More Than Chattel

Description

Exploring slavery and slave society through the lives of black women.

". . . a much-needed volume on a neglected topic that is of great interest to scholars of women, slavery, and African American history." —Drew Faust

Gender was a decisive force in shaping slave society. Slave men's experiences differed from those of slave women, who were exploited both in reproductive as well as productive capacities. The women did not figure prominently in revolts, because they engaged in less confrontational resistance, emphasizing creative struggle to survive dehumanization and abuse.

The contributors are Hilary Beckles, Barbara Bush, Cheryl Ann Cody, David Barry Gaspar, David P. Geggus, Virginia Meacham Gould, Mary Karasch, Wilma King, Bernard Moitt, Celia E. Naylor-Ojurongbe, Robert A. Olwell, Claire Robertson, Robert W. Slenes, Susan M. Socolow, Richard H. Steckel, and Brenda E. Stevenson.

Preface

Africa and the Americas
1. Africa in to the Americas? Slavery and Women, the Family and the Sexual Division of Labor—Claire Robertson

Life and Labor
2. Women, Work, and Health under Plantation Slavery in the Untied States—Richard H. Steckel
3. Cycles of Work and of Childbearing: Seasonality in Women's Lives on Low Country Plantations—Cheryll Ann Cody
4. Slave Women on the Brazilian Frontier in the Nineteenth Century—Mary Karasch
5. "Loose, idle and Disorderly": Slave Women int he Eighteenth-Century Charleston Marketplace—Robert A. Olwell
6. Black Female Slaves and White Households in Barbados—Hilary Beckles
7. Black Homes, White Homilies: Perceptions of the Slave Family and of Slave Women in Nineteenth-Century Brazil—Robert W. Slenes
8. "Suffer with Them Till Death": Slave Women and Their Children in Nineteenth-Century America—Wilma King
9. Gender Convention, Ideals, and Identity Among Antebellum Virginia Slave Women—Brenda E. Stevenson

Slavery, REsistance, and Freedom
10. Hard Labor: Women, Childbirth and Resistance in British Caribbean Slave Societies—Barbara Bush
11. From "the Sense of their Slavery": Slave Women and Resistance in Antigua, 1632–1763—David Barry Gaspar
12. Slave Women and Resistance in the French Caribbean—Bernard Moitt
13. Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue—David P. Geggus
14. Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color of Cap Francais—Susan M. Socolow
15. Urban Slavery, Urban Freedom: The Manumission of Jacqueline Lemelle—L. Virginia Gould

Selected Bibliography
Celia E. Naylor-Ojurongbe
Notes on Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Ethnic Studies
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• América
• General officer
• History of the Americas
• General
• American
• United States

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 avril 1996
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253013651
• Langue: English

Extrait

MORE THAN CHATTEL
Blacks in the Diaspora
Founding Editors- Darlene Clark Hine, John McCluskey, Jr., and David Barry Gaspar
Claude A. Clegg, Editor
Rita, a celebrated black beauty at Rio de Janeiro ca. 1822 by Augustus Earle (1793-1838), watercolor: 20 x 28.9 cm. Rex Nan Kinell Collection, the National Library of Australia.
MORE THAN CHATTEL
BLACK WOMEN AND SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAS
Edited by David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine
Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu
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1996 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
More than chattel : black women and slavery in the Americas / edited
by David Barry Gaspar and Darlene Clark Hine.
p. cm. - (Blacks in the diaspora)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-33017-8 (cloth : alk. paper). - ISBN
978-0-253-21043-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Slavery-America. 2. Women slaves-America-Social conditions.
3. Women, Black-America-Social conditions. 4. Antislavery movements-America. I. Gaspar, David Barry. II. Hine, Darlene Clark. III. Series.
HT1049.M62 1996
306.3 62 82-dc20 95-36096
6 7 8 9 10 13 12 11 10 09 08
To the memory of two black mothers and teachers
Anne-Marie Felina Gaspar Nicklette Lottie Mae Thompson Clark
CONTENTS
PREFACE
Africa and the Americas
I. Africa into the Americas?
Slavery and Women, the Family, and the Gender Division of Labor Claire Robertson
Life and Labor
II. Women, Work, and Health under Plantation Slavery in the United States
Richard H. Steckel
III. Cycles of Work and of Childbearing
Seasonality in Women s Lives on Low Country Plantations Cheryll Ann Cody
IV. Slave Women on the Brazilian Frontier in the Nineteenth Century
Mary Karasch
V. Loose, Idle and Disorderly
Slave Women in the Eighteenth-Century Charleston Marketplace Robert Olwell
VI. Black Female Slaves and White Households in Barbados
Hilary Bechles
VII. Black Homes, White Homilies
Perceptions of the Slave Family and of Slave Women in Nineteenth-Century Brazil Robert W. Slenes
VIII. Suffer with Them Till Death
Slave Women and Their Children in Nineteenth-Century America Wilma King
IX. Gender Convention, Ideals, and Identity among Antebellum Virginia Slave Women
Brenda E. Stevenson
Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
X. Hard Labor
Women, Childbirth, and Resistance in British Caribbean Slave Societies Barbara Bush
XI. From the Sense of Their Slavery
Slave Women and Resistance in Antigua, 1632-1763 David Barry Gaspar
XII. Slave Women and Resistance in the French Caribbean
Bernard Moitt
XIII. Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue
David P. Geggus
XIV. Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color of Cap Fran ais
Susan M. Socolow
XV. Urban Slavery-Urban Freedom
The Manumission of Jacqueline Lemelle L. Virginia Gould
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Celia E. Naylor-Ojurongbe and David Barry Gaspar
CONTRIBUTORS
INDEX
PREFACE
The idea for this book originated in several conversations between the editors about scholarly works on slavery, slave societies, and women s history. Recent scholarship indicated that there was a lively interest in these fields, but we wondered to what extent scholars actually engaged in intellectual exchange across them, or how work in each may have affected the other. Areas of inquiry may initially develop independently, but later on their connections may become clearer and more integrated work can emerge. Has this occurred in the study of slavery and women s history? As interesting as this question obviously is, we thought that an initial stage in developing or finding a satisfactory answer would be to ask what work was being done on black women and slavery in the Americas. We were particularly interested in themes and conceptual frames. A call for papers produced an interesting set of clusters of themes, and these have shaped the organization of this volume, which, it is clear, does not have a comprehensive geographical or regional coverage within the Americas.
The contributors to this volume, focusing on the lives, situations, and experiences of slave and free black women, explore diverse dimensions of slavery and the related forces that shaped slave society to show that one of the most decisive of these forces was gender, however it may have been constructed in particular societies or applied in particular situations. To explore slavery and slave society through the prism of the lives of black women is to come to a better understanding of how much scholars have missed or misconstrued when they have used the term slave without due regard to gender, or with reference specifically to slave men. Gendered relations and expectations within the slave societies of the Americas constituted a powerful force that shaped the lives of slaves in such a way that slave women experienced slavery quite differently from slave men, although it is difficult to identify a strong sense of such differentiation in the slave laws. These laws lump the slave population of both sexes together in the interest of social control, presenting a homogenized image that conceals more than it reveals about the realities of slave life. The study of slave women through other kinds of sources, including plantation records and other accounts of their responses to slavery, help to reveal a more richly differentiated picture of slavery.
Black women were exploited as slaves in regard to both their productive and their reproductive capacities. Their resistance to slavery was rooted in a deep sense of the oppressive weight of this double burden which they were forced to carry and to endure. If slave women did not figure prominently in the organization of collective resistance such as revolt, it was not because they lacked the will but because, as mothers of children and nurturers of their families, they engaged in less confrontational or nonviolent forms of resistance that emphasized the need for creative struggle to survive dehumanization and abuse. In this they set an example for their children and menfolk. The chapters in this volume reflect these concerns about the value of the study of black women and slavery in the Americas. Together they help to present a sharper image of the forces of slavery against which black women fought for survival and for dignity, for themselves, for their families, for their children s children, because they saw themselves as more than chattel, more than the personal property of another.
The materials discussed in the fifteen chapters facilitate the organization into three parts: Africa and the Americas, Life and Labor, and Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom. If part of the main concern of this collection of essays is captured in the subtitle, Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, then the African background context of the cultures and societies from which the slaves came to the Americas and the circumstances under which they were uprooted and transported through forced migration become matters of major concern. The first chapter, by Claire Robertson, in the part entitled Africa and the Americas, deals with that context and serves as an introduction to the book. Robertson s deeply probing essay, focusing primarily on the issues of family and the sexual division of labor, suggests a number of ways to answer basic questions about what must be taken into account about African society and culture in order to interpret the experiences of black women under slavery in the Americas.
The eight chapters in the part entitled Life and Labor emphasize that black women in slave societies of the Americas were valued primarily because of their productive capacities as workers in a wide range of environments. Their primary involvement in commodity production and the supply of other labor services may have dominated the thinking of slaveowners, but black women struggled against enduring lives overwhelmingly devoted to work for their masters benefit. Within the interstices of the various slave systems of the Americas, black women opened up enough space for the realization of some autonomy. Richard H. Steckel, Cheryll Ann Cody, Mary Karasch, Robert A. Olwell, Hilary Beckles, Robert W. Slenes, Wilma King, and Brenda E. Stevenson focus on a wide range of issues within this thematic frame, including the health of slave women, their socialization, childbearing and rearing, motherhood, domestic work, life on the frontier, commercial employment and autonomy, and the significance of the black family.
Although scholarship about slavery in the Americas has expanded topically in recent years, slave resistance remains of major interest, partly because the nature of slavery invests the phenomenon with an enduring significance that is also related to the larger human struggle against oppression in its various forms. It is also partly because the growing interest in the history of black women in slavery raises new questions about resistance, or forces a reformulation of old questions that were perhaps once thought to have been addressed adequately. Building upon much wider contexts of slave life