction or Rape:
Deconstructing the Black
Patricia D. Hopkins
Dr. Patricia D. Hopkins is an Assistant
Professor of English, specializing in African
American Literature, and Director of the
African American Studies Program at
Christopher Newport University
“The institutionalized rape of black women
has never been as powerful a symbol
of black oppression as the spectacle of
lynching”
Hazel Carby
“Though he had killed a black girl and a
white girl, he knew that it would be for the
death of the white girl that he would be
punished.The black girl was merely ‘
evidence’”
Richard Wright
4
Female Body in Harriet
Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life
of a Slave Girl
The lynching of black men and rape
(whether real or imagined) of white women
thoroughly overshadow the violence black
women endured within the discourse on vio-
lence and the body. Consequently, the violated
black female body is only traditionally discussed
in reference to the aforementioned two icons:
either the lynched black male body or raped
white female body. As a result of this overshad-
owing, the violated black female body is ren-
dered to be not as important within the dis-
course on violence as her white female or black
male counterparts. Equally important, in the
wake of this continued silence it is prudent to
explore how the history of race, class, and gen-
der inequality in America has affected the way
some feminist, cultural, historical, political, and
theoretical scholars talk about the violated body,
yet continue to omit the black female body as
anything other than evidence in their discourse
on violence and the body. By looking at the pre-
carious plight of protagonist Linda Brent in
Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave
Girl: Written By Herself, it is evident that the
subject of the violated black female body and
her plight can be added to that of the violated
white female and black male bodies. In Hine
Sight, historian Darlene Clark Hine suggests that
one “of the most remarked upon but least ana-
lyzed themes in the history of southern black
women deals with black women’s sexual vulner-
ability and powerlessness as victims of rape and
domestic violence” (37). The reason for this
may be that when sexual exploitation is dis-
cussed, the images of the virtuous white female
victim or the tortured lynched black male body
overshadow that of the black female body in
discourse, which gives voice to cultural theorist
Sabine Sielke’s assertions that there are still
silences in regards to this issue: “Post-modern
fiction also recognizes that now that rape can be
spoken, its cultural significance and function
are being equivocated and displaced in turn.
And while old silences may have been broken,
new ones have taken shape in their stead”
(Sielke 10). Sielke is quite right; there are still
silences that need to be broken in regards to
this issue. For many scholars still, the violated
body means either the rape of the white female
body or the lynching of the black male body.
Historian and scholar Catherine Clinton
asserts, “[d]espite the incontrovertible evidence
that only a small fraction of rapes are interra-
cial, race continues to inflame the issue and to
obscure the fact that African-American women
are represented in rape statistics in dangerously
disproportionate numbers. In America today, a
black woman is six times more likely to be
raped than a white woman” (206); however,
like many others, Clinton uses this statistic, not
to move forward the discussion concerning the
violated black female body, but rather, to assert
that black men are not raping white women – a
legacy that followed black men out of American
slavery. Further, Darlene Clark Hine adds to this
legacy of slavery and racism in A Shining
Thread of Hope. Hine purports that the lynching
of black men “thoroughly overshadowed the
violence black women endured. They too were
lynched, though in smaller numbers. In addi-
tion, because they were women, they were
raped, beaten, and killed in the thousands by
men. And the men who committed this violence
against them were both white and black” (302).
Both Clinton and Hine give sound support that
black women are raped and lynched, but like
others, they fail to move beyond the evidentiary
stage. In order to challenge what Ida B. Wells-
5
Barnett contends is “that threadbare lie” that
lynching was only used for the purpose of pro-
tecting white female virtue,1 one needs only to
consider that black women were also lynched.
The fact that black women were also lynched is
the evidence that refutes lynching was only used
for that “one crime” which no black man could
defend against – the rape of a white woman.
Equally important, to further challenge the
“myth of the black man as rapist” one need only
to consider Clinton’s aforementioned statistic
concerning interracial rape, which political
activist, Angela Y. Davis also articulates: “over
90 percent of all rapes are intrarcial rather than
interracial” (Women, Culture and Politics 43).
Here, it is a little tricky: the black female body is
used as evidence, while at the same time she is
rendered invisible; for this statistic is not so
much about black women being raped as it is
about black men not raping white women,
which makes it more powerful, for the violated
black female body is virtually omitted.
Nevertheless, for scholars to suggest that the
black female body has been raped, like her
white female counterpart, or lynched, like her
black male counterpart, is not going far enough.
Surely, the black female body can be moved
beyond mere evidence and join the discourse
on violence done to the body in her own right.
With respect to race and class scholar Albert H.
Tricomi’s informative article, “Harriet Jacobs’s
Autobiography and the Voice of Lydia Maria
Child,” where he questions how much authority
Jacobs had over the telling of her own story and
thus rejects the descriptive plight of the black
female protagonist as the mere fantasy of a
white woman; nevertheless, I contend that
Jacobs’s, nineteenth-century text, Incidents, is
paramount for exploring the violated black
female body.
Feminist and racial theory critic Saidiya
Hartman, in critiquing Harriet Jacobs’
Incidents, suggests that “[t]he seduction enact-
ed in [ Jacobs’ ] ‘A Perilous Passage’ recounts
the slave girl’s ‘fall from virtue’ in order to
recontextualize virtue within the economy of
slavery and trouble distinctions between the vir-
tuous and the fallen” (105). Jacobs’ “A Perilous
passage” does call for a redefinition of “virtue”
for the enslaved black woman, but in so doing,
it suggests a redefinition of “victim” too. The
concept of enticement is problematic in the
power dynamic of American slavery.
“Enticement” during slavery may be akin to
enticement as portrayed in the case of the
ancient Roman heroine, Lucretia in “Lucretia
Raped!” and the way Etruscan King Sextus
Tarquin entices her,2 which is depicted as a no-
win situation: her physical body is threatened at
knife point (or sword point), she is emotionally
abused, and her honor is threatened; facing this
trifecta, she acquiesces. How different is
Incidents’ enslaved female, Linda Brent, at the
hands of her slavemaster Dr. Flint or Northern
merchant, Mr. Sands, than noblewoman
Lucretia, at the hands of King Tarquin? The real-
ity is that in the commodity of American slavery,
the black female body did not matter, except for
reproduction, which swelled the numbers of the
slave population and the pockets of slave mas-
ters as well as Northerners who may have been
third party profiteers off the slave trade and its
labor. The latter is most disturbing for it frees
slave-masters, and all white men, from culpabil-
ity in the crime of rape and buys into the prem-
ise that the black female body does not matter.
Also troubling is that not only does the
enticement reading assent to the stereotype of
the image of the lascivious black woman, but it
substantiates the fears of white women who felt
their husbands were being ensnared or
entrapped by the sexual appetites of their
enslaved females. What is important here is that
Lucretia’s plight is never deconstructed to
reflect enticement or seduction. She is the vic-
tim of rape, whose violation affected her sensi-
bilities to such an extent that she was driven to
take her own life, which is the tragic story of
rape. Sielke insightfully points out that the sexu-
ally victimized black woman falls outside the
tragic rape trope: “These texts3 cast both white
and black femininity in terms of property rela-
6
tions and physical violation. The crucial differ-
ence is that only black womanhood seems
immune to such violation. Her injuries become
negligible, and her rape finds no retribution.
Black femaleness, as [Saidiya] Hartman puts it,
is engendered ‘as a condition of unredressed
injury’” (Sielke 27). Why is Lucretia read as a
heroine and Brent a seductress? If something
needs to be deconstructed it is that tragic story.
The tragic story of rape needs to be less exclu-
sive and formulaic.
In addition, the tragic rape story needs
to be deconstructed to consider the precarious
position of black females in America. This dubi-
ous position can be studied further by looking
at Houston A. Baker’s Working the Spirit:
Baker asserts:
A standard feature of abolitionist meet-
ings . . . was what one commentator
calls the “Negro exhibit.” During this
portion of the meeting, the fugitive
slave silently exposed his naked back
to the audience displaying the wounds
and scars evident there. This unveiling
proved to be a powerful moral suasion
in the cause against slavery as Northern
sympathizers got to see firsthand, the
injustices perpetrated upon the bodies
of African American people. (13-14)
This “powerful moral suasion,” as Baker calls
it, is not inclusive, for it does not show the scars
of rape and sexual abuse. Granted, one might
see the product of a rape, like Frederick
Douglass, who purports that his slave master
was also his father; however, his dismissive
silence on his paternity suggests he considers
the act, which resulted in his birth, to be rape.
Nevertheless, for many scholars, the scars left by
the whip or the lynch rope appear to be the
only scars that bear witness to the “injustices…
being perpetrated upon the bodies of African
American people.” For example, Carol E.
Henderson, a Black American Studies scholar,
notes in Scarring the Black Body: Race and
Representation in African-American
Literature, “The egregious manner in which
this slave [Old Daniel]4 was treated underscores
the utility of the slave body/flesh as the vehicle
by which and through which this slave master’s
power is publicly displayed” (37). So where
does that leave the enslaved black female and
her scars?
Why is the enslaved woman’s womb not
seen as “a vehicle by which and through which
[a] slave master’s power is publicly displayed”?
(Henderson 37). What is the difference between
the image of the violated black male body and
that of his female counterpart? The difference
betwixt the two scarred images is that we do not
speak on the latter publicly. How can a slave
master talk about, much less justify, the rape
and miscegenation inflicted upon the black
female body even in what Kenneth Stampp calls
the “peculiar institution” of American slavery?
When people, both white and black, saw the
scarred back, or lynched body, of a black male
they might wonder what he did, which suggests
some type of justification on the part of the
dominant society. Old Daniel’s slave master, for
example, justified his sadistic act, which he
called discipline/punishment, because Daniel
moved too slowly. It did not matter that he was
physically crippled, just that he did not work
fast enough. No matter how egregious, there
appears a reason, a cause and effect when it
comes to the black male body, but what about
enslaved women? For instance when people,
both white and black, saw a black woman with
a mixed-race baby, their gaze shifted slightly,
just enough so the scar of miscegenation no
longer tainted their eyes and sensibilities. The
important difference is that not once, would
either group speculate about what her crime
may have been. What was the crime that justi-
fied her sexual violation? I contend that
although both scenes illustrate power over
black bodies, one we recognize, but the other
we deconstruct and give new names, like entice-
ment, seduction.
7
It has further been suggested that “the dis-
course of seduction obfuscates the primacy and
extremity of violence in the master-slave rela-
tions and in the construction of the slave as
both property and person” (Hartman 81). It is
important to note that Hartman is not suggesting
enslaved women were not raped; instead she is
suggesting that a reading of Jacobs’ “A Perilous
Passage” would “render a more complex vision
of power and the possible and circumscribed
terms of agency by refusing to pose the question
of desire in terms of compulsion versus unhin-
dered choice” (104). I absolutely agree – once
we establish the discourse that acknowledges
the rape, which articulates black female bodies
do matter, and matter beyond the evidentiary
state that suggests the rape of the black female
body is only important when discussing the
emasculation of black men. Some have argued
that the sexual violence perpetrated upon the
black female body had little to do with power
and control over her body, but rather power
and control over the black male body, its true
victim. Historian Catherine Clinton acknowl-
edges the plight of black men while not negating
the plight of black women by bringing the focus
back onto the female body in “‘With a Whip in
His Hand’: Rape, Memory, and African-American
Women,” when she asserts: “Slaves saw rape as
part of a continuum of humiliation, coercion,
and abuse. Although each and every slave might
not have been subjected to assaults, all slaves
were brutalized by indignities and felt the shame
and dishonor the system fostered. Women bore
the brunt” (210). It is time, however, to extrap-
olate the violence done to the black female body
from that done to the black male body and dis-
cuss her in her own right. In nineteenth-century
America, the question of compulsion versus
unhindered choice is paramount when dis-
cussing Incidents’ protagonist Linda Brent, for
Jacobs’ text is replete with complex questions
such as: What power did Brent really have and
what choice did she really make?
Scholar Albert Tricomi suggests Jacobs
does not make any choice, rather, her editor,
Lydia Maria Child holds that power. As evidence,
he shows Harriet Jacobs lamenting in a letter to
Amy Post: “I [Jacobs] ought to have been there
that we [she and Child] could have consulted
together, and compared our views – although I
know that hers are superior to mine yet we
could have worked her great Ideas and my
small ones together” (Tricomi 241). Tricomi’s
reading focuses on the white female body, Child,
while negating the black female body, Jacobs.
Consequently, Tricomi argues Jacobs makes no
choice. Nevertheless, acknowledging the ten-
sions between editor and author, as well as the
hierarchy of White and Black, choices were
made, no matter how calculating. Jacobs chose
to go ahead with Child at the helm, and success-
fully tells a black woman’s story of physical
bondage, sexual violation, motherhood, and a
woman’s pursuit of freedom. Although I readily
see Jacobs’ choice in how her story will be told,
remember that she could have just walked away.
The idea of Brent’s “choice” in Mr. Sands is
more problematic. Within the story, Brent con-
tends that to become sexually involved with
Sands was her “choice.” However, the “opportu-
nity for nonconsent is required to establish con-
sent, for consent is meaningless if refusal is not
an option” (Hartman 111). Brent’s “choice” of
Sands, therefore, “cannot be differentiated from
the indiscriminate use of her body by Flint”
(Hartman 111), which is American slavery’s
edict that black bodies do not matter. So
although many argue for a reading of Jacobs’
autobiography as sexually empowering, or as in
the case of Tricomi, a romantic fantasy of sexual
oppression from the mind of Child, like Jacobs
herself, such readings may be misleading and
focus too much on white bodies.
Reading Jacobs’ “A Perilous Passage”
against Hartman’s seduction discourse, I read
Linda Brent’s actions,—sexual intercourse with
Northern, businessman, Mr. Sands,—not as
resulting from “desire” or “compulsion,” but
rather as a desperate act, for, in her eyes, her
life, and the lives of her unborn children were
held in the balance. Brent’s life depended on
8
her action, which is oxymoronic since the very
act of enslavement suggests a slave is passive,
not active. Sands, however, would not be the
knight who rescued the damsel Brent. Here
black women are presented as no different from
their white counterparts, both want to be res-
cued and their virtue protected. Just as Brent
proves to be a product of her gender with her
fairytale fantasies of chivalry, Sands also proves
to be the product of his gender, race and class.
Though a Northerner, Sands’ is nevertheless,
part of the patriarchal system that perpetuates
the enslavement of blacks and the sexual
exploitation of black women. His behavior sug-
gests that he shared the Southerner’s contention
that black bodies had but two reasons for their
existence: to produce work and babies. First,
Sands does not free Linda Brent’s brother,
William, whom he purchases at the same time
as his children with Brent, Benny and Ellen
(107). Instead, Sands keeps William as his ser-
vant, saying: “William had proved a most faithful
servant” (133). Sands utilizes William’s labor
without financial recompense and here he is no
different than Flint – profiting off of the labor of
the enslaved black body. Second, instead of giv-
ing his daughter, Ellen, her freedom, he gives
her to his cousin as a gift: “My cousin, Mr.
Sands, has given her to me to be my little wait-
ing maid” (142), again how similar to Flint.
Thus, because Sands shows himself untrustwor-
thy when he does not keep his promise to free
Jacobs’ children and brother, she signals that he
in fact, is a character not be trusted, like Flint.
She further demonstrates this with the case of
her brother’s escape from Sands. Brent’s broth-
er, William, does not put his trust in Sands.
When Sands asserts: “I intended to give him his
freedom in five years. He might have trusted
me” (136); it is evident that William does not
trust in Sands or the system of slavery since this
is said after his escape. This level of knowing
comes late to Linda Brent; however, it is made
evident as the ship she is on approaches
Philadelphia. The ship’s captain is sorry to see
that she is still suspicious of him after ten days
onboard his boat and considering that he has
brought her safely to her destination. Brent
responds to the captain’s sorrow: “Ah, if he had
ever been a slave he would have known how dif-
ficult it was to trust a white man” (158), which
signals that she also no longer trusts Sands. As
Catherine Clinton astutely questions, “Is the suit-
or who allows Jacobs to be seduced into think-
ing she might free herself and any subsequent
children any less brutal than her master who
relentlessly pursues her?… The deals were one
sided, the risks higher, the lottery rigged. Yet
slavewomen gambled, driven by desperation”
(210). For this reason, a re-reading of Sands’
character suggests on some level a sexual pred-
ator who preys on innocent victims. The tradi-
tional reading of Sands’ character suggests that
he first acts without fear of social or legal retri-
bution, and second, he is just one of the many
who understands that because of patriarchal
hierarchy coupled with American slavery, black
bodies do not matter and black female bodies
matter even less, rendering them invisible, and
what happens to them inconsequential.
Therefore, it is not surprising that Sands is not
held accountable by nineteen-century America
for what he does to a black female body; but
what about now? Today’s reading should hold
Sands accountable and thus see him through the
lens of sexual predator. This psychoanalytic
reading of Sands’ character – which I will
explore in greater detail later – not only places
the responsibility for the sexual manipulation,
or “seduction,” solely at his feet, it also returns
to him full culpability for the crime of rape.
In addition, this reading also questions
whether Brent’s “consent” negates rape?
Theorist Mieke Bal notes, “Lucretia’s act [her
acquiescence to Tarquin] does not detract from
the significance of the rape but is part of her
position as victim, thus emphasizing the perpe-
trator’s responsibility” (143), which should also
apply to Linda Brent’s acquiescence to Sands,
but does not. Why must we continue reading the
black female body outside that of the white
female body and its discourse around sexual
9
violence? Considering the power dichotomy set
up in American slavery and given the fact that
the enslaved woman had little to no control over
that private space at the meeting of her thighs—
not only in reference to “choosing” who could
invade this space, but also who could not—how
can Brent’s relationship with Sands be read as
anything other than rape? Nineteenth-century
America appears unified along one line, which
runs from South to North: blacks, free or
enslaved, have no rights that whites must
respect. Sociologist, Patricia Hill Collins argues
in Black Sexual Politics: African Americans,
Gender, and the New Racism:
Black women were the ‘private’ prop-
erty of their masters and, as such,
enjoyed the ‘protections’ afforded pri-
vate property in the United States. . .
[After Emancipation, no] longer the
property of a few White men, African
American women became sexually
available to all White men. As free
women who belonged to nobody
except themselves and in a climate of
violence that meted out severe conse-
quences for either defending them-
selves or soliciting Black male protec-
tion, Black women could be raped.
(65)
Here Collins suggests that as slaves, black
female bodies did matter and were protected,
which is misleading on many levels: first, it sug-
gests that under slavery black women’s virtue
had value and was protected, like her white
female counterparts. Second, it shows that the
social status of black women changed after
emancipation: her vulnerability and that of her
black male protectors only come into play with
their freedom and loss of white protection,
which the discourse on American slavery does
not support. Enslaved black women had no
more choice over her reproductive space or
access to legal recourse if that space was invad-
ed against her will than her emancipated sister.
Historian Catherine Clinton would also suggest
that the history of black American racism and
persecution would render suspect notions of
power and choice for enslaved females: “The
sexual coercion of black women by white men
requires massive inquiry and renewed research
efforts. Under slavery no legal recourse protect-
ed slave women. Whites practice the school
teacher’s maxim from Beloved that ‘definition
belonged to the definers’” (Clinton 210). The
idea of white protection for the enslaved was a
patriarchal illusion held in place by those who
either did not want to see whites as perpetrators
or blacks as victims. Feminist scholar, Mary
Vermillion, in “Reembodying the Self,” argues
that through Brent’s actions Jacobs is “striking a
blow against the racist stereotype of the black
woman as sexually exploited victim” (247),
which is important; however, we first must
establish the discourse that articulates that
black female bodies matter—and that has yet to
be done.
Nevertheless, I do not want to take away
from the dynamic action taken by Brent in re-
claiming her own sexuality, which is how her
relationship with Sands is usually read by recla-
mation theorists. Reclamation theorists argue
that since Brent does not have a choice–her
slave master, Dr. Flint will not let her be with the
free black carpenter whom she loves—then her
only choice, to free herself from her sexually
abusive slave master, is through the power of
another white man, Sands. My question to recla-
mation theorists is: If you do not really have a
choice, an “unhinderd choice” as Hartman
would suggest, then can one say that you have
made any choice? Brent’s only hope for free-
dom, then, is by the hands of another white
man, so is Sands really a choice? Sielke notes
that Brent “achieves control over her body only
by giving it, if not voluntarily, then with ‘deliber-
ate calculation’… to someone other than
Flint… Challenging Flint’s authority, this move
utilizes the common hypocritical morality as
well as male rivalry (which never gets played
out in the text). By having Brent’s lover, Sands
10
triumphs over Flint” (23). But male rivalry is
not played out in the text because there is none.
Flint and Sands are not rivals for Brent. They
could both have her, at the same time even, and
no law would prevent it, for she is an enslaved
black female and her virtue does not fall under
social or legal protection. Thus, like Lucretia,
Brent’s acquiesce does not eradicate rape as an
option; rather, it might mean that she does not
have the authority or power to say “no.” When
academic scholars eradicate rape as an option
in Incidents, they render Jacobs’ history of
female sexual oppression inconsequential.
Tricomi purports that the reason “most
readers today perceive… [Jacobs’] autobiogra-
phy – as a personal history of female sexual
oppression and maternal longing – is, in part,
the result of Child’s editing” (244). Child’s
melodramatic treatment of Jacobs’s story,
according to Tricomi, lends itself to the roman-
tic. Child “foregrounded those melodramatic
and sentimental parts illustrating the destruction
of families and especially the sexual victimiza-
tion of girls and women under slavery” (Tricomi
219). Historian, John Blassingame cited in
Tricomi’s “Harriet Jacobs’s Autobiography and
the Voice of Lydia Maria Child,” goes even fur-
ther, by asserting that “a Harriet Jacobs might
have existed… the book’s [Incidents] author
[however,] was Lydia Maria Child” (226).
Tricomi and Blassingame, in some ways are
doing to Jacobs the same thing they accuse
Child of doing, rendering her invisible. They
seem so distracted by Child, the epitome of
white womanhood, at the cost of Jacobs, and
her black female body. In another letter to Amy
Post, Jacobs “reaffirms that the book ‘truly is’
her story but expresses her trepidation that this
truth is now in jeopardy” (Tricomi 237). What
both Tricomi and Blassingame fail to realize is
that regardless of who is in control of the way
the story is told, Jacobs’ story is nevertheless a
black woman’s story of physical bondage, sexual
violation, motherhood, and a woman’s pursuit
of freedom.
 In addition, Jacobs’ story is one of silence
and voice. On the one hand, Jacobs gives voice
to the sexually victimized enslaved woman of
nineteenth-century America, which transcends
to the sexually victimized woman. Jacobs is nev-
ertheless silent about naming the sexual crime
she suffers at the hands of her slave-master,
Flint, which is not surprising in the climate of
American slavery, where the very dynamics of
slavery suggests black bodies do not matter. “A
Perilous Passage” has been read as a celebra-
tion of one enslaved girl who triumphs over her
slave-master and remains “virtuous,” in regard
to him, to death. Yet, Jacobs proffers to her
audience: “Tell them it is sinful to sell their own
children, and atrocious to violate [emphasis
mine] their own daughters” (Incidents 73).
Still further, Brent bemoans the plight of “young
girls dragged down into moral filth” (Incidents
74). That being the case, my reading of “A
Perilous Passage” suggests that the role silence
plays in the movement of the narration indicates
that Brent, like many enslaved black females
before her and many black women after her, fell
victim to the silent crime of rape. Black
American Studies scholar, Carol E. Henderson
comments:
The writings of anti-slavery women fre-
quently project the sexual anxieties of
white women onto the sexualized bod-
ies of black slave women. To tell their
stories, women like Jacobs had to
negotiate these cultural land mines by
reinventing the space from which they
spoke. Specifically, Jacobs rewrote the
plot that, by design, objectifies black
female sexuality under the pretense of
white male desire by “romanticizing”
the sexuality of the tragic mulatta. This
literary convention renders the black
female subject mute, unable to express
her unwillingness to participate in
these private acts of seduction, or even
perhaps rape. (50-51)
11
For Henderson then, Jacobs’ silence was not
only calculated, but encoded. “Jacobs’s public
conversations about the reality of slave life for
black women, although coded so as not to
offend her middle-class constituents, offer a
larger space for the discursive mediation on the
wounded body” (Henderson 51). In addition,
for Henderson, there appears to be a question
of rape, which is extremely important, for if we
accept Brent’s participation in the seduction act
with Sands, we are left with the question of the
“unwillingness” of slave women to participate in
such acts. Further, although Sielke is adamant
that “[r]einterpreting Brent’s confession as a
tale of seduction, Mrs. Flint apparently does not
question her husband’s involvement with Brent
yet casts the latter as the complicit, driving force
of the liaison, as the agent of her husband’s
downfall” (27). Sielke specifically, and seduc-
tionist theorists in general, do not seem to see
that they are doing the exact same thing in the
case of Sands. It is apparent that they do not
seem to question Sands’ involvement with Brent.
Until recently, sexual intercourse, whether
forced or otherwise,5 has traditionally been an
act committed without the privy of witnesses.
The crime of rape, therefore, has remained an
act with just two witnesses: the rapist and the
victim. Flint, although having every legal right as
the master of Brent, to engage in any sexual act
of his choosing, at any time, is nevertheless
bound by social and cultural constraints, which
dictate that the act of sex should not be wit-
nessed, for even though black bodies do not
matter—white bodies do; and therefore, he
must purport himself from within the confines
of his cultural dynamics. Flint’s refrain from rav-
ishing Brent, if you will, at the drop of a hat, or
rise of his penis, according to some scholars,
must also be attributed to the social mores of
the day,6 as opposed to any self-control on his
part. Again, historian Catherine Clinton insight-
fully adds: “We need to integrate sexual abuse
as a by-product of slavery, not aberrant behavior
or ‘abuse’ of the system… [e]stablishing the
fact of these relations in no way implies
women’s complicity” (208). Although many
slave-masters, as well as other white men, fre-
quently used enslaved females sexually, they
would draw the line at considering it sexual
desire. No white male, some would have us
believe, would desire, sexually or otherwise, a
black female, much less an enslaved one. These
social constraints, however, do not eradicate the
act of rape for enslaved females; they just con-
fine it to closed doors and darkened rooms, the
high grass around the fields, or any other silent,
dark, space of no witnesses, a private space.
“Within the Old South, I [Catherine Clinton]
argue, the refinement of patriarchy resulted in a
system of ’penarchy’ – a system whereby the
males of the elite use sexual terrorism to con-
trol women of all classes and races, as well as
men within the subordinate classes” (Clinton
208). In light of Clinton’s definition of “penar-
chy,” “[r]ape can be viewed as a means of
social control for women in both the empow-
ered and subordinate groups within the Old
South” (Clinton 208). Therefore, unlike the
seductionist’s deconstructionist claims of entice-
ment and desire, patriarchy, or Clinton’s penar-
chy, has little to do with desire and more to do
with control, control in both public and private
spaces.
Building on the idea of private space, I
wish to explore why Flint builds a house outside
of town, which he contends will be for Brent. It
has been suggested, that while buying into the
trope of the lascivious black woman, Flint, in
deciding that Brent could not obviously be
rejecting his sexual advances because she does
not desire him sexually,7 jumps to a false con-
clusion: that she will feel free to yield to her nat-
ural sexual urges in a more private space. I
contend, however, like rape, this has little to do
with the victim and more to do with the perpe-
trator. Flint is so indoctrinated in American slav-
ery’s concept that black bodies do not matter,8
which means their feelings do not matter as
well; it is quite evident that he builds that home
for himself, and not Brent. The misnomer here
is that Flint concludes Brent, obviously desiring
12
him sexually, must therefore be concerned with
being “seen” engaging in a private act. “Dr. Flint
contrived a new plan. He seemed to have an
idea that my fear of my mistress was his greatest
obstacle… [H]e told me that he was going to
build a small house for me, in a secluded place,
four miles from the town” (Incidents 53). Here
again, I would like to suggest that white bodies
matter and is the catalyst for the move to a “pri-
vate space”—Flint’s wife and town’s people are
being limited here, they matter, not Brent or any
other black body for that matter. Flint’s society
would suggest that he did not have to be con-
cerned about Brent, a slave. “Women of their
own class are judged by the dominant males by
one system of standards and those of the subor-
dinate group by another” (Clinton 208). Brent’s
response is poignant here because it illustrates
that she is aware of the dangers of “private
space” for the enslaved female, the space of no
witnesses. “I shuddered… Hitherto, I had
escaped my dreaded fate, by being in the midst
of my people” (Incidents 53). In today’s self-
defense classes women are told that in the case
of a physical attack; never let the attacker take
you to a secluded place. The attacker might
even say that he just wants to rob you of valu-
ables, but will not hurt you, just come with him
into a dark alley, abandoned building, his car,
woods, etc. Instructors tell students that if rob-
bery was the only crime intended it could take
place at the site they were accosted. The desire
for the attacker to remove his victim to a “pri-
vate space” is, at the very least, to commit the
crime of rape. If black female bodies truly do
not matter, why the seclusion, the need for “pri-
vate space”?—I profess, it is because white
bodies matter and that is what Flint wishes to
protect. It is important to note here that
although white men judged white women and
black women, whether slave or free, differently,
Brent’s text supports that white women did not.
White women held black women to the same
standard – that of the Cult-of-True-Womanhood,
which asserted that womanly virtue resided in
piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. For
that reason, Brent, though a slave, resists.
Brent knew instinctively that she must
keep Flint from taking her into that private
space: “When my master said he was going to
build a house for me, and that he could do it
with little trouble and expense, I was in hopes
something would happen to frustrate his
scheme; but I soon heard that the house was
actually begun. I vowed before my Maker that I
would never enter it” (Incidents 53). Brent
knows that white bodies matter; and therefore,
needs to keep Flint in a “public space” in an
attempt to keep his lechery in check; but how
has she acquired this “instinctual” knowledge?
Alfred C. Kinsey, an American sex expert
cited in Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will,
theorized: “It is difficult to understand why a
child, except for its cultural conditioning,
should be disturbed by having its genitalia
touched, or disturbed by seeing the genitalia of
another person… the emotional reactions of
the parents, police and other adults… may dis-
turb the child more seriously than the contacts
themselves” (Brownmiller 306-7). Although this
is disturbing on many levels, which Kinsey might
contribute to my conditioning, Kinsey’s analysis
would suggest that Brent’s reactions to Flint’s
sexual advances and the building of the seclud-
ed cabin have more to do with her place within
her community as well as her culture. To that
end, Brent concedes that “there was consider-
able gossip in the neighborhood about our
affairs” (Incidents 53). The suggestion here is
that in this very small, close-knit town, as
oppose to wide-open rural spaces, privacy is
extremely limited and everyone knows your
business—there is little room for anonymity.
Consequently, Brent seems more upset by the
prospect of what the community—her
Grandmother and Mrs. Flint—will think of her
character, as opposed to the act of sex itself.
Hence, it is worth taking another look at the
“Lurcretia Raped!” story, where we are told that
“she [Lucretia] could not bear to live with her
honor disgraced.” It is Lucretia’s honor and
character which seems irretrievably destroyed
13
and leads to her demise. Like Lucretia, Brent
seems more concerned with her honor and
character, than her physical body. Brent appears
more concerned with how she will be perceived
in lieu of the gossip, by the women in the com-
munity and since she names both her
Grandmother and Mrs. Flint, I surmise it is both
groups she is concerned about, white and black
women. Could this be because even at this
young age, Brent is aware of the fact that
although the black female body does not really
matter in the great-chain-of-being, it is never-
theless held to the same standards of white
female purity by the collective sisterhood within
the Cult-of-True-Womanhood, which is why she
focuses instead on her character being acted
upon rather than her body being acted upon.
I concede that in some ways, then, it is not
what is done to the black female body that has
Brent upset, but what will be made of/done to
her character, which gives her pause.
Remember, Lucretia only yields to Tarquin when
she realizes that he will malign her reputation
by having her dead body found naked next to a
slave. Tarquin “threatened to disgrace her,
declaring that he would lay the naked corpse of
the slave by her dead body, so that it might be
said that she had been slain in foul adultery. By
this awful threat, his lust triumphed over her
inflexible chastity” (“Lucretia Raped!”). That
being said, does Brent’s passionate plea to her
white reader contradict this premise by suggest-
ing black females and their virtue matter when
she says, “You never exhausted your ingenuity in
avoiding the snares, and eluding the power of a
hated tyrant; you never shuddered at the sound
of his footsteps, and trembled within hearing of
his voice” (Incidents 55). I do not think so;
though two things are happening here: first,
obviously, Jacobs is suggesting that Brent is hav-
ing a visceral reaction to Flint and his sexual
advances, even though she is a child. In addi-
tion, Jacobs is stepping off the page to admon-
ish that the “white sisterhood” could never
understand Brent’s plight for they have never
lived in this world—a world where their virtue,
their white female body does not matter.
Although white women are being asked to listen,
they are not being expected to understand,
relate.
Now back to Kinsey’s question, why might
a child, the epitome of innocence, find “geni-
talia touching” and the “natural” act of sexual
intercourse troubling? According to Brent: the
“influences of slavery had the same affect on me
that they had on other young girls; they had
made me prematurely knowing, concerning the
evil ways of the world” (Incidents 54). Two
points are suggested here: the abuses inculcated
in the rubric of nineteenth-century American
slavery extrapolate “innocence” from the
enslaved child, thereby rendering the construct
enslaved and innocent-child an oxymoron. It is
evident that the very act of being enslaved robs
Brent of her “innocence” long before any penis
robs her vagina of its intact hymen. Brent’s
comment posits a second dynamic: what is
meant by “evil ways of the world”? It is this lat-
ter component to which Kinsey may be refer-
ring--the influence of culture, society. Both
points draw one conclusion, however, which is
rarely explored—violated black female bodies
are rendered invisible, forcing them to remain
outside the discourse on violence and the body
in general and sexual violence to the female
body, specifically.
The influence of culture, Brent’s commu-
nity, can be seen when she makes the leap that
sexual intercourse, sexuality itself, is intrinsical-
ly evil, negative. When Flint approaches Brent
with lewd conversation, she charges him with
“pollut[ing her] mind with foul images, [fur-
ther, she accuses him of trying] to destroy the
pure principles inculcated by [her] grandmoth-
er” (Incidents 54). What is important here is
that value is being placed on the sexual act and
not the body being acted upon—the corruption
of her mind and moral values, not her physical
body. Brent, moreover, laments that she tried to
“keep [herself] pure; and… preserve [her]
self-respect” (Incidents 54). Once again the
focus is on the abstract and not the physical,
14
black female body. In addition, the binary—
white and black, good and evil—is set up here,
and clearly the dichotomy of virtue and sex can
be seen, with virtue being both white and good,
and sex, outside of marriage, being intrinsically
black and evil, though re-stating the omission of
the black body. Nevertheless, I agree with Kinsey
that this binary line of reasoning is truly cultivat-
ed by Brent’s culture and society. The idea that
the natural act of sexual intercourse, or the
“touching of genitalia” as Kinsey suggests, can
be seen by some as impure and evil is inextrica-
bly combined with the culture in which one
lives; it is also, I maintain, patriarchally or
penarchally-derived.
The insistence of protecting white woman-
hood at all costs created this male-derived
notion that sexuality, sexual intercourse, is by
nature bad and evil. But what it has also done is
purport that white female bodies matter—even
if the reason they matter is suspect, which leads
to the myth of the virtuous white woman. This
myth had ramifications that are still being felt
today: on one hand, white women need to be
protected (even from themselves); on the other
hand, black men had to be prevented from hav-
ing access to white women (even if they have to
die a tortuous death to ensure their assent); and
lastly, because there are only two hands, black
women get overshadowed again. The myth of
the virtuous white woman gave birth to the myth
of the black man as rapist, with both myths
being patriarchally held in place; subsequently,
both myths are so intrinsically combined that
they render black women invisible. Scholar
Catherine Clinton also speaks to these myths:
“The myth of the virtuous woman not only legiti-
mated the lynchings [of black men] but also
served to solidify the relations between white
men and white women: protection was traded
for white women’s acquiescence to their status”
(Clinton 321). This applies, however, only to the
white women who these mores were intended to
protect. In consequence, black female bodies
(and their virtue) did not matter. The ideology
was not only to keep the white woman “pure”
for marriage but also to insure that she remain
virtuous to her husband after marriage, to keep
her body pure and for her husband’s use
only—translation: the white female body mat-
ters. The sexual constraints placed on white
women would, as Brent’s case suggests, tran-
scend to include black women only in the
minds of the collective sisterhood. The problem
is how can this premise transcend to include
black women when the black female body does
not really matter? So, although men’s images
are not tarnished by pre-marital or extra-marital
affairs, due to the fact that the very idea of sexu-
ality being bad and evil is male derived to keep
women in their place – under men, the con-
tention here is that the backlash against white
female promiscuity is because their bodies mat-
ter. “But of course the myth of virtuous woman-
hood did not extend to black women. Their sta-
tus as promiscuous women justified their rape
by white men, increasing white men’s property
during slavery and further humiliating not only
black women but also black men” (Clinton
321). Although Brent’s narrative is clear that the
rules do not apply to the black female; never-
theless, she is expected to uphold its rules.
While Tricomi argues that Brent’s hesitation in
telling her story is due to Child’s construction of
a melodramatic narrative, I assert the many
silences suggests, on some level, that black
women are being held to these rules – if only by
the collective sisterhood, which Brent purports
is unfair.
The complex issue of white male empow-
erment over female bodies can be further
explored by looking in more depth at the char-
acter of Sands. He is the much older participant
in what I call a dubious relationship with the
teenage enslaved female, Brent. Yet, since
Brent’s character is read by some as the power-
ful manipulator who reclaims her sexuality and
refutes the sexual advances of her slave master
and perpetrator, Flint, then what of Sands? Is
Sands a mere victim of sable wanton lascivious-
ness? What is rooted in this reading of Brent’s
character, according to judge and scholar A.
15
Leon Higginbotham, Jr. is the myth of the evil
black seductress: “If a black woman had sex
with a white man, the myth of the evil black
seductress would hold that the white man had
been ensnared into the relationship. Either way,
the precept of black inferiority is reinforced.
Blacks were rapacious sexual creatures who
preyed upon whites” (Higginbotham 44-45);
therefore, Sands’ image remains untarnished for
sexual promiscuity is turned onto the female
here and not the male. Remember, the male-
derived notion that sexuality, sexual intercourse,
is by nature bad and evil, after all was contrived
to protect and control the female body, not the
male body. Still further, the institution of
American slavery inculcates us with the image
that black bodies do not matter; therefore, it is
clear that what is done to Brent’s body does not
matter, therefore, how can Sands’ image be tar-
nished?
Nevertheless, some contend that Sands’
character is the embodiment of Brent’s choice. I
suggest a different reading here. As stated earli-
er, the character of Sands could easily be read
as a sexual predator. First, Brent acknowledges
that “Dr. Flint’s persecutions and his wife’s jeal-
ousy had given rise to some gossip in the neigh-
borhood” (Incidents 54). Once again, I must
note that it is Brent’s character as well as Flint’s,
which is being called into question not what
may have been done to her body. Therefore
though the sexual molestation of fifteen-year-old
Brent is noticed; it is only challenged on moral
issues not physical agency. Hence, the fact that
Brent is residing in an abusive household is no
secret. To reiterate the tautology of abuse per-
meating the sadistic violence which was nine-
teenth-century American slavery, and therefore
acknowledging that the terms “abuse” and
“slavery” are redundant signifiers, seems unnec-
essary. In peeling back the layers of an abused
child’s psyche and understanding how she might
see her sexual predator as savior is, neverthe-
less, important for my discussion of Sands’
character.
 Brent purports that Sands “knew my
grandmother, and often spoke to me in the
street. He became interested for me, and asked
questions about my master, which I answered in
part. He expressed a great deal of sympathy, and
a wish to aid me. He constantly sought opportu-
nities to see me, and wrote to me frequently. I
was a poor slave girl, only fifteen years old”
(Incidents 54). The last sentence clearly sug-
gests that the adult Jacobs telling the child’s,
Brent’s’, story is also aware that Sands preyed
upon Brent. This passage also shows a predator
at work, for it is common knowledge that many
predators prey upon the lone, troubled child;
akin to the lion preying upon the lone antelope.
For predators, the human as well as the animal,
the fact that the prey is alone suggests some-
thing is wrong with it; it is injured, wounded,
not whole. Human predators differ greatly from
the animal, however, for human predators have
been known to “befriend” their victim – gain
their trust, then pounce. Consequently, I suggest
that a psychoanalytic reading of Sands’ charac-
ter shows that he intuitively, or perhaps empiri-
cally, understands, like most predators, that
Brent’s precarious home life makes her a likely
teenage victim. Of course, the institution of slav-
ery alone brands the enslaved female a victim to
those who have power over her, which is virtual-
ly every white man and woman, and every black
man, free or enslaved. In the case of Brent, her
status as “victim” is exacerbated by the addi-
tional dynamics of abuse, both psychological
and sexual, which she has to endure.
Nevertheless, the traditional reading of the
relationship between Brent and Sands is that of
“Seduction Discourse.” This might be due to
what Susan Brownmiller argues in Against Our
Will: “Psychoanalytic literature on child
molestation points a wagging finger at the vic-
tim. In fact, the thrust of the psychoanalytic
approach has been to pinpoint the child victim’s
‘seductive’ behavior. . . [it posits, moreover,]
that in many cases ‘it was highly probable that
the child had used his [sic] charm in the role of
seducer rather than that he [sic] had been the
16
innocent one who had been seduced’”
(Brownmiller 305-6). While Brownmiller’s text
adds children to the seduction discourse,
Hartman adds the image of the black female
body. “Seduction,” Hartman argues, “makes
recourse to the idea of reciprocal and collusive
relations and engenders a precipitating con-
struction of black female sexuality in which rape
is unimaginable” (Hartman 81). To suggest that
Brent is at once a child, a female and a slave
and at the same time shares equal footing with
Sands, an adult, a male and white, I argue is an
abuse of the “seduction discourse” paradigm.
Yet, Hartman astutely purports: “It is important
to note that it is not equality or the absence of
constraint that is celebrated in this inscription
of ‘calculation’ but the possible gains to be
made within the context of domination”
(Hartman 104). This statement acknowledges
that because of the patriarchal system of
American slavery and its power dynamics, the
“seduction” read into Brent’s narrative may be
read as “manipulation.” – In other words, Brent
uses her sexuality, the only thing she has of
value, as a tool to obtain “freedom” for herself
and children through manipulation.
Brent, initially, like many enslaved, wants
her freedom: “I was sure my friend, Mr. Sands,
would buy me… and I thought my freedom
could be easily obtained from him” (Incidents
55). The suggestion that some scholars have
made is that Brent uses her sexuality to “buy”
her freedom, by manipulating Sands. Her
friendship with Sands is a sexual, not platonic,
relationship. In addition, it is based on sexual
manipulation, exchanging sexual “favors” for
something of greater value, which would make
the character of Brent the antithesis of virtue.
Pamela E. Barnett in, “Figurations of Rape and
the Supernatural in Beloved,” contends that
Toni Morrison’s protagonist, “Sethe’s exchange
of sex for the engraving of her baby’s tomb-
stone” is akin to rape (419). It is therefore per-
tinent in Brent’s case that the exchange of sex
for freedom reading not uphold the power of
manipulation while discounting the powerless-
ness of rape. Agency on Brent’s part is con-
scripted here: “Of a man who was not my mas-
ter I could ask to have my children well sup-
ported; and in this case, I felt confident I should
obtain the boon. I also felt quite sure that they
would be made free” (Incidents 55).
The question in the wake of Brent’s decree
is as Kinsey suggests: if she does not really view
sex as evil, then why refuse sex with Flint and
engage in sex with Sands? Rather, by having
Brent refuse Flint, is Jacobs commenting on the
very act of sexual intercourse, or something
greater? Jacobs would have us believe the latter.
Jacobs writes: Brent “shuddered to think of
being the mother of children that should be
owned by [her] old tyrant. [She] knew that as
soon as a new fancy took him, his victims were
sold far off to get rid of them; especially if they
had children. [She] had seen several women
sold, with his babies at the breast. He never
allowed his offspring by slaves to remain long in
sight of himself and his wife” (Incidents 55). It
appears that Brent is troubled by Flint’s history
with not only his enslaved concubines but also
the offspring such a relationship creates. Brent
does not want her children sold away from her.
In addition, Brent wants to someday have her
children, as well as herself, set free; moreover,
she wants a home for herself and her children,
where no man can separate them, which differs
from male slave narratives where obtaining free-
dom is the end of the story. With Flint, as history
bears out, none of these things will come to
pass. Flint will soon tire of Brent, when the next
enslaved female stirs his loins. Brent would then
be unceremoniously discarded and in most
cases sold. Regardless of when Brent might have
lost favor with Flint, any children born of their
union would have to be removed from Mrs.
Flint’s sight, thus sold away. As a result, a rela-
tionship with Flint would yield nothing but fur-
ther sorrow for Brent.
This reading further suggests Brent’s
“choice” is predicated upon the notion that
entering into a sexual relationship with Sands
would eradicate the auspices decreed by Flint.
17
With Sands Brent would have a semblance of
hope. Brent would be able to see any children
from her union with Sands set free, and still fur-
ther, she might compel Sands to set the mother
of his once enslaved children free as well. With
Flint there was absolutely no hope of gaining
freedom for herself or her children; with Sands,
Brent had every hope to obtain “the boon.” The
question, nonetheless, remains: does Brent
assent to the white-patriarchal-male-derived
notion that sex outside the “sanctity” of mar-
riage is bad for women? If so, is that what fuels
her resistance to Flint’s sexual advances? Or,
does the adage that “no good can come of it”
apply here, and that is what is fueling Brent’s
resistance?
Once again, a further look at Brent’s sexu-
al exploitation by Sands is warranted here: was
she the manipulator as reclamation theorists
argue, or manipulated? Brent’s rape by Sands is
not traditionally acknowledged and, therefore,
usually read as fornication and then unceremo-
niously dismissed. In regaling Brent as the epit-
ome of empowerment, reclaimists disregard
Sands and consequently dismiss Brent’s’ rape.
Where is the textual evidence that Brent is in
fact, in control? As Brent laments, Sands does
not keep any of his promises—the promises
that Brent contends allowed him access to her
most guarded reproductive system. The text
supports reading Sands’ character as manipula-
tive and Sands as one who preys upon Brent:
being kind to her and engaging in sex for his
own “selfish purpose” (Incidents 169), which
reveal his rape of Brent. That Sands uses Brent
is even evident to her grandmother. Brent’s
grandmother asks Sands: “[W]hy he could not
have left her one ewe lamb,—whether there
were not plenty of slaves who did not care about
character, —he made no answer” (Incidents
58). It is interesting that Sands’ response is
silence. One reading may be that as a white
male he does not have to answer to a black
woman, but I think that is too simple. Silence,
for Jacobs is such an integral part of this story
that it can almost be seen as a character in its
own right.
Accordingly, Jacobs, focuses on the sexual
exploitation of the black female body by looking
at the psychological, sexual, and physical terror-
ization of black female characters by the enslav-
ing society through generations and illustrates
the role that silence plays in the continuation of
this sexual exploitation. “The rape of black
women existed as an unspoken but normative
condition fully within the purview of everyday
sexual practices, whether within the implied
arrangements of the slave enclave or within the
plantation household” (Hartman 85). Rape,
Hartman argues, “disappeared through the
intervention of seduction — the assertion of the
slave woman’s complicity and willful submis-
sion” (87). What happens when a slave woman
resists? Although Brent’s refusal to engage in a
sexual act with Flint is often read as resistance,
she does fall victim to being sexually violated by
Sands—which, in turn, allows her daughter,
Ellen, to be victimized as well. Brent reveals, “I
did not discover until years afterwards that Mr.
Thorne’s [Mrs. Hobbs’, Ellen’s slave mistress’,
brother] intemperance was not the only annoy-
ance [Ellen] suffered from him. Though he pro-
fessed too much gratitude to my grandmother to
injure any of her descendants, he had poured
vile language into the ears of her innocent
great-grandchild” (Incidents 179). Like with
Flint, one is left to wonder, not about the silence
surrounding Ellen’s victimization which kept
Brent from finding out until “years later,” but
rather, Brent’s silence around her daughter’s
victimization. What is she not saying? What does
she not say about both Flint and Sands? Is it this
silence which allows the cycle of generational
sexual abuse to continue unchecked? What
about the silence of the academy in regards to
the violence done to the black female body as
more than just evidentiary, continually overshad-
owed by the iconic images of the raped white
female body or lynched black male body?
Further, scholars who suggest Jacobs’ silences
are due to Child’s construction and solely focus
on how the story is told, and not the story itself,
18
share in Brent’s continued silence.
Although Jacobs, explores the sexual
exploitation of black women during the histori-
cal period of American slavery; she also posits
levels of resistance to that exploitation. For
example, Brent’s act of resistance can be seen,
first, in the sacrifice of her body to rape and
then in hiding in a coffin-like garret for several
years. Brent’s resistance can also be found in
the sacrifice of her children, the greatest sacri-
fice a mother can make. In view of Brent’s
daughter, Ellen’s slave mistress’ admission that
“she [Mrs. Hobbs] felt bad about her brother’s
treachery” (Incidents 180); I am forced to
wonder, as Jacobs intends: if Mrs. Hobbs’ broth-
er only “poured vile language” into Ellen’s ears,
as previously mentioned (Incidents 179). Yet,
through these acts of resistance I see the power
and control that silence plays within the text.
Thus, I am forced to ponder the role that
silence and bearing witness play in Incidents.
Out of modesty Brent does not tell her daughter
about the sexual abuse she experienced while
she was enslaved. It is not until Ellen is an ado-
lescent that Brent tells her of her own sexual
persecutions (Incidents 188). Admittedly, by
then Ellen already knows the story; like her
mother, slavery has forced her to grow up too
soon. How might this cycle of generational sexu-
al abuse be broken? How can the image of the
violated black female body stand alongside that
of the violated white female body or lynched
black male body if we as scholars continue our
silence and overshadowing?
No longer wishing to leave the discourse
on violence and the body to the comfortable
space of first, the loss of white female virtue,
real or imagined and second, the self-righteous
indignation against the torturous lynching of the
black male body, I add this article to the collec-
tive discourse on the violated body. Black
women were also raped and lynched, the sym-
bol of these two egregious crimes, as well as the
discourse surrounding them suggest that the
rape or lynching of the black female body is
only important as evidence in the discourse to
discuss the violence done to the white female
body or black male body. In the wake of that
premise, it is not surprising that some in the
academy take the narratives of black sexual
exploitation, re-reads then dismisses or decon-
structs the rape of the black female character,
which results in the black female body being
rendered invisible, and consequently dismissing
her rape within the narrative. The black female
body must stand alongside the iconic raped
Lucretia or the signifier of the lynched black
male in conversations, which already challenge
the horrors done to the human body before we
can rightfully empower her beyond the image of
victim.

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“Lucretia Raped!” http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/RomanLinks/republic.htm
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Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002.
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Sanday, Peggy Reeves. Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex Brotherhood and Privilege on Campus. New York: New York UP,
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1
Ida B. Wells-Barnett, asserts that “rape was the supposed crime in less than one-third of over 728 lynchings, as of
1892” (On Lynchings 40).
2
See “Lucretia Raped!” http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/RomanLinks/republic.htm
3
Sielke, here is referring to Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes. Or, Thirty Years as a Slave, and Four Years in
the White House. New York: Oxford UP, 1988; and Ann Petry’s The Street. 1946. Reprint. Boston: Houghton, 1974.
Sielke’s comments can also apply to “Lucretia Raped!” and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents.
4
See: Mary Prince. The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself.
5
See: Peggy Reeves Sanday. Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex Brotherhood and Privilege on Campus.
6
This reading, negates nineteenth-century American history. For example, not only was having sex with a black
woman, free or enslaved, not a crime legally, it appeared to carry no moral ramifications within the church. Thus, a
white male may be asked to step down from his seat of power within the church if he were to commit an act of adul-
tery or fornication with a white woman, but if the female were black, he would not have faced any consequences for
his actions.
7
It is worth noting that although, as I have already stated, slave-masters and the like who sexually preyed upon
enslaved black women, did not consider themselves sexually attracted to, or sexually desiring of, these enslaved
black women. And, since the crime of rape suggests, power and not sexual desire as its reason for being, I will only
point out here that Flint, like many rapists, place the “desire” on the victim’s end. It is Brent, the victim, who sup-
posedly “desires” Flint. By placing “desire” on the female, the suggestion implies a level of culpability on her part,
which “troubles” the crime of rape. Flint cannot possibly conceive that Brent does not desire him sexually, after all
she is female and he is male, and in saying this, one must also acknowledge that Brent on some level, being a
female, must desire the sexual advances of a male.
8
Here I refer to the auction block where slaves were inspected before purchase. “The Negroes were examined with
as little consideration as if they had been animals; the buyers were pulling their mouths open to see their teeth,
pinching their limbs to see how muscular they were, walking them up and down, making them stoop and bend to
make sure there was no concealed rupture or wound” (www.teachersnetwork.org/readysettech/olson/model.ppt).

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