Podcast
Questions and Answers
According to James Redpath, why did white Southern women support slavery in 1859?
According to James Redpath, why did white Southern women support slavery in 1859?
- They feared economic instability if slavery was abolished.
- They were shielded from the harsh realities of the institution and were constantly indoctrinated to support it. (correct)
- They directly benefited from the economic gains produced by slavery.
- They were actively involved in the interstate trade of enslaved people.
What primary source evidence contradicts Redpath's assumptions about white southern women and slavery?
What primary source evidence contradicts Redpath's assumptions about white southern women and slavery?
- Personal letters between enslaved individuals discussing their living conditions.
- Narrative sources, legal and financial documents, and military and government correspondence. (correct)
- Court documents detailing inheritance disputes among family members.
- Census records indicating the number of slaves owned by white southern families.
How did Martha Gibbs, as described by Litt Young, defy traditional gender roles in the antebellum South?
How did Martha Gibbs, as described by Litt Young, defy traditional gender roles in the antebellum South?
- By advocating for the humane treatment of enslaved people and challenging societal norms.
- By refusing to participate in the social events and customs of the Southern elite.
- By openly supporting the Union army and challenging Confederate ideals.
- By overseeing her sawmill and enslaved workforce with authority, including carrying guns and using harsh language. (correct)
How did Martha Gibbs react to her husband's concern about the harsh treatment of enslaved people?
How did Martha Gibbs react to her husband's concern about the harsh treatment of enslaved people?
What action did Martha Gibbs take after being released from imprisonment by Union officers?
What action did Martha Gibbs take after being released from imprisonment by Union officers?
What is a key oversight in historical scholarship regarding married women who owned slaves?
What is a key oversight in historical scholarship regarding married women who owned slaves?
How did the economic role of women in slave-owning societies challenge traditional views of women's dependence on men?
How did the economic role of women in slave-owning societies challenge traditional views of women's dependence on men?
What evidence suggests that the economic power of women through slave ownership was recognized in antebellum society?
What evidence suggests that the economic power of women through slave ownership was recognized in antebellum society?
How does the book 'They Were Her Property' redefine the term 'mistress' in the context of the antebellum South?
How does the book 'They Were Her Property' redefine the term 'mistress' in the context of the antebellum South?
What is a difficulty that historians face in understanding the reality of women's ownership from the pre-Civil War era?
What is a difficulty that historians face in understanding the reality of women's ownership from the pre-Civil War era?
What justification did James Redpath offer for white Southern women's perceived lack of opposition to slavery?
What justification did James Redpath offer for white Southern women's perceived lack of opposition to slavery?
How did Martha Gibbs's actions challenge traditional views of women in the antebellum South?
How did Martha Gibbs's actions challenge traditional views of women in the antebellum South?
What does the reference to Martha Gibbs buckling on two guns each morning suggest about her role as a slave owner?
What does the reference to Martha Gibbs buckling on two guns each morning suggest about her role as a slave owner?
How did Martha Gibbs respond to her husband's concerns about the treatment of enslaved people?
How did Martha Gibbs respond to her husband's concerns about the treatment of enslaved people?
What action did Martha Gibbs take after being released from imprisonment by Union officers that demonstrates her complex relationship with slavery?
What action did Martha Gibbs take after being released from imprisonment by Union officers that demonstrates her complex relationship with slavery?
Why does the book argue that historians have neglected married women who owned slaves?
Why does the book argue that historians have neglected married women who owned slaves?
How did the economic role of women as slave owners potentially challenge traditional views of women's dependence on men in antebellum society?
How did the economic role of women as slave owners potentially challenge traditional views of women's dependence on men in antebellum society?
How does the book's understanding of the term 'mistress' differ from traditional historical interpretations?
How does the book's understanding of the term 'mistress' differ from traditional historical interpretations?
What is one challenge historians face in understanding women's ownership in the pre-Civil War era?
What is one challenge historians face in understanding women's ownership in the pre-Civil War era?
Flashcards
Southern Women's Views on Slavery
Southern Women's Views on Slavery
White southern women were viewed as opposing emancipation due to indoctrination and societal shielding from the institution's realities.
Women's Active Role in Slavery
Women's Active Role in Slavery
Slave-owning women actively participated in, profited from, and defended slavery.
Martha Gibbs
Martha Gibbs
A wealthy woman who owned a steam sawmill and many slaves, personally overseeing operations with armed presence.
Married Women's Independence
Married Women's Independence
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Slave-owning women and capitalism
Slave-owning women and capitalism
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Marriage and wealth
Marriage and wealth
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The Mistress
The Mistress
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Women in slave trade
Women in slave trade
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Enslaved Testimonies
Enslaved Testimonies
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Salient life events
Salient life events
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Who was James Redpath?
Who was James Redpath?
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Overseer's Role
Overseer's Role
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What characterizes a mistress?
What characterizes a mistress?
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Importance of Enslaved Narratives
Importance of Enslaved Narratives
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Study Notes
- In 1859, James Redpath claimed southern women opposed emancipation due to lifelong indoctrination praising and defending slavery everywhere they went.
- Redpath believed white southern women were shielded from the institution's horrific realities by southern patriarchs.
- According to Redpath, they "never attend auctions; never witness 'examinations; seldom, if ever, see the negroes lashed."
- Redpath believed that women in the South "knew slavery as it is", they would protest.
- Narrative sources, legal and financial documents, and government correspondence reveal that white southern women were fully aware of the atrocities of slavery.
- Slave-owning women witnessed and participated in the brutality, profited from it, and defended it.
- Gibbs was described as a "big, rich Irishwoman" who "warn't scared of no man," according to Litt Young.
- Gibbs owned and operated a large steam sawmill on the Warner Bayou.
- She owned a significant number of slaves and had to build two sets of white-washed quarters with glass windows and a brass cupola.
- Gibbs fed her slaves well along with requiring that they worked them hard.
- Gibbs employed an overseer and personally oversaw the enslaved on the land.
- Almost every morning, she "buckled on two guns and come out to the place" to personally ensure that things were running smoothly, and "she out-cussed a man when things didn't go right."
- Twice married and once widowed, Gibbs prohibited her husbands from interfering with her finances, including the management of her slaves.
- Gibbs's second husband cautioned her about excessive whipping, but she dismissed him, even questioning if he was a Yankee.
- During the Civil War, he treated injured soldiers for the Union forces.
- Local Union officers arrested Gibbs and locked her up in the black fo'ks church for three days.
- Gibbs fed them bard that with water, and then released her following Union victory.
- Gibbs later temporarily freed her slaves, then gathered a group of them and traveled to Texas, hiring Irishmen guards to prevent escape.
- On June 19, 1866, after a year of labor, Martha Gibbs freed the remaining slaves.
- Married slave-owning women have received scant historical attention, with focus typically on wealthiest single or widowed cases.
- Historians often neglect married women who owned slaves; instead, attention is given to women who lived in households managed by other owners.
- Historians rarely consider why slave ownership might have mattered to women, community, or the enslaved.
- Their behaviors toward and relationships with slaves do not conform to prevailing ideas about white women and slave mastery.
- Much of what scholars know about women in the slaveholding South draws upon the diaries or letters of the most elite-those living that owned more than ten enslaved africans.
- Records indicate that the majority of slave owners owned ten enslaved people or less.
- Scholars emphasize women's obligatory management and discipline of enslaved people, arguing that they were not true "masters".
- They typically did not relish their power, did not view their activities as "slave mastery," and neither did southern laws.
- Scholars argue that white married women could not adeptly manage enslaved africans without the assistance of men.
- Married women begrudgingly assumed roles as "deputy husbands" and "fictive widows" when their husbands were away.
- When their men were present, these women happily relinquished such responsibilities and exhorted their men to handle a "man's business.”
- This was especially the case when it came to the business of buying, selling, and even hiring enslaved people.
- These scholars claim that the nasty business of transacting for human beings was considered ill-suited to white ladies.
- I focus specifically on women who owned enslaved people in their own right and understand these women's fundamental relationship to slavery as a relation of property, more economic at its foundation.
- I am not suggesting that this was these women's only relationship to the instution, pecuniary ties formed one of slave owning women's primary relationship to the African Americans.
- African slavery was, above all, economic at its foundation.
- If we examine women’s economic investments in slavery, rather than simply their sentimental connections we can uncover relationships among gender, slavery and capitalism.
- The people they owned-including the wages enslaved people earned and the cash crops they packed for shipment, were fundamental to the nations economic growth.
- Historians generally focus on men's role in the development of both slavery and capitalism.
- If we considered that some of the enslaved people men compelled to work were owned by the wives, the narrative about slavery and capitalism would be strikingly different.
- Slave markets, markets, and capitalisms became the domain of women.
- Adam Smith argued that a married woman's financial dependence bound her to be faithful to her spouse
- When circumstances existed in which white men were dependent upon the women they married, this was a widely recognized fact, even in the North.
- Abigail Adams advised her son John Quincy to postpone marriage until he had accumulated enough property to ensure he would not be wholly dependent.
- Men made advantageous marraiges when in the South, slave-owning women were concerned.
- Even young women outside of the most elite slaveholders could increase their chance of marrying well if they owned even a few enslaved.
- Some men entered their marriages with little or no wealth, and their unions with propertied women became their primary avenue of finacial independence.
- According to John Quincy, "girls bait their hooks with the niggers.
- A white man's finacial circumstances could radically improve.
- Legal petitions are on record in which women describe themselves as their husbands creditors and financiers.
- Many of these women viewed their slaves as property they still owned and controlled; considering their husband's control temporary.
- Married women, slaves and their other assets made husbands' commecial endeavors possible.
- Mistress: scholars such as Jenniffer Linn Gross argue 19 centry "mistresses" are in depended positions, relied completery on their fahters and they only has household jobs.
- It is thought that generally they had little to do with enslaved beyond the household and they did not personally own slaves, but when they did, theirhusbans exersized control.
- historians conten.d that the 19th centrum mstress was less likelt to know about, or assist, the management of here husband.
- I employ the term mistress in a radically different way- one that aligns with its original meaning in Europe as " A woman that govern/ed/; correlactive to subject or servant.
- when South Carolina legistolators declared that every, mistress shall have libertyt o whip any strange slave.
- The term used to describe women's control of susbordinates was not mastery bur mistress-ship
- Slave owning women may have referred to their management
- Those discussed in this book are skilled in angthing, and when it came to the market, women where indeed savvy and skilled.
- Women who owned enslaved people, their legal subordination to to their husbands also meant that there was a potential find them when husansd jeopardized
- The experience of slave ownership was different for married woman b.c the doctrine placed the peoepl unter the husband
- These special contingeneies could prove to impediments for the women that was enslaved
- The women were noy dismayed by legal challenges
- This study examines several female women throughout the history of American Slavery in terms of their role in the marketplace for slaves.
- Women in the early 19th century, despite their legal limitations as a result to being tied to their husbands, went out in the marketplace and found oppurtunites to buy and sell slaves, manage them and use them for profit.
- Their williness to do there things suggtes theat they were more, not less, invested in slavery.
- Susan O'Donovan stated freedom assumed numerous shape, even gendered.
- ODonovans state the wome slaves was theirfreedom, they created
- This discusses that actions, desicisons, had changed and how can interact with comunities.
- When WPA employees traveled and talked about it to other men, they wrote colums " managemnet of negroes"
- The civil war made women's financial ties tenuouns, to which aboltion eventunally end
- When WPA employees traveled with enslaved African Americans, discussed or have been more effective at slave management
- the research from the WPA guarantees relocated by compelled , working indifferent places with crops, or climate etc.
- It's been suggested for caution should scholars aagainst reying to their testimonies , a big example who was chilren and that they did not rember the detail to long
- Some interviewers might have been southern wives and might have scared
- Others spoke of great tragedies and traumas
- While its been said that its unlikelt that the could what that means to them
- This may change the difference between life/death to such people. When enslaved, their lives, pended upom theri abilittyt o produce people.
- I am not sugest that their testimonals
- Enslave women may have found interviews ten and uncomftable, those were often tensions that have intimate violent , tortured , killed, or inest
- They all have some degree it can be a constant treat
- Other hands have to give them some kind of help
- It can be seen that ZOE visited Marry at hers house for the interviews.
- Their storees tell from atmosphere for intensity
- It has been thought I grappled on whether include like that
- The WPA is the best you has and the source understanding.
- The such sources make its difficult understood
- In their state that in them tell and the storess
- Slave owning women rarely talked baout ther ecomoic investments
- the people lives were changed. They where there, in those bodies , were agony when souls , erands , mistreses, were counting
- With slave owning women, that has continied in an effort and astonishing
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