Women and Slavery

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.

This is followed by five chapters. Chapter one, “Disorderly Women and the Struggle for Authority,” explores how the non-white women of colonial North Carolina were viewed by white men and also how Quaker women existed in colonial North Carolina. Chapter two, “Cross-Cultural Sex in Native North Carolina,” explores the sexual relationships between people of different races and how the laws against intermarriage “defined racial boundaries (86).” Chapter three, “Sexual Regulation of Servant Women and Subcultures of Resistance,” explore the ideas of infanticide, pregnancy in court, and the importance of economic class in court. Chapter four, “White Reputations Blackened and Made Loose,” explores how “whiteness” became the ideal race, but “whiteness” became more of an idea rather than a physical representation. Chapter five, “Sexualized Violence and Embodiment of Rape,” analyzes the use of torture and rape in colonial North Carolina. The text ends with an epilogue refocusing on the ways the race gained multiple

Imagine being one of the black female victims in the plantation south, and not having the voice to revolt against immorality experienced frequently because of White southerner males. The unthinkable feeling of white males having full access to a female’s body without her consent, and using her for their personal amusement reveals that discrimination and inhumanity existed in the era before slavery was abolished. For this reason, Deborah Gray White wrote the book known as Ar’n’t I a Woman? to highlight the brutal actions of these white southerner males that made miserable circumstances for black slave population to survive. The way she brought forth the reality and the vicious mentality of the White southerner males manifest that the status

The title of this book comes from the inspiring words spoken by Sojourner Truth at the 1851, nine years prior to the Civil War at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In Deborah Grays White, Ar’n’t I a woman her aim was to enrich the knowledge of antebellum black women and culture to show an unwritten side of history of the American black woman. Being an African- American and being a woman, these are the two principle struggles thrown at the black woman during and after slavery in the United States. Efforts were made by White scholars in 1985 to have a focus on the female slave experience. Deborah Gray White explains her view by categorizing the hardships and interactions between the female slave and the environment in which the

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.

The slave owner’s exploitation of the black woman’s sexuality was one of the most significant factors differentiating the experience of slavery for males and females. The white man’s claim to the slave body, male as well as female, was inherent in the concept of the Slave Trade and was tangibly realized perhaps no where more than the auction block. Captive Africans were stripped of their clothing, oiled down, and poked and prodded by potential buyers. The erotic undertones of such scenes were particularly pronounced in the case of black women. Throughout the period of slavery in America, white society believed black women to be innately lustful beings. The perception of the African woman as hyper-sexual made her both the object of white man’s abhorrence and his fantasy. Within the bonds of slavery, masters often felt it was their right to engage in sexual activity with black women. Sometimes, female slaves made advances hoping that such relationships would increase the chances that they or their children would be liberated by the master. Most of the time, slave owners took slaves by force.

Women were not only used for their labor, but were also exploited sexually. Slave owners felt they had the right to use black women for their own sexual desires, and felt they had the right to use their bodies for slave breeding. This obscenity between the master and slave were not only psychologically damaging for black women, but would also lead to physical abuse. In her narrative, Ms. Jacobs gives us a firsthand description of the abuse that would occur if she were to upset her master, “Some months before, he had pitched me down stairs in a fit of passion; and the injury I received was so serious that I was unable to turn myself in bed for many days”

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.

Since the dawn of early civilisation and subsequent traditional gender roles, one of the most prominent issues with which society struggles is gender inequality. The Book of Negroes illustrates Aminata’s worries as she is provided only one option: to entertain men with her body. “...I wondered how I would earn enough for food, clothes and repairs for my shelter. ‘What?’ Sam said. ‘You think rebels don’t have brothels? As long as there are fighting men, there will be work for girls like Rosetta - and work for you as well.’” (Hill 312) British soldiers and American rebels both sexualised the bodies of black women to the point of encouraging the prostitution of young girls. In a similar context, a 2008 study conducted by researchers from Wesleyan

Slavery in the United States was not only the element of physical labor, it was the constant reminder of one’s inferiority. It was common for caucasian masters to have sexual relations with their slaves in a forced and cruel manner. Normally, enslaved women faced most of the sexual abuse; however, there were plenty of men and boys that were exploited sexually by their masters, overseers, and other white authorities. Slaves at this time period not only endured the brutality of their masters committing the deed, but their masters would forcibly pair “strong, healthy” slaves with one another and thrusted them into forced reproduction, thinking it would create the perfect specimen for physical labor. When it came down to

Slavery had also been present in New York from the earliest days of Dutch settlement. As their role expanded so did slavery in the city, 30 percent of its laborers were slaves. Most came from different cultures, spoke different languages, and practiced many regions. Slavery allowed different individuals who would never otherwise have encountered, their bond was not kinship, language, or even race, but the impressment of slavery. They eventually came together an created a cohesive culture and community that took many years, and it processed at different rates of speed in different regions.

Minrose Gwin‘s book, Black and White Women of the Old South, argues that history has problems with objectiveness. Her book brings to life interesting interpretations on the view of the women of the old south and chattel slavery in historical American fiction and autobiography. Gwin’s main arguments discussed how the white women of the south in no way wanted to display any kind of compassion for a fellow woman of African descent. Gwin described the "sisterhood" between black and white women as a "violent connection"(pg 4). Not only that, Gwin’s book discusses the idea that for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a black woman usually got subjected to displacement of sexual and mental

Slavery was a horrible institution that dehumanized a race of people. Female slave bondage was different from that of men. It wasn't less severe, but it was different. The sexual abuse, child bearing, and child care responsibilities affected the females's pattern of resistance and how they conducted their lives. Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, demonstrates the different role that women slaves had and the struggles that were caused from having to cope with sexual abuse.

The notion of slavery, as unpleasant as it is, must nonetheless be examined to understand the hardships that were caused in the lives of enslaved African-Americans. Without a doubt, conditions that the slaves lived under could be easily described as intolerable and inhumane. As painful as the slave's treatment by the masters was, it proved to be more unbearable for the women who were enslaved. Why did the women suffer a grimmer fate as slaves? The answer lies in the readings, Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl and Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative which both imply that sexual abuse, jealous mistresses', and loss of children caused the female slaves to endure a more dreadful and hard life in captivity.