Stolen Childhood

Dear Linda,

When I read your honest and heart-breaking narrative of enslaved life, I was struck by your optimism and independence. When you explained how the ignorance of your situation was stripped from you at age 6, I could not help but mourn for the child and the mindset that was lost. I am writing to convey my thoughts on the tensions that exist between enslaved children and their shift into adulthood, and the subsequent loss of innocence.  There is an internal conflict that presents itself when a child is unwillingly thrust into the adult world, and Linda, your experience has shown the gravity of this shift.

Upon discovering that you were a slave, many things about your life and the people around you were elucidated. When you were bought buy a new master and mistress, and your parents had passed, and all that was left was your brother and grandmother, your life was no longer that of a typical child. You had work to do, your innocence was stripped from you by the words of your master, and the realization of your status, made the freedoms of life nearly impossible to attain. I am grateful that you shared your shift from an unknowing child, to the conscious recognition that you are in fact an enslaved individual because it illustrates not only an personal shift, but also, another divergence between white southerners and slaves. While white children not only maintained their innocence and higher social status indefinitely, they also came to hold different meanings for life’s events. To a white child, New Years Day was a joyous occasion filled with celebration, but slave children had to wonder if on this day they would be sold away from their families or moved to more cruel conditions.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl allowed me to see the tensions that exist when slave children must leave their childhood innocence prematurely and shift into the cruel adult world. It also illuminated the isolation you must have felt when realizing that white children do not feel these struggles the way you do. Thank you for your honest, bravery, and for showing me a new perspective on enslavement.