Slave Counterpoint : Black Culture In The Chesapeake And Lowcountry

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.

These horrible acts happened not only because masters owned their slaves as property, but also because men held all the power in the patriarchal society which gave men the indication that consent did not apply to slave women. The system of slavery didn’t deal with human beings in the eyes of the masters, but instead objects or property. Once you bought a slave, they were yours according to the terms (Piquet, 20). Male slave owners took advantage of their power to coerce them into sexual acts. Mr. Williams, Piquet’s master, used his power to convince Piquet that she was not committing adultery because she was only having sex with one man (Piquet, 14). Mr. William told Louisa that if she behaved well, he’d treat her well, but if she misbehaved, he’d whip her almost to death (Piquet, 11). That threat of having a slave’s life in their master’s hand made it virtually impossible to protect slave women against sexual violence because it was a method of compliance towards your property. Patriarchy reinforced the domination of the male slave owner not only over the female slaves, but also over the male slaves by showing them who was in charge of their wives, sisters, daughters, or female friends. Men’s sexual freedom to do what they pleased in their world subliminally showed power to all the people below

In a time period when women were considered inferior, as were blacks, it was unimaginable the horrors a black woman in the south had to endure during this period. African women were slaves and subject to the many horrors that come along with being in bondage, but because they were also women, they were subject to the cruelties of men who look down on women as inferior simply because of their sex. The sexual exploitation of these females often lead to the women fathering children of their white masters. Black women were also prohibited from defending themselves against any type of abuse, including sexual, at the hands of white men. If a slave attempted to defend herself she was often subjected to further beatings from the master. The black female was forced into sexual relationships for the slave master’s pleasure and profit. By doing this it was the slave owner ways of helping his slave population grow.

This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era.

The systematic, oppressive dehumanization of black womanhood was not a mere consequence of racism. It was a calculated method of social control, manipulation, and misogyny. With capitalism on the forefront of the American society during the Reconstruction years, and a booming manufacturing economy was on the rise, white supremacy capitalism patriarchy needed a group to be at the very bottom of the social hierarchy, a scapegoat. That scapegoat was black women. Manumitted black women showed that when given the same opportunities to live their lives like humans, they surpassed and excelled in all areas. Their success was a direct challenge to the racist ideologies that darker races were inherently inferior. Racist

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.

During the antebellum South, many Africans, who were forced migrants brought to America, were there to work for white-owners of tobacco and cotton plantations, manual labor as America expanded west, and as supplemental support of their owner’s families. Harriet Jacobs’s slave narrative supports the definition of slavery (in the South), discrimination (in the North), sexual gender as being influential to a slave’s role, the significant role of family support, and how the gender differences viewed and responded to life circumstances.

Slavery is a contradictory subject in American history because “one hears…of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; [while] on the other hand on hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridles power and wide oppression of men” (Dubois 2). Dubois’s The Negro in the United States is an autoethnographic text which is a representation “that the so-defined others

Through the antebellum period, white men’s exploitation of black women’s sexuality created an assumption that black women were driven by lust and sexual promiscuity. This false stereotypical assumption by the slave south held black women captive by the patriarchal society of plantations. This gave white males grounds for sexual activity with their enslaved women. Through a slave women’s “lustfulness,” the antebellum period, (the years prior to the Civil War and between the 1830’s and 1860’s), saw an influx of bi-racial and multi-racial slave offspring as an effect of the Fancy Trade and slave breeding practices. After the United States banned the importation of slaves, the domestic institution of slavery developed in a way that directly

Imagine yourself a female slave, living a life of service on a large plantation during the early-19th century. Imagine waking every morning at dawn to begin a never-ending day of cooking, cleaning, washing, and sewing. Imagine being at the beck and call of a master who not only uses you for daily chores, but also for his personal sexual pleasure. Imagine the inexhaustible fear of his next humiliating request and the deep feelings of shame and remorse for your inability to stand up against him. Imagine lying in bed at the end of the day wishing God would carry you to heaven so you would not have to wake and experience this hell on earth all over again.

The lives of female slaves in the South are incomparable and have an unmistakable difference to the lives of most nineteenth-century white American ladies. The African American slave does not have the same luxury to worry about insignificant alarms, shortcomings, and insecurities as other females, yet trusts herself to be and is, indeed, more grounded and able to endure more than most men. As a woman, not just an African American woman I recognize these women as Mother Earth, they display the ultimate example of females/mothers with limitless sexual, nurturing, and supporting stores. Furthermore, their experience likewise contrasted from that of dark male slaves. In America during the 1820 's through the 1850 's is where most ladies were

While all slaves suffered under the same institutions of cruelty and racism in the United States, slave narratives and novels focused on slavery have demonstrated time and time again that male and female slaves suffered in different ways, in the oppression of black masculinity and black femininity, respectively. African slave women were denied the white woman’s expected role of remaining virginal until marriage, marrying, keeping a family, and running their own household. African slave men were denied the right to get an education, earn an income, and provide for a family. Thus, slavery denied black men and women any claim to conventional standards of manhood and womanhood. Through studying the narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass, as well as Francis E.W. Harper’s novel Iola Leroy, readers can outline the details of these oppressions, and in some cases, the reconstruction of black masculinity or femininity.

During the colonial era, African slaves faced a life of struggle and fear. In 1793, the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney revolutionized economy as well as American slavery. This new machinery enabled the separation of the seeds from the cotton, making the cotton production increase extremely. However, with the increase of the white gold ( as it was called), there was a consequent increase on the request of slave labor. Therefore, slaves worked long hours on the fields, while many women slaves were confined to house duties, taking care of the masters’ family and home. Sadly, these women didn’t just work exhausting hours, but also suffered physical and sexual abuse by the hands of their masters. Undoubtedly, African women were not just used for labor, but they were also used to satisfy the sick fantasies of cruel men.

The study of African American history has grown phenomenally over the last few decades and the debate over the relationship between slavery and racial prejudice has generated tremendous amounts of scholarship. There’s a renewed sense of interest in the academia with a new emphasis on studies and discussions pertaining to complicated relationships slavery as an institution has with racism. It is more so when the potential for recovering additional knowledge seems to be limitless. Even in the fields of cultural and literary studies, there is a huge emphasis upon uncovering aspects of the past that would lead one towards a better understanding of the genesis of certain institutionalized systems. A careful discussion of the history of slavery