intelligent if he is never taught? At the very least black men were allowed to learn a trade, which would enable them to benefit the white families they served. Since it was illegal for slaves to learn to read or to teach each other many slaves were forced to teach themselves if they wanted to gain knowledge. Women in slavery were persecuted even more severely for learning how to read because it was viewed as trying to make their masters look inferior. It is absolutely mind boggling to think of what African-American women were forced to go through to read a book or teach their children to read all in the quest for knowledge so that one day they could escape the awful grasp of slavery. According to a web site called African American History, (http://www.wvu.edu/~ghacad/africa/history2.html) African American men were often castrated or brutally beaten and murdered if they were found to have had any relation with a slave masters daughter. Yet there is a double standard, for if a slave masters son were to take advantage of a slave girl no penalty and sometimes-even praise would be administered. Treatment of female slaves was so bad that many girls upon becoming pregnant would immediately pray for a boy or pray for a miscarriage. According to another website on slave experiences (http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/slavery/) many slave masters intentionally got their female slaves pregnant so that they could not escape from their plantations. This is another clear disadvantage for women in slavery because pregnancy could be used as an invisible chain for the slave masters to keep them from escaping. If these pregnant girls decided to run away in order to save their baby they almost always were caught because they were unable to travel long distances just out of a lack in strength. For men escape could occur with no strings attached, so to speak. Women with children, on the other hand, have a maternal obligation to their little one...
