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A review by manaledi
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
5.0
This is one of those books that really sits with you. It was two-fold powerful as an academic history analysis and as a big picture societal explanation. First, her use and depth of sources is amazing - the combination of interviews and legal documents and correspondence shows an incredible amount of research and the primary sources themselves play heavily throughout the book. The first-person narratives of formerly enslaved people combine with the written perspectives of slave owners in fascinating ways.
Second, the main argument that white women were slave owners in their own right is the same historical narrative that ties directly into white women voting for Trump. She lays out over and over again all of the ways that white women prioritized their own economic benefit and interests over the lives and bodies of the people that they owned. White women slaveowners are the original non-intersectional feminists who stood up to men for their own independence and economic interests but at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of African Americans.
Second, the main argument that white women were slave owners in their own right is the same historical narrative that ties directly into white women voting for Trump. She lays out over and over again all of the ways that white women prioritized their own economic benefit and interests over the lives and bodies of the people that they owned. White women slaveowners are the original non-intersectional feminists who stood up to men for their own independence and economic interests but at the cost of the lives and livelihoods of African Americans.