Sometimes as a mother you must make choices regarding your child or children that may seem like the best to you but aren’t in the eyes of everyone else. But as a mother you must also do whatever you can to protect your child. These two tasks came especially hard to African American women who were mothers during the slavery period. Being a slave made it harder for women to mother their children as best as they could. Between working in the field or taking care of their master’s house or children they barely had time to be mothers to their own child. They couldn’t always be there when their child needed them. Sometimes slaves would be forced to give up their children to be sold to owners of different plantations and some women just couldn’t stand the thought of that. Beloved by Toni Morrison is a book inspired by the story of slave, Margaret Garner an escaped slave, who on the verge of being recaptured decided taking her daughter’s life was better than allowing her to be taken into slavery. The protagonist of the story, Sethe, decided that she didn’t want her child to grow up in slavery, she made the choice to protect her child from the harsh reality of slavery no matter what it took. Slavery stripped women of their true virtues degendered women, tore apart families, and it also came with harsh consequences that no mother would ever want their child to endure. These effects could have very easily pushed Sethe to make the choices that she made regarding the life of her daughter. 

In the second chapter of her book Women In Chains, Venetria Patton talks specifically about how slavery stripped women of their true virtues; piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity. “These virtues defined what it meant to be a mother, daughter, sister, wife ----woman.” They were “necessary components of womanhood.” “Although this ideal of womanhood was presented for all women to emulate only white middle-class women could hope to embody it” (Patton 29-30). Slavery only allowed women who weren’t of color to hold these true virtues, and that could have pushed Sethe to feel like she wasn’t going to be given the opportunity to be a mother and instead of allowing someone else to take away her womanhood or her motherhood she took matters into her own hands. No mother ever wants to go through the pain of having their child taken away from them and Sethe knew that by allowing her daughter to live that was a huge possibility. 

Patton also talked about how slavery degendered women in Women In Chains. “I assert that female slaves could fit neither society’s definition of woman and thus developed gender ideals” (Patton 2). Society refused to allow slave women to actually be women and mothers. The slave women were seen as “breeders, rather than mothers” and that was a painful realization. To carry a child for 9 months and bring that child into the world to only be treated as a breeder. And that had to be even more painful for women like Sethe who had a daughter and knew that she had to go through the same thing. To bring a daughter into the world and know that there was nothing that you would be able to do to protect her from the dangers and terrors of slavery had to have been a scary thing. To know that she would be viewed and treated as less than a woman just because of the color of her skin had to have been terrifying. And Sethe didn’t want that for her child, she didn’t want her daughter to grow up having to go through that, and so when faced with being recaptured instead of allowing her daughter to be taken into that life and having to experience that pain she made the decision to cut her throat. Although it was a very harsh decision, it’s what she felt like she had to do as a mother. That was the only way for her to protect her child so she did it. 

 Everyday slave women birthed children into the world that were in their arms one minute and the next they were being sold to another plantation owner to be raised by other slaves. Having lived as a slave, Sethe saw how families were torn apart as talked about by Ann DuCille in Marriage, Family and Other “Peculiar Institutions” in African American Literary History. “Slavery was an abomination that ruined lives and tore couples and families apart…” (DuCille 615). As a slave Sethe most likely witnessed these incidents and she didn’t want that to happen to her family. No mother ever wants to go through the pain of having their child taken away from them and Sethe knew that by allowing her daughter to live that was a huge possibility. Although taking her child’s life seems extreme Sethe felt like anything was better than allowing her child to be taken into slavery and having to endure the same pain that she went through growing up. In Beloved the reader hears how Sethe was brought to the place called Sweet Home when she was 13. It isn’t said that she was taken away from her family but the reader can only imagine that is what happened. She was taken to a place at the age of 13 that she was unfamiliar with and that can be a scary feeling for someone so young. Sethe probably never forgot that moment and when faced with the possibility of her and her daughter being recaptured into slavery she thought about the time that she was 13 years old and brought to a place that she had never gone to before, with people whom she’d never met and she just couldn’t handle the thought of that happening to her daughter. 

Sethe also knew of the harsh consequences that came along with being a slave, especially a slave woman such as being beaten and raped. No mother would ever want to imagine their daughter going through that. In Beloved, years after the death of her daughter Sethe remembers scars she has on her back and that she got from being beaten and that is something that she will never forget, the scars are fresh reminders and that could have also been something she didn’t want her daughter to go through. Many slave women were raped, and some as children and there was nothing that their mothers could do to stop it from happening. In Beloved Sethe tells the story of the time where she was held down and had her milk taken from her breasts and there was nothing that she could do about it. Sethe could have been protecting her daughter from having that happen to her one day.  

When Sethe made the decision to take her daughter’s life rather than let her be recaptured into slavery she considered all of these effects. She had to be very strong to make a decision such as the one she made. No mother ever wants to see their child go through pain especially pain from something so harsh as slavery. Not allowing her child to live or have the chance to possibly experience freedom seemed like a harsh decision but a mother always does what she thinks is best for her child whether it seems right to everyone else or not. It takes a strong woman to make the choice that Sethe made and I’m not sure there are many women in the world that could say they’d do the same. 
