The life of a slave held two very different alternatives. On one hand, slaves with kind masters were treated graciously, loved to do their jobs faithfully and enjoyed every moment they were given on earth. On the other hand, which held the majority, slaves lived in constant fear of their masters, preforming back breaking labor from before dawn till after dusk and receiving little to no food. Determining a slave’s future all depended on the character of their master. In the novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author, Harriot, describes her childhood as happy and carefree. She had no knowledge of being a slave until she was 6 years old, when her parents died. From then on, her mistress acted as a mother to her, treating her with dignity and respect and even though she was still working, she enjoyed the work that she did for her mistress because they had a deep bond that connected them. Harriot’s mistress even taught her how to read and write, which was illegal for a…show more content… This was the fate of many slave girls throughout the south. A male slave’s value was in the potential amount of work that he could do and because women could only do a portion of the work of a man, the slaveholders felt that they had to hold their value. On top of that, they were his property with which he could do as he pleased. Harriot’s autobiography also talked about the same fate for some male slaves, especially if their master had older daughters. But the two of these instances had great differences see in the fate of the child created. If a female slave gave birth to half white babies they were just new slaves for the master, who was also their father, but if a white female gave birth to half black slaves the babies were either smothered or immediately sold to another state. This harsh reality gave light to the amount of hopelessness the slaves experienced. The only thing they could hope for is lifelong abuse and there was no other