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The Invisibility of Female Slaves

— Attitudes towards Female Slaves

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the role of African American female slaves in society focused mainly on mothering duties for the children of free white women. One of the implications of these mothering duties was that black female slaves often had little-to-no time to look after their own children. This perpetuated a stereotype of black women as bad mothers which was supported by both black and white communities. In Kingston, Jamaica 1831, a newspaper run by free men of colour attacked free women of colour for their inadequate mothering abilities.

In addition to this commonly held belief that black women were bad mothers was an almost contradictory belief found in many white slave-owner households. Due to slave-holding families romanticising the role of black female slaves by calling them ‘nanny’ or ‘mammy’, many slave-holding families viewed the work of black female slaves as loving and doting. Thus, they often offered no remuneration for the labour conducted by their black female slaves.

Despite attitudes towards black female slaves in the 18th and 19th centuries revolving around their participation in mothering duties, historians have criticised the cause of these attitudes. Some argue that because female slaves’ lives were entirely based on the public marketplace, their ability to foster private lives was viewed as highly political. In this sense, the black female slave as a mother of her own children threatened her role in society as the ‘doting’ nanny. It is this, the historians argue, and not her lack of time with her own offspring, that contributed to an attack of the black female slave as a mother of her own, and appraisal for her as mothering those of white slaveowners.

Another historical perspective focuses on white-European settler attitudes towards black women. This posits these perspectives as catalysts of the eventual forced labour of black females into mothering duties. Settler descriptions of black women as unwomanly due to their reproductive value were prominent and perpetuated the utility of their perceived fertility. Richard Ligon, an early-modern English travel writer, wrote that their breasts ‘‘hang down below their Navels, so that when they stoop at their common work of weeding, they hang almost to the ground, that at a distance you would think they had six legs.’’

Despite these historical perspectives on the attitudes towards black female slaves and motherhood, some historians have criticised the lack of research altogether in this area. They argue that the bulk of slave-history research preceding the formation of women's studies has resulted in a lack of knowledge as to the reality of black female slave experiences and attitudes towards it. Furthermore, they critique the range of evidence available to uncover these experiences and attitudes, as the domestication of black female slaves led white slave owners to view them as largely non-violent and non-defensive. Thus, much of the accounts of this time focus on black male slaves as they were viewed as threatening and likely to revolt.

— Reproductive expectations

Slaveowners relied on female slaves and their fertility to form and maintain the slave population. It was a common practice in both South and North Carolina that slaveholders proactively engaged in the protection of enslaved progenies to ensure the reproductive labour force in plantations. Suggested by an observer in North Carolina in the year 1737, that slaveowners were actively interfering in enslaved couples in the way of coercively obliging a woman to take on ‘second, third, … fifth to more Husbands, or Bedfellows’ if their progeny was not born until a year or two.

As a result of the gendered value inscribed on black women by slaveholders, right after the 1750s, the black population in South Carolina was already revealing a trend of natural increase – birthrates surpassed mortality rates, as a result of the planned births instead of imports. In the next half of the century, over three-fourths of the slave sales in the colony were implicitly or explicitly family members. Elizabeth Ross Hite from Louisiana recalled that “All de maste rwanted was fo dem wimmen tohav children,”; in the meantime, Julia Woodrich witnessed her mother having 15 children, each with a different father as she was sold from one plantation to the other. Goodrich described that as ‘every time she was sold she took another man, she was classified as a ‘good breeder’. As slaveholders obliged these women to have compulsive sex or wet-nursing behaviors, miscarriage, stillbirths and abortions happened due to the overloaded work in sugar plantation.

— Slavery and Motherhood

Slavery for women in America was a unique experience in comparison to slavery for men. When it came to motherhood, it can be described as a complex experience presenting a series of challenges. Enslaved mothers were under the pressure of the ‘ideal mother’ stereotype existing in American culture at the time. This standard included being ‘white, privileged and dedicated to instructing their children on how to be productive citizens.’. That being said, fertility and motherhood were highly valued in female slaves, as their bodies were used for the purpose of birthing more slaves and thus, made them much more valuable in the slave trade. However, this did not stop slave owners from implementing physical punishment on their female slaves. However, the punishment was modified for pregnant women to protect the child, the pregnant slave would lie face down with their stomach in a hole in the ground, They would then be whipped on their backs, so the fetus would not be harmed.

Regardless of the status of the father of the child, if the mother was enslaved, the child would be also. This is because many slave owners sexually assaulted and abused their female slaves, and therefore the child would be a product of a free man and an enslaved woman. This was very common, especially since enslaved women were largely invisible in rape cases due to violating an enslaved woman not being recognised as a criminal offence because of their legal status being property.2 It was very common among enslaved mothers to teach their children how to behave and respond to the abuse they would face in their lifetime as the property of slave owners. Family was very important in the African-American community; mothers would raise their children to remain as a family regardless of the world’s attitudes against them.

An additional challenge for enslaved mothers was navigating the experience of birthing a child with disabilities. Disabled children presented great complications for mothers as a slave's value was determined on the basis of their productivity levels. This meant that any child with a disability who was born into slavery was deemed useless and a liability. The United States was economically driven, and a slave’s value was determined on the basis of their productivity levels. This meant that any slave or child born into slavery with a disability was deemed a liability and useless. These attitudes left disabled children and their mothers in a vulnerable position as they were devalued as property, the mother was prioritized for her ability to perform labour whilst the child’s needs were irrelevant. 4On the other hand, some pregnant slaves feared so much for their unborn child’s life, infanticide would be committed so that their child would never have to experience becoming a slave.

— Assistance agencies for female slaves

The conditions female slaves endured in the 19th century were horrible. However, many of them did not conform to such conditions. They made full use of chances to change their enslaved life and fight for their rights, which contributed to the abolitionist and civil rights movements.

The civil rights movement that was made for enslaved women could be dated back to as early as the 1830s, when the New England Anti-Slavery Society being founded in January 1833. Although most of the female leaders of such institutions were white and well-educated the benefited groups were slaves, particularly female slaves. Harriet Jacobs, a notable African-American writer was a typical example. Born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813, and was sold to a doctor. Norcom often harassed her sexually and threatened her to sell her children if she was disobedient. After enduring several years of poor treatment, she was able to escape. Under the help of the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia, an abolitionist organization, created to aid coloured persons in distress. Harriet successfully escaped by boat to Philadelphia. Afterwards, Harriet was still at risk of being caught by her legal owner Norcom and his later generations legally. Luckily, William Lloyd Garrison, the main founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS) provided aid to her and offered her a job and protected her from being caught. His second wife Cornelia Willis later bought her from her legal owner and helped her become a free woman.

Harriet Jacobs also made her contributions to the slaves' civil rights movement. During the Civil War period, hundreds of slaves escaped from the south to the north. But Lincoln's administration considered them as their masters' property and deemed them contraband without offering any help. In 1862, Harriet released a report in which she reported on the awful conditions experienced by the said "contraband" and called for donations. Together with Quaker Julia Wilbur, an early member of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society (RLASS), Harriet built up a network to support her relief work. For the improvement of slaves' education, many Jacobs Schools were successfully founded in Alexandria's black community. Furthermore, in 1864, Harriet was elected to the executive committee of the Women's Loyal National League, which aimed at abolishing slavery. This proved that Harriet successfully accomplished a change in identity from a helped enslaved woman to a female leader assisting in the abolition of slavery.

Apart from Harriet Jacobs, various other African-American women made contributions to the emancipation of slaves. For example, in 1837, Madame Couvent, an 80-year-old enslaved woman build a school for poor black Catholic orphans in New Orleans while Lucy Laney Craft established the city of Augusta's first kindergarten, a nurse's training program, and a coed school, which helped slaves enjoyed a higher education. All the achievements indicated the roles of female slaves in the improvement of civil rights.