Female Slaves in Plantation South

White in this book is trying to bring into the public consciousness the suffering endured by female slaves in the slavery-dependent South. She says that most studies of slavery focus, either deliberately or subliminally, on the male slave. And those "few scholars who study black women fail to note that black women suffer a double oppression: that shared by all African-Americans and that shared by most women" (23). With respect to slavery specifically, White says many scholars conclude that female slaves were better treated than male slaves. In fact,

most black women of the time plowed, planted, and hoed, did as much work as a man, endured the brutal punishment meted out by slaveholders and their overseers, and also fulfilled her ordained role of motherhood (14).

Another important theme of White's is that the accomplishments and endurances of the female slave stand in stark rebuke to the argument that the female is the weaker of the sexes. Writing of the tremendous suffering of one such slave, Sojourner Truth, White says that "Judged by her life experience, all theories of inequality based on the assumption that women were weaker than men . . . were false." In fact, White writes, female slaves, "more than any group of American women . . . proved daily that sexual discrimination based on such assumptions was not justified" (14).

. . .
onomic and political prejudice, female slaves suffer even more. Specifically, female slaves were seen as fitting either the Jezebel or Mammy stereotype. This stereotyping limited the perception of female slaves, but it also provided slaveholders with justification for their evil institution: When . . . Southerners were forced to justify slavery . . . they adjusted their thinking to make slavery a positive good. . . . The image of Jezebel excused miscegenation, the sexual exploitation of black women, and the mulatto population. . . . The Mammy image . . . helped endorse the service of black women in Southern households. . . . Together, Jezebel and Mammy did a lot of explaining and soothed many a troubled conscience (61). White shows us here how social prejudices hurt female slaves in general, how female slaves had their lives constricted terribly as a result of these prejudices, and how the slaveholders used these prejudices to justify slavery and even to argue that slavery was good for black women! White deals not only with the social implications of slavery in terms of the suffering of female slaves, she also documents the specific suffering of individual female slaves. The story of one slave, Mary Montgomery, is typical
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Mary Montgomery, White Judged, Jezebel Mammy, South White, Projects Administration, female slaves, black women, Admittedly White, , slave women, female slave, ar'n't woman, source material, WW Norton, Ar'n't Woman, Deborah Gray, hurt female slaves, white women, white free, exploitation black, women 23, exploitation black women, slavery black women,
Approximate Word count = 1528
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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