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A review by swampbooks
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
4.0
When you think of a slaveowner, what kind of person do you imagine? For me, it was always a white man. While they definitely made of the majority of oppressors, and still do, this is a reminder that white women were also behind the whips and were the cause of so much horror and heartbreak in the slave trade.
This really enlightened me on how the United States education system really glosses over slavery. We were basically told that African people were sold to Americans and forced to pick cotton, take care of white babies, were separated from their families, often brutalized, and that was about it. There was so much more emotional, mental, and physical trauma involved, mainly at the hands of white men, but often at the hands of white women as well. It often hurt to hear, but it was a necessary evil that grounds the situations they were involved in into reality and illustrates the truth of slave history.
The author not only told us about the lives of slaves and their captors, but went so far as to give example after example of real life people and the stories they gave, whether that information was gleamed from an interview or a letter written at the time of the event. This fully legitimizes everything that happened. No one can claim that any of this was made up or exaggerated, because the author very obviously put in extensive work to give solid evidence.
All of these examples were focused on the white women who often get a free pass when it comes to the history of slavery. I mean, they were just women! They couldn't possibly have had anything to do with something so brutal, right? Wrong. Women themselves owned slaves as their own independent property. They beat them, tormented them, bought them, sold them, worked them, and more.
People went through absolutely absurd lengths to own other human beings. White captors did not think of their slaves as people - they were cattle. Something to be bred, worked, and sold. Women in particular were in high demand, because in addition to the general field work slaves were tasked with, they could also be used as a wet nurse, a nanny, and worst of all (to me at least), a breeder.
White women would literally buy Black women, wait for them to get pregnant, and profit off selling their baby. I mean, my god. This act in particular was truly eye-opening to how slaves were objectified in literally every way possible. Today, in 2022, women around the world preach about sticking together to lift each other up and help each other out, but back then white women absolutely did not have that mindset, and it's genuinely scary to think about. Can you imagine that happening now? Getting a woman pregnant, holding her hostage, and then taking her baby from her just to turn a profit? I can't begin to imagine the heartbreak Black women felt having their child ripped from their arms, never to be seen again, by another women who should at least be able to comprehend the pain she was causing.
It's a deep, dark stain on American history that does not at all get told enough. Please read this, please educate yourself, and please encourage others to do the same.
My gripes include: repetitive information, complex legal language that made it difficult to understand, and an overly wordy writing style. All of these combined with the most monotone audiobook narrator ever could make it pretty dry to listen to. I would often take days-long breaks because of this.
This really enlightened me on how the United States education system really glosses over slavery. We were basically told that African people were sold to Americans and forced to pick cotton, take care of white babies, were separated from their families, often brutalized, and that was about it. There was so much more emotional, mental, and physical trauma involved, mainly at the hands of white men, but often at the hands of white women as well. It often hurt to hear, but it was a necessary evil that grounds the situations they were involved in into reality and illustrates the truth of slave history.
The author not only told us about the lives of slaves and their captors, but went so far as to give example after example of real life people and the stories they gave, whether that information was gleamed from an interview or a letter written at the time of the event. This fully legitimizes everything that happened. No one can claim that any of this was made up or exaggerated, because the author very obviously put in extensive work to give solid evidence.
All of these examples were focused on the white women who often get a free pass when it comes to the history of slavery. I mean, they were just women! They couldn't possibly have had anything to do with something so brutal, right? Wrong. Women themselves owned slaves as their own independent property. They beat them, tormented them, bought them, sold them, worked them, and more.
People went through absolutely absurd lengths to own other human beings. White captors did not think of their slaves as people - they were cattle. Something to be bred, worked, and sold. Women in particular were in high demand, because in addition to the general field work slaves were tasked with, they could also be used as a wet nurse, a nanny, and worst of all (to me at least), a breeder.
White women would literally buy Black women, wait for them to get pregnant, and profit off selling their baby. I mean, my god. This act in particular was truly eye-opening to how slaves were objectified in literally every way possible. Today, in 2022, women around the world preach about sticking together to lift each other up and help each other out, but back then white women absolutely did not have that mindset, and it's genuinely scary to think about. Can you imagine that happening now? Getting a woman pregnant, holding her hostage, and then taking her baby from her just to turn a profit? I can't begin to imagine the heartbreak Black women felt having their child ripped from their arms, never to be seen again, by another women who should at least be able to comprehend the pain she was causing.
It's a deep, dark stain on American history that does not at all get told enough. Please read this, please educate yourself, and please encourage others to do the same.
My gripes include: repetitive information, complex legal language that made it difficult to understand, and an overly wordy writing style. All of these combined with the most monotone audiobook narrator ever could make it pretty dry to listen to. I would often take days-long breaks because of this.