The villainous poet, the fugitive writer, the pearl actress. The fates of three famous slaves of the East, West and the New World

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

From the time of Ancient Egypt to the present day, millions of slaves lived and died unnamed for history. Their lives did not belong to them, their bodies did not belong to them, much less their names belonged to them, they were renamed as easily as a pleasure boat. All the brighter are the stories of those few who have remained in the memory of mankind as something more than an object of purchase and sale, two-legged cattle, and powerless property.

Kaina Inan: Poetess with an Evil Tongue

Kains in the Arab East were called slaves of non-Arab origin, who constituted something like a special caste. On the one hand, they were poets, singers, musicians, and often so skillful that they received recognition from the most prominent people of their time. On the other hand, very often they were forced into prostitution. And, although they did not have to choose with whom to lie in bed and whether to lie, all the condemnation for immorality was received, of course, by them, and not by their owners.

Inan was considered the most famous kaina. She is celebrated in this capacity by the famous scientist and writer Al-Isfahani. Inan was the daughter of a Spanish slave who converted to Islam and her Arab master. Inan was sold into slavery by his father, but the age at which this happened is unclear. It is only known that the case took place in the eighth century AD. At the new owner, Inan held majlises - something like parties dedicated to the pursuit of arts - and soon the majlises with her participation became widely famous. The most prominent poets of that time, such as Abu Nuwas, Abbas ibn al-Ahnaf, Dibil al-Khuzai and Marwan ibn-Abi Hafsa, gathered there.

Inan became famous for taking part in poetic competitions with these later becoming classical artists of the word on an equal footing, entering into poetic skirmishes and caustically, in a poetic form, commenting on the poems presented by them. She is especially famous for her dialogues with Abu Nuwas, in which they exchange barbs and obscene proposals. Inan was particularly fond of making fun of the combination of poverty and the desire for a beautiful life that go together in Abu Nuwas. Moreover, all these sophisticated insults were framed in the most elegant way, with complex allusions and quotes from religious literature.

Inan had to sleep with dozens of men, and after each such meeting, she ridiculed their inability to satisfy a woman. Probably, such verses were her main outlet. The main hope of each kaina was the ransom by one of the clients, so the slaves tried to provoke the visitors of the majlis and at the same time to charm them. But alas, it was not possible to go from Cain to concubine Inan. They say that Harun al-Rashid himself at some point was going to buy out the famous poetess, but he heard the verses of Abu Nuwas, who reproached Inan for how many men she slept with, and changed his mind. Out of politeness, the caliph told the kaina that he was stopped by the prohibitively high price set by the owner, but rumors spread throughout the city that reached Inan.

Inan frankly did not like her owner. It is known that he once whipped her for refusing to perform in front of his guest. It is also possible that the price he charged for Inan was really too high and simply showed the Caliph that the owner did not really intend to part with her.

After the death of the owner, Inan, nevertheless, fell into the possession of Harun ar-Rashid, in payment of debts. In order to immediately put the poetess in her place, he sent her to the slave market, like an ordinary slave. But when the buyers came to the offer of 200,000 dirhams, he bought it back. Inan became the caliph's concubine to the end of her life and bore him two sons, but both of them, alas, died in infancy. Such a "career" - to find an owner who will support you for the rest of his life and will not trade in you - was the highest dream of every kaina. Inan rescued her incredible talent.

Harriet Jacobs: the slave who raised her voice against slavery

Harriet was a black slave, born in captivity, at the very beginning of the nineteenth century. Her parents were a mulatto roofer and a slave from a tavern, and they belonged to different owners. Harriet's mother died when the girl was six, and the mother's mistress took the baby to her upbringing. This was a great success for the future writer, because it was the hostess who taught her to read and write.

The hostess died when Harriet was twelve. According to the will, Harriet was to go to the mistress's mother, but the will was altered so that Harriet found herself a slave to a five-year-old girl, and in fact - to her father, James Norkom. He had been harassing Harriet from the moment he took possession of her. He also refused her requests to marry anyone. Trying to find protection, Harriet seduced a white lawyer. The son and daughter from this novel became, thanks to the laws then in force, also slaves of Norkom. He was blackmailing Harriet with them.

At twenty-two, Harriet managed to escape. She hid like a hunted animal, including living for some time in a tiny space between the roof and ceiling in her grandmother's hut. She always tried to hide where she could see her children, but she realized that she was powerless to help them anyway.

At twenty-nine, Harriet managed to reach the northern states and get help from the abolitionists. She found a job as a nanny. Over time, she managed to reunite with her daughter Louise. At the age of thirty, Harriet traveled to England with her employers. She was amazed that there is no legal division into races in Britain.

In 1861, Harriet published under a pseudonym a book "Cases from the Life of a Slave Girl," in which she frankly talked about the rapes of black slaves. She recalled with bitterness how the owners talked about the Christian faith and virtues, but calmly broke the commandments when it came to slaves - who were the same Christians, and professed the faith at the insistence of the owners. Like the pagans of ancient Rome, many masters enjoyed bloody spectacles - the flogging of slaves or being tortured by dogs. Some tortured and killed themselves. And every slave owner, without exception, raped his slaves, considering his own children from her to be the same slaves, and not his own flesh and blood. The book came out incredibly scandalous - not because of the facts that were probably known to many, but because of their frank presentation.

Harriet lived a long life, having seen the official abolition of slavery, and died in Washington at the age of eighty-six. Her letters were carefully preserved by her daughter Louise.

In addition to black women, Irish and Gypsy women were subjected to constant rape during the colonization of America. They were openly used to get more black slaves, putting them under men from a very early age. The mulatto daughters of these European slaves were used in the same way and from the same years. By the nineteenth century, this practice had already faded away, but thousands of girls and women fell victim to it, due to the sheer greed of slave traders and slave owners.

Praskovya Zhemchugova: from a drunkard father to her husband-count

Although it is now fashionable to argue whether one can be considered slaves of Russian serfs, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in colloquial speech, literature and letters, serfs were constantly mentioned precisely as slaves. Theoretically, they were protected by laws from absolutely brutal arbitrariness. In fact, under Catherine II, they were forbidden to complain about their masters.

Praskovya's father was a serf blacksmith Kovalev, a hunchback suffering from tuberculosis and alcoholism. Together with his wife and children, he belonged to the Sheremetev family of counts, one of the richest and most noble families in Russia. The Praskovya family was a dowry of the princess Cherkasskaya, whom Pyotr Borisovich Sheremetev married.

During the childhood of Praskovya, there was a fashion for serf theaters. In the villages, pretty children were selected and taught in music and acting. Pasha turned out to be talented. The more it manifested itself, the more the owners invested in it. Together with music, they began to teach her manners and foreign languages, so that she was no worse than "imported" actresses from Europe. The pseudonym "Zhemchugova" was invented by her owner. He was not satisfied with the real, too simple surnames of his actors.

At thirteen, Pasha has already become the prima donna of the Sheremetev home theater, playing full adult roles. In one of the performances, Samnite Marriages, Praskovya played so beautifully that Tsarina Catherine herself decided to watch the performance. Impressed by Pasha's play, the queen presented the actress with a diamond ring from her hand.

In general, Pasha was able to settle down as well as possible in the position of a woman who does not have the right to choose with whom to talk, where to go and sleep, or not to sleep with her employer. There was one problem. As a child, she contracted tuberculosis from her father. Good treatment in the manor house stopped the illness, but when Nikolai Sheremetev, on Pavel's orders, moved to St. Petersburg, taking with him the best actors, Praskovya's condition worsened greatly. She even lost her voice. As an actress, she has become useless.

Fortunately for her, the loving owner did not send her back to the village, but, on the contrary, gave her and all her family freedom - as a gift for the wedding. Praskovya became the wife of a man much older than herself. Whether she loved him in return is unknown. In her position there was no time for love, the choice was between taking a social position corresponding to her education and developed personality, or remaining in slaves. Ashamed of his wife's origin, Sheremetev spread rumors that Praskovya was allegedly from a Polish impoverished noble family.

A year later, Praskovya gave birth to a son, Dmitry. Childbirth became an overwhelming challenge for the sick woman, and she died three weeks later. Even when she was only Sheremetev's mistress, she decided to atone for her sins (after all, she was considered a harlot, living with a man without marriage) and begged Sheremetev to build a free hospital in Moscow. On the basis of this hospital, the Sklifosovsky Institute was later organized.

But the most famous slave who managed to reach unprecedented heights was, of course, Roksolana. But truth and legends about the beloved wife of Sultan Suleiman have long been intermingled.