Plantation Mistresses In The Antebellum Era

In the mid-nineteenth-century, the economic power switched in the South from the “upper South” to the “lower South,” which was expanding agriculturally. This switch resulted in the growth of a cotton-based economy. Economically, the change from cultivating tobacco and rice to cotton helped immensely. The high demand for cotton led to tremendous profits in the South and this drew the population to move to the prospering agricultural lands. The increase in cotton farming made African American slaves a necessity to the white males. These slaves were required to obey their masters and work the fields all day. The increase in slavery changed the social systems down South; the order now went African American slaves, poor white males, and at the top was wealthy white plantation owners.

Most servants were young unmarried women. The working conditions for domestic servants were very poor. Servants were often treated badly by their employer, young women especially, would be abused or even raped. “I saw a man forty years my senior daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things.” (doc 7) Men were never punished for their dreadful acts on female slaves. Most wives knew of their husband’s actions, but did little to stop them. The infidelity of their husbands made them jealous of the slave woman, so they did nothing to protect them against their husbands. Black and lower class females were instructed to imitate the practices of the Cult of Domesticity and Republican motherhood, but often could not due to their low social and economic

The book draws on a variety of scholarship across numerous fields, including African American history, women’s history, colonial American history, feminist theory, and cultural studies. As a professor of both Social and Cultural Analysis as well as History, with research interests in the history of the Black Atlantic World, comparative slavery, and gender and sexuality studies, Morgan is clearly quite adept at working with the intersection of such ideas. She also articulates the necessity of employing such a range of fields to fill the surprising gaps and omissions in the current

In colonial America, white women and white men had two different and distinct roles, whether it may be the first migration, the transitional period, or the revolutionary era, women had to the responsibility of taking care of domestic matters. In the early colonial period, women had the expectation and role of ensuring the colony’s survival and longevity through childbirth and rearing. As new colonies emerged and the original colonies of New England and Chesapeake expanded, women were not only responsible for birthing children, mostly boys that will inherit their father’s wealth, now they were also expected for the moral upbringing of their children. Women, in predominantly patriarchal religious communities like the Puritans, had to raise religious

The culture, history, economy, and politics of the Southern states have been studied extensively. Yet, one element of life in the South has received much less attention: women 's experiences during childbirth (Simon, Richard M. "Women 's Birth Experiences and Evaluations: A View from the American South" no. 1, 2016, pp.1-38). Childbirth plays a substantial role in enslaved woman 's lives positively and negatively. During slavery, enslaved poor women who were wet-nurses were forced to give up their milk just to feed another women’s child. Feeding another woman 's child with one 's own milk constituted a form of labor, but it was work that could only be undertaken by lactating women who had borne their own children (West, E. and Knight, R. "Mother 's Milk: Slavery, Wet-Nursing and Black and White Women in the Antebellum South" no. 37, 2017, pp.

As miserable as it is to be a slave in the South, being a black women worsens the condition. The role of a black women in both the Union and the Confederacy have always been portrayed and elaborated on the orthodox that black women are meant for manual labor, for being tools and for assisting men. However, black women in the South are treated much harsher of course. Majority of black women enslaved were vulnerable to rape, physical abuse and having their families taken away. While the Confederacy took black male slaves into the camp, black women were left to care for their children themselves while managing their plantations and other labor. Although they had no power and no say to their freedom nor the Union, they contributed the most to themselves, their children and their family. The contrast of standards in African American women in the Union and the Confederacy differ widely, though they are both derived from the old traditional values that marked scars on their skins throughout the Civil

Bryan, Dan. “The Antebellum Home and Women’s Culture (part 2).” American History USA. March 22, 2012.web. 18 February, 2017.

Literature is often credited with the ability to enhance one’s understanding of history by providing a view of a former conflict. In doing so, the reader is able to gain both an emotional and logistical understanding of a historically significant event. Additionally, literature provides context that can help the reader develop a deeper understanding of the political climate of a time period. Within the text of The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead’s, the use of literary elements such as imagery, metaphor, and paradox amplifies the reader’s understanding of early 19th century slavery and its role in the South of the United States of America. Throughout the novel, Whitehead utilizes a girl named Cora to navigate the political and personal consequences of escaping slavery, the Underground Railroad, and her transition

Boydston writes, “But if middle-class women were encased in the image of the nurturant (and non laboring) mother, working-class women found that their visible inability to replicate that model worked equally hard against them.” The standard during the Antebellum period was a woman that didn’t do any kind of laborious task other than housework which was thought as being an enriching and awarding process. However, wage-earning women visibly were unable to live up to these new standards because they were forced out of their own gender sphere of domesticity just to find work. During the Antebellum period, it was believed to be a men’s sphere to work and men masculinity was based on the fact of being the main “breadwinner” for the family. By a woman going into this sphere they went against the formation of the two gender spheres. As a result, women that needed work became symbols of threats to men and men claimed that that women did not really need the jobs that they were being given. Men said that the women just wanted a little extra money and by becoming a wage-earning woman they were taking jobs away from the men and destroying the balance between the two gender spheres. In the end, by being a wage-earning woman, women were unable to achieve this new standard of a non-laboring

By preserving this aspect of herself, a woman was considered to be a suitable candidate for marriage. The ‘ideal’ wife was pure, submissive to their husbands and eager to serve her family, all qualities that suggested Paternalistic attitudes in society at the time. In context to the Antebellum South, Paternalism refers to the authoritative status of white men over other “subordinates or dependents in their supposed interest”, more specifically women and African Americans. It was not until these suppressed groups began working together to make their voices heard that this male dominated societal structure was effectively dismantled, and opportunities for women expanded beyond the prospects of marriage and motherhood. “In the moral, intellectual and physical cultivation of both sexes should we seek, as we can only find, the source and security of happiness and human virtue. Prejudice and fear are weak barriers against passions, which inherent in our nature and demanding only judicious training to form the ornament, and supply the best joys of our existence, are maddened into violence, varied with as pernicious indulgence.” (Doc #2)

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

The categories I used in this essay are women’s role in the economy and women’s rank in society, religion and politics.

Sally Hemings was a slave on the Monticello plantation in the late 18th century, and her experience helps us to understand that her gender aided the way she was treated versus if they went by the color of her skin (Dilkes Mullins). {Woman during this era were thought of as property, they were objectified, they were treated poorly and had no choice. Their husbands were liable for anything that they did} [Being a female during this era outweighed what one 's social status was. It did not matter what race you were, but if you were a woman, you were treated as such] (Dilkes Mullins).

A Film Analysis of Intersectionality and Gender Binary Thinking in The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980) by Connie Field

White women in slaveholding families in the south were one of the main forces behind the oppression of African American men and women. In society these white women held no real power but in the comfort of their domestic domains they were granted more power; so, these women took power where they could and became mistress to a slave. At a young age, they were taught how to manage slaves as well as being their master. In one case, a mistress had full power over the estate and managed it on her own without her husband’s help . Consequently, she held the power that she would not have had outside of the home. Slaves were given as presents to children and even babies to reinforce that they were property that could be given away . As the oppressed, African Americans had very different, experiences with power than the white women who owned slaves. White women were often harsh and oppressive to African Americans not only because it was what they were taught, but it was also a sign of power. A slave named Rebecca did not call her mistress’ son, who was a baby, master so she was severely whipped for not doing so . Another slave had the side of her face crushed by one of her mistresses’ for stealing and eating a piece of candy while the other mistress whipped her . These beatings were a show of the mistress’ power all at the expense of African American women. White women were not the only oppressors; even women of color were guilty of enforcing oppression. One example of this the case of Guadalupe Trujillo and her Indian servant that was more of a slave, named Ysabel. Trujillo would frequently beat her for the minute things. Ysabel was seen as inferior because she was a slave and Trujillo took it upon herself to oppress Ysabel and even went as far as killing her to keep her from free will