Southern Women and Slavery

• In 1859, James Redpath tried to explain why Southern women opposed emancipation based on indoctrination and protection from slavery's realities.
• Redpath believed these women were shielded from the horrors of slavery and unaware of its commercial aspects.
• He thought that if Southern women knew the truth, they would protest against it.
• Redpath's view is patriarchal, however, narrative sources show women were very aware of slavery.
• Martha Gibbs was an example of a woman who not only witnessed slavery's brutal aspects but participated in and profited from them.
• Litt Young, a former slave, described Gibbs as a "big, rich Irishwoman".
• Gibbs owned and operated a large steam sawmill in Vicksburg and owned many slaves.
• She built separate, well-equipped quarters and a church for her slaves, but also worked them hard.

Gibbs's Management

• Gibbs employed an overseer but also personally supervised operations, ensuring things ran smoothly and wasn't afraid to show her anger.
• She did not allow either of her husbands to meddle with her financial or slave-related affairs.
• When her second husband protested the brutal whipping of slaves, she dismissed his concerns.
• Gibbs arrested and imprisoned Union officers after the Confederates surrendered.

Gibbs After the War

• After being released, Gibbs temporarily freed her slaves but then gathered some of them and headed to Texas.
• She hired armed guards to prevent escape and forced them to make her first crop in Texas in 1866.
• Married slave-owning women like Gibbs have received little attention in historical research.
• While some acknowledge women owned slaves, the focus is generally on single or widowed women.
• Historians often assume married women lack the legal capacity to own slaves independently.
• Historians don't see the distinction between women owning slaves and managing enslaved people.
• They rarely consider the specific importance of slave ownership to these women.
• These specific women tend to go against established ideas about white women and slave mastery.
• Historians note that only a minority were slave owners, and studies focus on the most elite, obscuring the experiences of the majority who owned fewer slaves.
• Scholars argue women who managed slaves were 'fictive masters' and were under obligation to control to the enslaved people.
• These historians believe that even if women had the skills, they didn't have the power to manage slavery/plantations.
• Married women begrudgingly manage slaves when the men are gone, happily relinquishing responsibility after, which historians have labeled a "man's business".
• Some scholars suggest that the buying/selling of slaves was a business not suited for white women.

Rethinking the Role of Women

• The author focuses on women who owned slaves in their own right, particularly married women.
• The text defines their relationship with slavery primarily as an economic one through property and earnings.
• While they had other relationships with the enslaved through slavery, a focus on economic gain is key.
• The women generated income through the labor and products of enslaved people.
• The story of women's investments in slavery reveals their economic roles previously missed by historians.
• Slavery was a key part of American capitalism, "America's first big business".
• The women were involved in economic investment (not just sentimental relationships).
• The products of women's investments (wages, crops, nursed babies) fueled American economic growth and capitalism.
• Adam Smith stated that the financial dependence of women bound them to their spouse.
• Marriage may have been seen as financial stability for the woman.
• It states that circumstances would change. The men may have been economically dependent on the women.
• Abigail Adams advised not to marry until a man was financially secure so as to not entirely depend on the wife's wealth.

Financial Stability

• Slave owning women possessed wealth, influencing potential suitors and male planters.
• A man said that "girls...bait their hooks with niggers and the more they can stick on the better success" they would have in securing the husband and securing the family.
• To an extent, the lower ranking women outside of slavery wanted to own a few slaves in order to gain a well-off husband.
• Some men entered marriage with little to no wealth and then used the women's possessions.
• State and local laws allowed husbands to control the spouses property when they were married.
• Although, even if they maintained control over the spouses property, the men often used the enslaved people in order to improve his assets.
• Women often described themselves as creditors and financiers.
• Courts were often in agreement when the female slave-owners petitioned for the ability to retain control of the enslaved.
• Enslaved people testified that these ideas shaped marital relations within household.
• This would imply that women, enslaved peoples, and other assets of theirs, made the husbands endeavors more possible and successful.
• The text defines the women as "mistresses of the market".
• To that, there can be constraints of the power that these women are able to possess since they may be bound to only being wives, mothers, and daughters.
• With the dependence on the father for their public identity/self, this could be transitioned towards men.
• The idea can form that they had a very strict life and could not do too much besides uphold their duties.

Mistress

• However, historians contend the white Southern women had little to do with enslaved peoples.
• In essence, the women were gentlewomen that were less likely to assist in the management of the husbands affairs or assist trade.
• By this, they were to defer to their spouses and male kin for any financial matters, and to be at the mercy of the spouse.
• An alternate view may have a closer alignment toward a real meaning.
• Defined, mistresses would have control over anything/anyone that was their subject.
• When the term was used, it recognizes a comparable amount of power possessed by these women.
• The women had the position of those such as governors.
• "Mistress-ship" would describe women's control of subordinates rather than "mastery".
• Formerly enslaved people explained the control the women had over them, but would often equally credit both the man and woman.
• When people said to do this, it can bring a certain energy or attitude.
• Instead of viewing themselves of part of slavery, their own management would be described as "slave mastery" and the similar strategies/techniques and descriptions were often shown in agricultural periodicals of the time.

Testimony/Analysis

• There were many indications that it has been understood well to have believed they ruled slaves in the same way that white men did, often in better ways too.
• Western women were defined as being skilled at anything, and by the 19th century, Southern women were certainly skilled within slaves.
• They were those that inspected the market, evaluated, blended in, and sat in the front rows of the auctions.
• They would study and note fluctuations in the slave market.
• This goes to show that as enslaved peoples were being traded in to many others, they could be being sold to those that would go side-by-side at the auction and would buy/sell for profit.
• It has been pointed out that some raced enslaved people and women were viable and active members of that class.
• Even so, there are unique circumstances that one or each race/gender would endure because of their race or gender.
• Marriage could cause ownership to be different for the women.
• Because of the ability to govern your belongings and property, spouses or others could violate that property.

Counterarguments

• Certain challenges did occur such as exploitation, violating that property, or attempted violation.
• Those challenges were able to prove as insurmountable as they would be used for the own use and benefit,
• Overall, it shows that there was an interest and devotion to using/securing those property for personal gain.
• The text then goes into slavery, and some freedoms that people had during that time.
• These women could use the freedom during slavery to their advantage.
• Although it gives a good conceptualization to certain women during the time, it can still be useful in understanding circumstances of those women's creation or face.
• By using slaves in general, they were able to create their own freedom.
• "Such choices were not part of a grand scheme to secure women's rights".
• Some elements of the common law regimes were able to be mitigated because, with the use of slavery, things could be easier to create or form as they were.
• This allowed relationships and interactions different from previous relationships.
• All in all, white dominance can even be challenged with the use of this.
• Through ties to marketplace and financial, slaves and ownership would have their dues.
• The text is sure to note what can be observed with it and what could be seen with their end or with their past.
• The FWP(Federal Writers Project) was where the employed people would be able to find some clues of what can be seen in the past through African enslaved americans.
• The author ends with this thought to show the past and to ensure understanding.
• These authors or employees were able to identify owners, almost like metaphorical flies on the walls because they could gather info and notes on what they were doing, even if it can remain obscured or not clear.
• Although this source/data is some of the only we have to have survived in the memory of these peoples, it still isn't assured that what is explained to be what is actually happening.

Concerns

• The questions and questionnaires being asked to those with such traumatic experiences could not guarantee that what had happened and that how their experiences played out can even be understood.
• It should also be noted the amount of times that enslaved people would have to relocate, work, or continue to press forward in their lives.
• There are some historians that warn against using this in order to rely on the testimonies.
• Though what came with it as what enslaved peoples understood and entailed.
• Due to their possible ages/childhoods, that information wasn't possible for them to understand as of yet.
• Because of what took place during and after (with the war), the knowledge of how things went can have changed because of certain timelines/circumstances or events.

Considerations When Looking Back

• As the intervieers were Southern white people, descendants of slave owners meant it can have influenced a lot of what they were doing and/ or relaying.
• Therefore, there can be problems.
• These were things that would have happened by force, such as sexual assault, marriage, or similar events. -These all relate to the nature of torture and/or any actions which slavery can be linked from.
• In the same way there were people such as Delicia Garlic that say that she was "growed(Grown) up when de war come" and things happened to her.
• Even those people that had those times in their years, such as the one with the enslaved sales that were only 10 could recount.
• At certain points, even with all the emotions present, many spoke what needed to be said through such tragedies.
• Even with such responses, formerly enslaved people still were honest in things such as paternity and/or violence done by former owners who wanted to murder or just inflict pain.