Slavery has always been an awful thing. But It can be denied it play a major role in our history. For the purpose of this historiographical paper I will focus in slavery in the United States in colonial times. Focusing on African women something that many historian agree hasn’t been talk enough. I will look at four different historians that focus their research in the lives of African women in the time of slavery.
My first historian is Jennifer Morgan she wrote the book “laboring women’. In the introduction of her book she talks about how African women were not only used to work the land, but to also to have children and create more slaves. She argues that European man justify African slavery of women because it was the right thing to do. Due to their supposed heighted sex drive. I think Morgan’s argument about how African Women were used is very interesting one. But we have to remember that slavery was a money making business it was always about the how money and how to make more money. And that presents a problem, the mortality rate was very high. So in the long run having slaves have more slave was only going to further the mortality rate. Morgan also talks about historian used to separate African male slave issues and women issue but they never really talk about African women in issues of the time. And how it was important to do so because African women who were slave have a very different perspective and experience that those of men and . I really like this argument by Morgan that women already in colonial time were very much restricted as t o what they could do. So imagine being a slave the psychological damage that was being done to these women it was absolutely awful. Professor Barbara Bush also talks about African slave women in colonial times. She makes a similar argument to Morgan in how European man thought that it was also morally correct to in slave African women. In one of her books she makes this specific argument about how European man used to view African women. condensed into three homogenizing but contradictory stereotypes; the wanton ‘whore’, romanticized as the ‘Sable Venus’; the passive drudge subordinated to lazy, dominant African men as slaves, or in polygamous marriages; and the powerful ‘witch’ who metamorphosed into the rebellious slave ‘she devil’.11 Such stereotypes emphasized difference from, and inferiority to, white women and justified European exploitation of the female slave body for sex, childbearing and labor. Bush also talks about how European man distance themselves from African culture . For me this her most compelling argument people through all history of time have been always been able to commit horrible acts to others human beings, not because they are necessary evil but because they can separate themselves from their acts. They don’t see these women as other human beings just like them, they are able to separate themselves from them. And to actually think that they are better that these women, and that these women are capable of enduring and should endure slavery because that was the right to do . And that slaving these women for profit actually help them to have a better life and that’s why these women were created. Professor Margaret Washington from Cornell university wrote an essay tittle Rachel Weeping for Her Children”: Black Women and the Abolition …show more content…
Washington talks about another aspect of slavery she talks about African women that were once or had still family that were still slaves, and how this women work to help free these other people that were still slave. Also she mentions that most African abolitionists prefer that these women only work behind the scenes, but they refuse. This is perhaps my favorite take on this issue. I love how these women took and active role to help their fellow woman. I imagine that is extremely hard to do so. These women still live in a country were haft of it was very still much pro slavery. One step in the wrong direction and these women could again find themselves under slavery again. But they still help in anyway they could to free their fellow
My first historian is Jennifer Morgan she wrote the book “laboring women’. In the introduction of her book she talks about how African women were not only used to work the land, but to also to have children and create more slaves. She argues that European man justify African slavery of women because it was the right thing to do. Due to their supposed heighted sex drive. I think Morgan’s argument about how African Women were used is very interesting one. But we have to remember that slavery was a money making business it was always about the how money and how to make more money. And that presents a problem, the mortality rate was very high. So in the long run having slaves have more slave was only going to further the mortality rate. Morgan also talks about historian used to separate African male slave issues and women issue but they never really talk about African women in issues of the time. And how it was important to do so because African women who were slave have a very different perspective and experience that those of men and . I really like this argument by Morgan that women already in colonial time were very much restricted as t o what they could do. So imagine being a slave the psychological damage that was being done to these women it was absolutely awful. Professor Barbara Bush also talks about African slave women in colonial times. She makes a similar argument to Morgan in how European man thought that it was also morally correct to in slave African women. In one of her books she makes this specific argument about how European man used to view African women. condensed into three homogenizing but contradictory stereotypes; the wanton ‘whore’, romanticized as the ‘Sable Venus’; the passive drudge subordinated to lazy, dominant African men as slaves, or in polygamous marriages; and the powerful ‘witch’ who metamorphosed into the rebellious slave ‘she devil’.11 Such stereotypes emphasized difference from, and inferiority to, white women and justified European exploitation of the female slave body for sex, childbearing and labor. Bush also talks about how European man distance themselves from African culture . For me this her most compelling argument people through all history of time have been always been able to commit horrible acts to others human beings, not because they are necessary evil but because they can separate themselves from their acts. They don’t see these women as other human beings just like them, they are able to separate themselves from them. And to actually think that they are better that these women, and that these women are capable of enduring and should endure slavery because that was the right to do . And that slaving these women for profit actually help them to have a better life and that’s why these women were created. Professor Margaret Washington from Cornell university wrote an essay tittle Rachel Weeping for Her Children”: Black Women and the Abolition …show more content…
Washington talks about another aspect of slavery she talks about African women that were once or had still family that were still slaves, and how this women work to help free these other people that were still slave. Also she mentions that most African abolitionists prefer that these women only work behind the scenes, but they refuse. This is perhaps my favorite take on this issue. I love how these women took and active role to help their fellow woman. I imagine that is extremely hard to do so. These women still live in a country were haft of it was very still much pro slavery. One step in the wrong direction and these women could again find themselves under slavery again. But they still help in anyway they could to free their fellow