Real World Colonial South : Gender Relationships

Living distinct lives in the New World, two American authors present striking pictures of their struggles in the land of opportunity. Samuel Sewall’s and William Byrd II’s diaries provide a glimpse into the everyday routines of early American settlers. An accomplished judge, businessman, and printer of Massachusetts Bay, Sewall writes about the developments around him. Likewise, Byrd, a successful planter, slave-owner, and author from Charles City County, Virginia, leaves valuable information concerning his routines in his diary. Even though these two men share the same nation, coastland, and English heritage, their stories are remarkably unique.

This is proof that this terrible act was very typical within slaveholding societies. Now, just because this relationship seems usual in the south, it does not mean everyone condoned it. The wives of many slave owners proved they were not okay with a white male and a black female relationship by the way they acted with “anger and resentment” towards other slaves (McLaurin, 26). Wives chose to ignore this behavior simply because if they didn’t, not only would their lives be in danger, but so would their children’s.

The subject of slavery in the early 1700s had the potential to elicit an array of opinions depending upon the race, gender, and political role of the individual in question. Like the majority of white land-holding men who owned slaves, William Byrd viewed the treatment of Africans as that consistent with livestock: slaves were to do the work they were assigned and give in to every whim of their masters for fear of being severely punished. Olaudah Equiano provides a contrast in opinion to this widely accepted viewpoint. By humanizing Africans and detailing the intimate emotions experienced by them, Equiano implicitly argues against the attitudes of typical slave owners.

This turns out to be an ironic contrast to life at the Weylin plantation, where a slave who visits his wife without his master's permission is brutally whipped. Perhaps a more painful realization for Dana is how this cruel treatment oppresses the mind. "Slavery of any kind fostered strange relationships," she notes, for all the slaves feel the same strange combination of fear,

In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family In The Old South by John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger outlines a very unique African American family living in Nashville, TN accounting tales of the trials and tribulations that Sally Thomas, the mother, and her sons had to go through; and how in the end she accomplished her goal. The authors excellently executed the life of this family in an informational and intriguing text by explaining and comparing the different lives and classes of slaves back in that century through Sally and her son’s stories.The detail and the historical pictures in the text help give life and a sense of “realness” and credibility to the situations given to help breathe life into the story, making the story easier to understand and believe.

During the American colonial period, the presence of patriarchy was undeniable in both the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Chesapeake colony, but little is known about the important roles that women filled. Although there were many shared roles among women in both colonies, their level of importance in the success of their colonies differed. The Massachusetts Bay Colony women were more essential to the success of their colony than the women of the Chesapeake colony, especially with regards to its economy, education, and religion.

Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women's most significant professions. Since early times women have been uniquely viewed as a creative source of human life. Historically, however, they have been considered not only intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil. Colonial women faced the harsh realities of childbirth, housework, and serving their husbands because it was tradition. The ways of the ‘old country’ culture was forced upon a new one, disallowing any room for new ideals. Although constrained by society Colonial women have had their part in shaping America.

Africans were always seen as slaves rather than free people. It came to a point were generation from generation, people with African ancestry were legally enslaved for life. European colonists’ even committed to legalizing enslavement of hundreds and thousands of people, but it led to Africans being slaves based on race. Slavery was a big part in Virginia and South Carolina. The history of slavery in Virginia first appeared in 1619 where the Africans were indentured servants. As for South Carolina, majority of their population were African Americans. 65% of their population of about 18,000 people were African American slaves. Upon the social, economic and political development of slavery in Virginia and South Carolina, it impacted their race, class and gender.

America his life was more stable and constructive. In what ways do Byrd’s vocational, intellectual, and sexual activities support this argument?

Compared to women in Chesapeake, women in New England were often abused and treated merely as slaves after marriage. For example, Berkin provides a short narrative of “when Daniel Ela was found

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

There could be a lot going on in the minds of the Natives Americans the African Americans and women’s expectation before the American revolution to what actually happened. In this society people tend to always think of the positive and not the negative, that motives people to take risks and to things that they ordinarily wouldn’t do. Looking to the future and hoping to be at a better place would sometimes make you do things that you would regret in the long run. I think in some way that what happened with the Native Americans and also other people in general.

In the north, blacks were able to roam freely and she wished that one day she could do that. The southern society was much different than I imagined it would be. These slave owners, not only have sexual relations with slaves, but also beat them to measures that are unexplainable. Not every slave owner was the same either. Once Dr.

	The book discussed how one of the principle reasons as to how the white woman or mistress and the black women got along, depends on whether or not the slave women appeared to threaten the social status of the women. When the white men tried to rape the black women it made the white women socially look like nothing more than a slave. This made the white women feel forced to prove to the black women that power still remained in the white woman’s corner regardless of the master’s sexual desires. The mistresses made sure that the slave women understood that they valued less than any white women, for the main reason that the white woman had true power as long as the main wanted her. An example of this that I read would be when a white woman outwardly expressed that she worried mainly about her loss of power, not actually about marriage. Saphire, a fictional character that Gwin analyzes, says "...mainly concerned with her power... she views her husbands affections for a slave as an undercutting of her power over him in their relationship which. As the husband himself describes as, what makes her the master and him the miller." (pg 133) The slave that caused this upset usually received many beatings and unnecessary overworking of the slave. At the time, this treatment was not unheard of and needed, the white slave owners used it as an example to show all slaves that they were not worth the air they breath except in the fields.

During my study of Caribbean history at Kingston College there has been little mention of women during slavery as such I wanted to get more information for my personal development and knowledge. The focus is primarily on the highlight of the male counterpart. The females