From PBS: Slavery & the Making of America

From PBS: Slavery & the Making of America: Men, Women, & Gender

By Jennifer Hallam

For black men and women, slavery was an equally awful experience. Both were torn from homeland and family. Both were forced to perform grueling labor, subjected to mental and physical abuse, and denied their most basic rights. Enslaved men and women were beaten horribly, separated from loved ones randomly, and, regardless of sex, treated as property in the eyes of the law.

Despite common factors, however, the circumstances of enslavement were different for black women and black men. The first slaves to be brought to the British colonies of North America were disproportionately male. Considered more valuable workers because of their strength, enslaved men performed labors that ranged from building houses to plowing fields. When the Dutch brought African and Creole women into New Amsterdam in the late 1620s, they did so not to supplement their workforce, but to provide company for their black male slaves.

On small farms with few slaves, women were more likely to perform the same labor as men. Usually, however, especially on larger farms and plantations, fieldwork was divided along gender lines, with more physically demanding tasks assigned to male gangs. Men, for instance, might chop the wood for a fence, while women were put in charge of its construction. Men generally plowed the fields, while women hoed.

In Africa, a woman's primary social role was that of mother. In slavery, this aspect of African womanhood was ruined. Whereas childbirth in Africa was a rite of passage for women that earned them increased respect, within the American plantation system that developed by the mid-eighteenth century, it was an economic advantage for the master, who multiplied his work force through slave pregnancy. The average enslaved woman at this time gave birth to her first child at nineteen years old, and thereafter, bore one child every two and a half years. This cycle, encouraged by the master, was not without benefits to the mother. While pregnant, she could usually expect more food and fewer working hours. Because proven fertility made her more valuable to her owner, she was also less likely to be sold away from friends and family.

Of course, the burdens that came with childbearing were awful for enslaved women. Expected to put the needs of the master and his family before her own children, the slave mother on a large plantation returned to the fields soon after giving birth, leaving her child to be raised by others. On a smaller farm, the slave's mothering responsibilities were simply added on top of her usual duties. For the love of their children, slave mothers often chose to stay in bondage, while their male counterparts attempted escape. The female slave was, moreover, faced with the prospect of being forced into sexual relationships for the purposes of reproduction. Perhaps more harrowing, she might be witness to her daughters suffering the same fate.

Throughout the period of slavery in America, white society believed black women to be innately lustful beings. Because the ideal white woman was pure and, in the nineteenth century, modest to the degree of prudishness, the perception of the African woman as hyper-sexual made her both the object of white man's anger and his fantasy. Within the bonds of slavery, masters often felt it their right to engage in sexual activity with black women. Sometimes, female slaves acquiesced to advances hoping that such relationships would increase the chances that they or their children would be liberated by the master. Most of the time, however, slave owners took slaves by force.

For the most part, masters made young, single slaves the objects of their sexual pursuits. However, they did on occasion rape married women. The inability of the slave husband to protect his wife from such violation points to another fundamental aspect of the relationship between enslaved men and women. The paternalistic language of slavery, the restrictions of slave law, and the circumstances of slave life created a sense of parity between black wives and husbands.

A master's control over both spouses reduced the black male's potential for dominance over his wife. Married slaves, whose union was not legally recognized, held no joint property in common. What is more, labor segregation by sex and the frequency with which male slaves were sold meant women were not only left to raise their children alone, but also to rely on female friends and relations above husbands.

In consequence, black slave women were autonomous in ways that white women could not be. Like the attention the master sometimes aimed at female slaves, the perceived "freedoms" of the black woman sometimes provoked the resentment of mistresses. At the same time, the agency conferred on female slaves also helped to reinforce the notion that they were inherently depraved.

Whenever possible, black slave women manipulated their unique circumstances in the struggle for their personal dignity and that of their families. As often as black men, black women rebelled against the inhumanities of slave owners.

Like their ancestors and counterparts in Africa, most slave women took their motherhood seriously. They put their responsibilities for their children before their own safety and freedom, provided for children not their own, and gave love even to those babies born from violence. For their experience and knowledge as caregivers, elderly women were among the most revered slaves on Southern plantations. For the slave woman, faced with the double onus of being black and female and the added burden of dependent children, womanhood and personhood were easier gained within the slave community.