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A review by lievemealone
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
4.0
I've heard a lot of people hype up this book and recommend it, and I think it pretty much lived up to its reputation. My only quibble with this book is that the writing is a little weak at times (i.e., sometimes when discussing anecdotes from previously enslaved people, it's a little hard to figure out who the author is referring to when using third-person pronouns or phrases like "her mother") and can be dense and a little repetitive. This is a very small complaint, since the book is exceptionally well-researched and full of information. While I had assumed white women were involved in slaveholding, this book really broke down exactly how they participated.
I thought it was good that Jones-Rogers immediately breaks down the misconception that white women couldn't be slaveholders because the American South was an extremely patriarchal society and women couldn't own property. She really smashes that myth into microscopic pieces. She relies very heavily on anecdotes from formerly enslaved people and other primary sources like newspapers and court documents (apparently white women were very litigious when it came to their right to own slaves). I've seen some reviewers remark that they wish Jones-Rogers had used "actual data", but I disagree. I think that anecdotes can be excellent data when present in large numbers, and the author really does an excellent job of combining these anecdotes with newspaper advertisements and legal documents to paint a fairly clear picture of just how entrenched white women were in slavery.
As for whether this book is a difficult read or not, I personally found that it wasn't as graphic as I was expecting. There are some descriptions of violence towards enslaved people, but the tone is always fairly detached in my opinion. However, I imagine this book could be incredibly upsetting in many ways. While Jones-Rogers maintains a fairly distant and academic tone throughout the book, to the point that it reads more as a textbook, she doesn't shy away from the brutality of slavery at all. This includes the the quotes she pulls from primary sources: in her introduction, she says that she explicitly chose to leave in all uses of the n-word and other offensive or disparaging language for the following reason:
I very much agree with Jones-Rogers' reasoning on this point, though I do understand that there are many people who won't be comfortable reading this language.
Ultimately, I think I'd say this to anyone who is apprehensive about reading it: if you are unfamiliar with the more minute ways chattel slavery operated in America and think you can tolerate some upsetting material, then you should read this book. However, if you already have a good understanding of the atrocities of slavery and think this book would be incredibly upsetting to you, then I think you'd be fine not reading it. That said, I do think all my fellow white American women should very strongly consider reading this in order to fully understand the role we have played in white supremacy in America.
I thought it was good that Jones-Rogers immediately breaks down the misconception that white women couldn't be slaveholders because the American South was an extremely patriarchal society and women couldn't own property. She really smashes that myth into microscopic pieces. She relies very heavily on anecdotes from formerly enslaved people and other primary sources like newspapers and court documents (apparently white women were very litigious when it came to their right to own slaves). I've seen some reviewers remark that they wish Jones-Rogers had used "actual data", but I disagree. I think that anecdotes can be excellent data when present in large numbers, and the author really does an excellent job of combining these anecdotes with newspaper advertisements and legal documents to paint a fairly clear picture of just how entrenched white women were in slavery.
As for whether this book is a difficult read or not, I personally found that it wasn't as graphic as I was expecting. There are some descriptions of violence towards enslaved people, but the tone is always fairly detached in my opinion. However, I imagine this book could be incredibly upsetting in many ways. While Jones-Rogers maintains a fairly distant and academic tone throughout the book, to the point that it reads more as a textbook, she doesn't shy away from the brutality of slavery at all. This includes the the quotes she pulls from primary sources: in her introduction, she says that she explicitly chose to leave in all uses of the n-word and other offensive or disparaging language for the following reason:
"Ultimately, I decided to include the language used in these interviews because they are the best sources we have for understanding how enslaved people understood their lives and their worlds. In addition, making any changes to the text presented its own problems. Such revisions would sanitize the experience of these formerly enslaved people and make it difficult for readers to understand how they perceived what had happened to them. (xx)
I very much agree with Jones-Rogers' reasoning on this point, though I do understand that there are many people who won't be comfortable reading this language.
Ultimately, I think I'd say this to anyone who is apprehensive about reading it: if you are unfamiliar with the more minute ways chattel slavery operated in America and think you can tolerate some upsetting material, then you should read this book. However, if you already have a good understanding of the atrocities of slavery and think this book would be incredibly upsetting to you, then I think you'd be fine not reading it. That said, I do think all my fellow white American women should very strongly consider reading this in order to fully understand the role we have played in white supremacy in America.