Babies in History: Elizabeth Keckley's Behind the Scenes or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House

After watching Lincoln on the weekend, I googled Elizabeth Keckley, Mary Todd Lincoln's good friend, a former slave who lived with the Lincolns in the White House. I was so struck by an anecdote about her early life I found on Wikipedia that I downloaded her autobiography, Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, And Four Years in the White House, to find its source. Just read this:

Mrs. Burwell [ed. the slave owner's wife] gave birth to a daughter, a sweet, black-eyed baby, my earliest and fondest pet. To take care of this baby was my first duty. True, I was but a child myself--only four years old--but then I had been raised in a hardy school--had been taught to rely upon myself, and to prepare myself to render assistance to others. The lesson was not a bitter one, for I was too young to indulge in philosophy, and the precepts that I then treasured and practised I believe developed those principles of character which have enabled me to triumph over so many difficulties. Notwithstanding all the wrongs that slavery heaped upon me, I can bless it for one thing--youth's important lesson of self-reliance. The baby was named Elizabeth, and it was pleasant to me to be assigned a duty in connection with it, for the discharge of that duty transferred me from the rude cabin to the household of my master. My simple attire was a short dress and a little white apron. My old mistress encouraged me in rocking the cradle, by telling me that if I would watch over the baby well, keep the flies out of its face, and not let it cry, I should be its little maid. This was a golden promise, and I required no better inducement for the faithful performance of my task. I began to rock the cradle most industriously, when lo! out pitched little pet on the floor. I instantly cried out, "Oh! the baby is on the floor," and, not knowing what to do, I seized the fire-shovel in my perplexity and was trying to shovel up my tender charge, when my mistress called to me to let the child alone, and then ordered that I be taken out and lashed for my carelessness. The blows were not administered with a light hand, I assure you, and doubtless the severity of the lashing has made me remember the incident so well. This was the first time I was punished in this cruel way, but not the last. The black-eyed baby that I called my pet grew into a self-willed girl, and in after years was the cause of much trouble to me.

Rage! Poor Elizabeth Keckley. (And poor baby Elizabeth, too, but that was her mother's fault, not the four-year-old Elizabeth's.) My own little Sylvie is four years old and I can't imagine being stupid enough to ask her to look after a small baby on her own. She'd be thrilled to try, I know. She has plenty of dolls she loves to "look after," which chiefly means berating them by shouting "SWEETHEART" at them in a roar of a voice for their imagined misbehaviors. I wouldn't be all that surprised to find her beating one of them about the head with a fire-shovel, instead of trying to shovel her back into her cradle.

(Incidentally, that baby was actually her half-sister, as Elizabeth learned many years later that her father was actually Mr. Burwell.)