Clotel

“Nothing was more grievous to the sensitive feelings of William, than seeing the separation of families by the slave-trader: husbands taken from their wives, and mothers from their children, without the least appearance of feeling on the part of those who separated them.”

Brown describes many scenes of emotional family separations after slaves are sold to different masters. He writes that only God knows the “human agony and suffering which sends its cry from the slave markets and Negro pens” (70). The suffering of slaves separated permanently from their families is not only ignored by slave owners but seen as a nuisance: in his narrative, Brown describes how the slave trader Walker gives a baby away because the crying is irritating him, and in the novel, the fictional slave trader Walker leaves for New Orleans early enough to avoid “those scenes so common where slaves are separated from their relatives and friends” (52). The lack of compassion indicates that slaves are seen as less than human, their pain less important and their capacity for love and connection less developed.

“But how infinitely better is it for a sister to ‘go into the silent land’ with her honour untarnished, but with bright hopes, than for her to be sold to sensual slaveholders.”

Brown frequently writes of the sexual exploitation of female slaves by their masters. Clotel repels the sexual advances of her master Mr. Cooper, knowing he can overpower her at any time. Althesa’s daughters Ellen and Jane are sold to different men who intend to use them as sexual objects. In this quotation, Brown expresses the belief that death is almost preferable to rape by a slave owner.