Conceived in violence: enslaved mothers and children born of rape in nineteenth-century Louisiana

ABSTRACT

Through the examination of testimony from formerly enslaved people who had been fathered by white men under slavery, this paper considers how enslaved women negotiated motherhood when their child had been conceived through rape. Evidence reveals that the relationship between enslaved mothers and their children remained strong, despite sexual violence and interference into childrearing by slaveholding families. Informants had close knowledge of the non-consensual nature of their conception, and their willingness to discuss sexual violence reflects the lack of stigma attached to rape victims in the slave community, and hints at the way that enslaved communities coped with sexual violence on an institutional level.     

Slave Mothers and White Fathers: Defining Family and Status in Late Colonial Cuba

This paper outlines the mechanisms used to position the offspring of slave women and white men at various points within late nineteenth-century Cuba's racial hierarchy. The reproductive choices available to these parents allowed for small, but significant, transformations to the existing patterns of race and challenged the social separation that typically under girded African slavery in the Americas. As white men mated with black and mulatta women, they were critical agents in the initial determination of their children's status–as slave, free, mulatto, or even white. This definitional flexibility fostered an unintended corruption of the very meaning of whiteness. Similarly, through mating with white men, enslaved women exercised a degree of procreative choice, despite their subjugated condition. In acknowledging the range of rape, concubinage, and marriage exercised between slave women and white men, this paper highlights the important links between reproductive practices and the social construction of race.     

The concept of piracy in nineteenth-century American abolitionist rhetoric

American abolitionists used the concept of piracy as a rhetorical and tactical device to attack the institution of slavery during the antebellum period. Activists branded slaveholders as ‘pirates’ in order to delegitimize the validity of slave owners' title in stolen people and recognize enslaved peoples' rightful self-ownership. The pirate label further conveyed that slaveholders' violence against slaves was illegal and that enslaved people could lawfully use lethal force to resist those who held them captive, assaulted them, or kidnapped them. Thus, abolitionists characterized slave owners as pirates not only to stigmatize slaveholding but also to shape legal perspectives on slavery by reversing presumptions about property rights and about slavery-related violence.     

Bad breeders and monstrosities: racializing childlessness and congenital disabilities in slavery and freedom

ABSTRACT

By the antebellum years, popular and professional thinking about infertility and the birth of children with congenital disabilities followed a racialized pattern that hewed to the familiar contours of the United States’ larger racial and gender ideologies that legitimized slavery. Whites routinely blamed enslaved women for these conditions through toxic, intersecting discourses about race, gender, and disability that trafficked in racist stereotypes of black women’s supposed lasciviousness and immorality. At the same time, white women of elite or middling social stature were absolved of any imagined responsibility for these very same conditions on the grounds that their pure, delicate physicality left them vulnerable and susceptible to these ‘afflictions.’     

Slavery in White and Black: Class and Race in the Southern Slaveholders' New World Order

Slave-breeding is a topic that has long divided American historians. Since the late nineteenth century, historians have sought out empirical evidence to prove or disprove the idea that some slave owners deliberately bred slaves for sale or to augment their own labour force. As a result, the historiographical treatment of slave-breeding has become bogged down in what Herbert Gutman called ‘the numbers game’. This essay re-examines the question of slave-breeding and challenges us to consider the broader historical meaning of such sensational accusations. It does this by focusing on the rhetoric of black and white abolitionists in the United States between 1830 and 1861. The author argues that slave-breeding discourse provided abolitionists with a narrative focal point with which to attract public attention to their concerns about the westward extension of slavery, the physical and emotional toll slavery wrought on enslaved women, and the trauma associated with the break-up of slave families.     

Black Purgatory: Enslaved Women's Resistance in Nineteenth-Century Rio Grande do Sul,Brazil

This article explores the cases of two Brazilian-born enslaved women who were convicted of infanticide and murder in the city of Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) in the 1820s. Maria was convicted of slitting the throats of her two children with her master's razor. Mônica was convicted of killing her master, André Dias, with five axe blows. Although the crimes these two women perpetrated differed in some ways, their sentences were similar. They were not sentenced to death, the typical fate of enslaved individuals who committed murder. Instead, they were publicly flogged then sent into degredo (penal exile) in Benguela, two Portuguese colonies in West Central Africa. These cases suggest that in the context of slavery in Rio Grande do Sul, the limited possibilities of negotiation between masters and slaves resulted in enslaved women committing violent acts of individual resistance, which, although apparently desperate acts, were also the result of a larger strategy. The article shows that in both prosperous and poor households in the domestic environment, enslaved women experienced various forms of daily violence. It also sheds light on how early in Rio Grande do Sul's history, public defenders started condemning physical violence by slave owners against enslaved women, and how the judicial system recognized the legitimacy of their arguments by sentencing the women to penal exile rather than the death penalty. For the two unmarried enslaved women who were constant victims of abuse, and who very probably did not have any close relatives, being exiled to Benguela was perhaps a blessing in disguise.     

Exploring the connection between pornography and sexual violence

This article examines the relationship between sexual violence and pornography. Data about women's experiences of sexual violence and their abusers' use of pornography were collected at a rape crisis center from 100 survivors. Findings include that 28% of respondents reported that their abuser used pornography and that for 12% of the women, pornography was imitated during the abusive incident. The effects of pornography on women's experiences of sexual violence are discussed.     

Finding dignity in a landscape of fear: enslaved women and girls at the University of Virginia

From its inception, the University of Virginia was a destination for enslaved men, women, and children who were forced to leave their families to build and sustain the needs of this newly founded institution. This article explores the unique experiences of the enslaved women and girls who labored at the University of Virginia, and highlights the distinct intersectionality of their oppression in terms of their race, class, and gender. Their stories showcase the particular challenges that arose while enslaved at a university filled with young privileged white men, bringing attention to the historic and continual struggles of black women throughout history.     

CONSTRUCTING RAPE: FEMINISM,CHANGE, AND WOMEN'S EVERYDAY UNDERSTANDINGS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT

The cultural and legal meaning of rape has changed dramatically over the past 30 years as the feminist movement has challenged traditional constructions of sexual violence and offered an alternative construction of the meaning of rape. The transformation of rape into a social problem has brought increased attention to the subject in both popular and academic realms. Despite the growing body of research and theory on sexual violence, little inquiry exists into women s everyday constructions of rape and the degree to which such constructions have been influenced by the feminist movement. This article uses a constructionist framework to examine the everyday understandings of rape held by a diverse sample of women. Data gathered through an open-ended survey instrument were analyzed to reveal both interesting similarities and significant differences in the ways women of different ages, races, and personal histories define and interpret the phenomenon of rape. By examining these data, the extent to which the feminist reconstruction of rape has influenced women s everyday assumptions is examined, and the role of differences among women in perceptions of rape is explored. The findings presented in this article have implications for theories of social problems, for feminist discourse, and for the application of research on rape in applied settings.     

The tears have not stopped,the violence has not ended: political upheaval,ethnicity, and violence against women in Indonesia

The view of women as the sexual property of men becomes heightened during periods of political unrest. The rape of Chinese-Indonesian women in Jakarta, Indonesia, during the May 1998 student demonstrations confirms this observation. This article describes interviews with Jakarta rape victims conducted by Volunteers for Humanity--a coalition of nongovernmental organizations established after attacks on the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party in 1996. By July 1998, Volunteers for Humanity had documented 152 rapes in Jakarta and 20 rape-related deaths. The result of this fact-collecting was formation of the National Commission on Violence Against Women. Women's groups originally established to address violence against women are now incorporating racism into their campaign agendas. National publicity of these assaults led to further reports of violence against minority-group women perpetuated by the military, paramilitary forces, or civilian men in powerful positions in other areas of the country (e.g., Aceh, East Timor, and Irian Jaya/West Papua). In recent months, a backlash has developed, with official denial that any rapes occurred and intimidation and threats of sexual violence against potential witnesses. Future responses must involve multiethnic, multireligious groups to prevent further isolation/victimization of Chinese-Indonesian women.     

Scandalous Scarcities: Black Slave Women, Plantation Domesticity, and Travel Writing in Nineteenth-Century Cuba

This article draws on the writing of North American and European travelers to illustrate the ways in which enslaved black women became central to Cuba's visions of colonial prosperity in the mid-nineteenth century. Such literature highlights the anxieties that plagued Cuban colonial elites as the slave trade consistently brought fewer African women than men to the island. As mothers, wives, and caretakers of domestic space, black and African women became critical to planters' dreams of continued wealth and stability. To further encourage this idealized culture of respectable domesticity, white Cuban elites erected slave cabins and barracks whose physical arrangements could increase slaves' compulsion to marry, and enhance managers' ability to survey and oversee the enslaved populations. Thus white Cuban elites hoped that enslaved women – and the ideas about marriage, home, and family such women were thought to inspire – would help to produce plantation regimes as orderly and disciplined as they were prosperous.     

In bondage when cold was king: the frigid terrain of slavery in antebellum Maryland

Cold weather remains one of the least explored environmental phenomena in the historiography of American slavery. By detailing the heightened vulnerabilities of the enslaved during the colder portions of the year and then describing the means by which enslaved people leveraged frigid weather against slaveholders, this paper highlights how slave and slaveholder differently mobilized the cold against one another in contests over power. It argues that in the lives of enslaved women and men in antebellum Maryland, cold weather was both an afflicting as well as empowering force.     

Servant,sailor, soldier,tailor, beggarman: Black survival in white society 1780–1830

Black history has witnessed an upsurge in historical interest from the 1970s onwards. However, significant developments have been impaired by the lack of direct black testimony and the paucity of information in general. Thus, scholarship has concentrated on a triumvirate of black literary figures and on the abolition of slavery. New dimensions and departures have been achieved by the work of Duffield, Lorimer and Braidwood; nevertheless, there remain identifiable areas in which our knowledge is deficient. One of the most important is that of black economic survival in white society, which has received only cursory attention. The aim of this study is to reconstruct black occupational structures and examine strategies of survival during the period 1780 to 1830.

This reconstruction of black socio‐economic groupings and employment patterns identifies complexities that were previously obscured. Important distinctions between the free and enslaved are discernible, especially in the occupations of servant and sailor. To support these conclusions evidence has been quarried from newspapers, parish registers and criminal records and comparisons made with the white population. Occupational structures of black men and women have been analysed and the material has enabled black people in the metropolis to be geographically located. Furthermore, the results reinforce the young male dominance of the black population as gender ratios and ages are distinguished.

By adopting a ‘history from below’ approach, attention has finally been diverted away from an elitist group of articulate black men and the issues of abolition towards an analysis of ‘rank and file’ black men and women, and will assist those in search of black roots.     

Gendering mastery: female slaveholders in the Colombian Pacific lowlands*

This article examines the lives and power exercised by female slaveholders in the frontier lowlands of the Pacific coast of Colombia during the first half of the nineteenth century. Utilizing records from the Independence era to the abolition of slavery in 1852, it explores the varied economic activities, wealth management strategies, and administrative methodologies of lowlands mistresses in order to demonstrate their centrality in the preservation of slavery in Colombia’s Pacific frontier. The article argues that the possession of enslaved people was a powerful if contentious avenue for women to assert rights during a period of political instability and transition.     

Redeeming the "Character of the Creoles": Whiteness, Gender and Creolization in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue

This article examines the political significance of white creolization in pre-revolutionary French Saint Domingue. Eighteenth-century Europeans tended to view white creoles as having physically, morally, and culturally degenerated due to the tropical climate, the monotony of plantation life, and their interaction with enslaved and free people of color. Yet elite white colonists in Saint Domingue claimed that white creoles possessed certain positive traits due to their new world birth, traits that rendered them physically stronger and potentially more virtuous than the French. Focusing on little-known publications authored by the white creole Moreau de Saint-Méry, this article highlights the deployment of gendered notions of virtue and noble savagery in debates over white creolization. Moreau's claims, when placed in the context of a conflict between local colonial magistrates and the French Colonial Ministry, challenge interpretations of white creolization as an undesirable, subversive side-effect of colonial slavery. Rather, white colonial men claimed that white colonists knew best how to ensure the obedience of the enslaved precisely because of their creolization.     

Differential perceptions of a hypothetical sexual assault survivor based on race and ethnicity: Exploring victim responsibility,trauma, and need for social support

Objective: Explore the ways in which a sample of college women interpret racially/ethnically coded vignettes to understand their perceptions of responsibility and trauma experienced by a hypothetical female sexual assault survivor and her need for social support. Participants: Convenience sample of college women (N?=?51) attending a large, predominately white university in the Southeastern United States recruited between January and March 2013. Methods: Participants were randomly assigned one of three vignettes describing a hypothetical date rape scenario. Vignette scenarios were identical except for discrete statements coded to signify either an African American, Latina, or white female student. Participants responded to open-ended questions that gauged their interpretations of responsibility, trauma, and social support. Results: Qualitative analysis of open-ended responses revealed six overarching themes, including overt victim blaming/shaming, justification of the sexual assault, and perceived need for social support. Conclusions: Findings point to the significance of including race in discussions about and programs that address sexual assault on college campuses to ensure that all women who experience sexual violence receive the support that they need.     

Birth and initiation on the Peers Plantation: the problem of creolization in seventeenth-century Barbados

A central debate within slavery studies centers on the question of whether enslaved Africans ‘retained’ their cultures or became ‘creolized’ in the Americas. Focusing on two enslaved women and the six children they bore by their master in late seventeenth-century Barbados, this paper suggests how creolization operated in the early modern English Caribbean. The women and children were baptized and provided for in their master’s will. Yet they were also part of the plantation’s 180 strong West African enslaved population. Contextualizing all of the influences that shaped their experiences on Barbados, this paper examines naming, baptism, and birthing rituals to provide an account of the women’s lives that does not privilege either European or West African cultural practices. It argues that creolization was not a marker of identity, nor a unidirectional process of Europeanization, but rather a multivalent and multidirectional negotiation of cultural exchanges.     

From spoils to weapons: framing wartime sexual violence

The way an issue is ‘framed’ (viewed and understood) has a profound effect on whether it is viewed as a priority for action by international organisations, states, and civil society. Wartime sexual violence used to be framed as a ‘women's issue’, but since the issue gained widespread notoriety in the mid-1990s, it has shifted to being understood as a ‘security issue’. Activists and campaigners have used this as an opportunity to press for more attention at international and national levels, and policymakers have given higher priority to the issue of ending wartime sexual violence. Yet framing wartime sexual violence in terms of security – and in particular, a focus on ‘rape as a weapon’ – comes at a cost. First, it isolates this violence conceptually from the wider context of gender-based violence before, during, and after active armed conflict, and other types of violence may receive little attention. In addition, the specific emphasis on ‘rape as a weapon’ affects the types of wartime sexual violence recognised and condemned by the international community, the kinds of ‘victims’ granted assistance, and the extent to which women and men are perceived as victims, empowered agents, or perpetrators.     

Sexual Coercion in Marriage: Narrative Accounts of Abused Mexican-American Women

Intimate partner sexual violence (IPSV) has been relatively understudied particularly from the perspective of women of color. This study documents the experiences with partner sexual violence of ten Mexican-American women. Qualitative interviews were conducted using snowball sampling with women that had been in abusive marital relationships. A phenomenological approach was used and through a thematic analysis, participant narrative responses were synthesized into themes. All participants reported sexual coercion and violence in their marriages, yet most did not label those experiences as “rape” despite the threatening context in which these incidents occurred. Tacit, but not always explicit acceptance of machismo, patriarchy, and male dominance were common themes possibly increasing IPV risk. Results highlight the complex interaction between upholding cultural values on the one hand, and preserving individual well-being and safety, on the other, underscoring the need for more extensive culturally sensitive research, prevention and intervention efforts for abused Mexican-American women     

Maternal struggles and the politics of childlessness under pronatalist Caribbean slavery

ABSTRACT

This article considers the relationship of enslaved and apprenticed women in the Anglophone Caribbean to the embodied experience of childbearing, motherhood, and childlessness. It places this analysis in the context of a discussion of the development and implementation of pronatalist policies in the Anglophone Caribbean during the late period of slavery. It examines the experience of pronatalist policies by enslaved women, using as a case study a microhistory from Jamaica during the apprenticeship period (1834–1848). Although the existence of pronatalist policies gave some women (mothers with large numbers of children) a position from which to claim reduced workloads and other ‘rights’, they made the situation of childless women more difficult. In historians' attention to the struggles of mothers, we have sometimes paid insufficient attention to the perspective of childless and bereaved women.