More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas

364 Pages·1996·15.613 MB·English

by  David Barry Gaspar, Darlene Clark Hine

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MORE
THAN
CHATTEL
Blacks in the Diaspora
Darlene Clark Hine,
John McCluskey, Jr.,
and David Barry Gaspar
General Editors
t
p
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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
© 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 0-253-33017-3 (cloth: alk. paper). — ISBN 0-253-21043-7
(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
306.3'62'082—dc20 95-36096
3 4 5 01 00 99 98
JUN 0 4 tS99
To the memory of two black
mothers and teachers
Anne-Marie Felina Gaspar Nicklette
Lottie Mae Thompson Clark
'
CONTENTS
PREFACE [x
Africa and the Americas
I. Africa into the Americas? 3
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 43
Richard H. Steckel
III. Cycles of Work and of Childbearing 61
—
Seasonality in Women’s Lives on Low Country Plantations
Cheryll Ann Cody
IV. Slave Women on the Brazilian Frontier
in the Nineteenth Century 79
Mary Karasch
V. “Loose, Idle and Disorderly” 97
Slave Women in the Eighteenth-Century Charleston Marketplace
Robert Olwell
VI. Black Female Slaves and White Households in Barbados 111
Hilary Beckles
VII. Black Homes, White Homilies 126
Perceptions of the Slave Family and of Slave Women in
Nineteenth-Century Brazil -
Robert W. Slenes
CONTENTS
viii
—-VIII. “Suffer with Them Till Death” 147
Slave Women and Their Children in Nineteenth-Century America
Wilma King
IX. Gender Convention, Ideals, and Identity among
Antebellum Virginia Slave Women 169
Brenda E. Stevenson
Slavery, Resistance, and Freedom
X. Hard Labor 193
Women, Childbirth, and Resistance in British
/I
Caribbean Slave Societies
Barbara Bush
XI. From “the Sense of Their Slavery” 218
Slave Women and Resistance in Antigua, 1632-1763
David Barry Gaspar
XII. Slave Women and Resistance in the French Caribbean 239
Bernard Moitt
XIII. Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue 259
David P. Geggus
XIV. Economic Roles of the Free Women of Color
of Cap Fran^ais 279
Susan M. Socolow
XV. Urban Slavery-Urban Freedom 298
The Manumission of Jacqueline Lemelle
L. Virginia Gould
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 315
Celia E. Naylor-Ojurongbe and David Barry Gaspar
CONTRIBUTORS 329
INDEX 332