21. 1500-1600 Gender, Sexuality, and the Slave Trade
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The beginning of the slave trade and the events that followed are some of the darkest parts of human history. The trade touched the lives of women from those who were enslaved, to those such as the Dahomey Amazons.
Trigger warning for discussion of rape and sexual assault. |
Wikimedia Commons
The enslavement of people across history is an horrific disgrace. Human beings have been enslaved as far back as one can trace history. The slave trade that emerged after the discovery of the Americas resulted in what has been called the triangular trade. Enslaved people were taken from Africa to work land in America, crops from America were sent to Europe, and Europeans sent finished manufactured products to Africa and the Americas. The encounters between African people and the European enslavers who landed on their shores are important to understanding the modern social, political, and economic landscape. Often lost in conversations about slavery are the ways that enslaved women were sexually exploited. Some historians argue that sexuality should be at the center of any study of slavery in the Americas and Africa. This includes emotional and physical practices around reproduction, intimate expression, love, and sex. Slavery was as much about power as it was about economics, and enslaved women trapped in this horrific dynamic were subjected to sexual violence in addition to physical violence. Despite this, women affected by European involvement in West Africa demonstrated incredible autonomy and resistance.
Wikimedia Commons
Early Contact with African Women
West African women worked as agriculturalists, spinners and weavers, and merchants in their societies. There is significant evidence that women were allowed to make ample contributions to the social, political and economic structure of their societies in pre-colonial Africa, if not with the same influence as men. Women’s secret societies, titled societies, spiritual roles, and their status as elders in the community, which increased with marriage and age, were some of the ways in which women exerted influence and power. Women’s power diminished with the arrival of monotheism through spreading Christianity or Islam , causing women to suffer important setbacks.
Europeans had long made contact with coastal Africans. The Portuguese in the early 1400s had proved it was possible to sail around the Horn of Africa to reach the spices of India. In the subsequent trips European men built relationships with, stayed with, and were hosted by trading partners. Slavery was common throughout Africa. In fact, it was African enslavers who sold the slaves to the Europeans to be transported to horrific conditions in the Americas. In Africa, the enslaved were similar to the serfs of Europe. They had rights, which were not extended when they were taken to the Americas.
In Angola, Njinga provides an important example of women wielding extraordinary power in African history. As we have seen, she ruled as a monarch in the early 1600s. She repositioned her territory, Ndongo as a middle-man in trade to avoid her people becoming part of the supply in the slave trade. She allied Ndongo with Portugal, which simultaneously gave Portugal a partner in its fight against its African enemies and ended the Portuguese slave trade in her kingdom. Njinga’s baptism, with the Portuguese colonial governor serving as godfather, sealed this relationship. However, by 1626, Portugal had betrayed Ndongo and Njinga was forced to flee with her people further west, where they founded a new state at Matamba, well beyond the reach of the Portuguese. To bolster Matamba’s martial power, Njinga offered sanctuary to runaway slaves and Portuguese-trained African soldiers. She adopted a form of military organization known as kilombo, in which youths renounced family ties and were raised communally in militias. Njinga found an ally in the Netherlands, which seized the port of Luanda for its own mercantile purposes in 1641. Their combined forces were insufficient to drive the Portuguese out of Angola, however, and after Luanda was reclaimed by the Portuguese, Njinga was again forced to retreat to Matamba. Njinga then focused on developing Matamba as a trading power by capitalizing on its position as the gateway to the Central African interior. At her death in 1663, Matamba was a formidable commercial state that dealt with the Portuguese colony on an equal footing.
West African women worked as agriculturalists, spinners and weavers, and merchants in their societies. There is significant evidence that women were allowed to make ample contributions to the social, political and economic structure of their societies in pre-colonial Africa, if not with the same influence as men. Women’s secret societies, titled societies, spiritual roles, and their status as elders in the community, which increased with marriage and age, were some of the ways in which women exerted influence and power. Women’s power diminished with the arrival of monotheism through spreading Christianity or Islam , causing women to suffer important setbacks.
Europeans had long made contact with coastal Africans. The Portuguese in the early 1400s had proved it was possible to sail around the Horn of Africa to reach the spices of India. In the subsequent trips European men built relationships with, stayed with, and were hosted by trading partners. Slavery was common throughout Africa. In fact, it was African enslavers who sold the slaves to the Europeans to be transported to horrific conditions in the Americas. In Africa, the enslaved were similar to the serfs of Europe. They had rights, which were not extended when they were taken to the Americas.
In Angola, Njinga provides an important example of women wielding extraordinary power in African history. As we have seen, she ruled as a monarch in the early 1600s. She repositioned her territory, Ndongo as a middle-man in trade to avoid her people becoming part of the supply in the slave trade. She allied Ndongo with Portugal, which simultaneously gave Portugal a partner in its fight against its African enemies and ended the Portuguese slave trade in her kingdom. Njinga’s baptism, with the Portuguese colonial governor serving as godfather, sealed this relationship. However, by 1626, Portugal had betrayed Ndongo and Njinga was forced to flee with her people further west, where they founded a new state at Matamba, well beyond the reach of the Portuguese. To bolster Matamba’s martial power, Njinga offered sanctuary to runaway slaves and Portuguese-trained African soldiers. She adopted a form of military organization known as kilombo, in which youths renounced family ties and were raised communally in militias. Njinga found an ally in the Netherlands, which seized the port of Luanda for its own mercantile purposes in 1641. Their combined forces were insufficient to drive the Portuguese out of Angola, however, and after Luanda was reclaimed by the Portuguese, Njinga was again forced to retreat to Matamba. Njinga then focused on developing Matamba as a trading power by capitalizing on its position as the gateway to the Central African interior. At her death in 1663, Matamba was a formidable commercial state that dealt with the Portuguese colony on an equal footing.
What other women thought of these European men in their communities is lost to history. But we do know what European men thought of African women. Their early accounts of African women demonstrate how quickly the sexualizing of these “exotic” African women began.
The earliest European travelers to Africa noted the physical characteristics ofAfrican women, describing the different tones of their skin from tawny, to Black, to “perfectly Black.” In the late 1640s, a man named Richard Ligon said he had met the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the concubine of a Portuguese man who had settled on the Cape Verde islands. Of her he said, “her eyes were the richest jewels, for they were the largest, and most oriental I have ever seen… [she had] far greater majesty, and gracefulness than I have seen [in] Queen Anne.” Similarly, James Bruce described how he had always found fair complexions to be the most attractive, but had to admit that African women were so lovely. He decided that, “almost all of the beauty consists in elegance of figure, in the finest and polish of the skin, in grace of movement, and the expression of the countenance.” Travel letters from France describe how 'easy-going' African women were and how 'eager to please' European men they were.
Along with these “compliments” came emerging stereotypes about African women’s strength and reproductive capacity. European writers, after witnessing African women working and hearing stories of them birthing children without great help or duress, began to elaborate myths about African women’s strength and ability to endure pain. Pieter de Marees wrote in 1602, “The women here are of the cruder nature and a stronger posture than the females in our lands in Europe.“ He and others described African “savagery” and the natural way in which women gave birth. Of course, it was to the advantage of slave traders to describe African people as beautiful, natural, and more rugged than their European counterparts, because they were there to buy these people and take them into bondage. They couldn’t describe them as what they likely were: ill, and traumatized.
As the slave trade was consolidated, early respect and admiration turned to racist stereotyping of African women’s degraded sexuality and physical strength.
Richard Ligon, who had originally described African women as the most beautiful he had ever seen, changed his views as the slave trade began. He then described African women as animals, unnatural, disproportionate, all while describing in detail these women’s private parts. By the early 1700s, some European male writers began to find mixed race Africans abhorrent, even as such societies emerged out of unequal relations between European men and African women.
As Europeans became dominant on the African coasts, many African women were forced either through eslavement or circumstances into public prostitution, private prostitution, and concubinage. Public prostitutes were enslaved and were assigned sex work. They sometimes received pensions when they retired. They commonly suffered from sexually transmitted diseases.
Private prostitutes were more like house servants. ale sexual needs took precedence over female desires. Ordinary European sailors probably hired prostitutes, but elite male travelers were likely provided female company by their male African host when they arrived.
Many women living in port cities were enslaved. The most common occupation for these women was in hospitality and prostitution. Often as part of trading deals, African men would offer their enslaved women to the European men. European men described how much stronger, healthier, and able these African women were than the European women they knew back home. Some European men came to prefer African women. There was a fine line between admiration and exploitation recorded over and over again in their writing.
The earliest European travelers to Africa noted the physical characteristics ofAfrican women, describing the different tones of their skin from tawny, to Black, to “perfectly Black.” In the late 1640s, a man named Richard Ligon said he had met the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, the concubine of a Portuguese man who had settled on the Cape Verde islands. Of her he said, “her eyes were the richest jewels, for they were the largest, and most oriental I have ever seen… [she had] far greater majesty, and gracefulness than I have seen [in] Queen Anne.” Similarly, James Bruce described how he had always found fair complexions to be the most attractive, but had to admit that African women were so lovely. He decided that, “almost all of the beauty consists in elegance of figure, in the finest and polish of the skin, in grace of movement, and the expression of the countenance.” Travel letters from France describe how 'easy-going' African women were and how 'eager to please' European men they were.
Along with these “compliments” came emerging stereotypes about African women’s strength and reproductive capacity. European writers, after witnessing African women working and hearing stories of them birthing children without great help or duress, began to elaborate myths about African women’s strength and ability to endure pain. Pieter de Marees wrote in 1602, “The women here are of the cruder nature and a stronger posture than the females in our lands in Europe.“ He and others described African “savagery” and the natural way in which women gave birth. Of course, it was to the advantage of slave traders to describe African people as beautiful, natural, and more rugged than their European counterparts, because they were there to buy these people and take them into bondage. They couldn’t describe them as what they likely were: ill, and traumatized.
As the slave trade was consolidated, early respect and admiration turned to racist stereotyping of African women’s degraded sexuality and physical strength.
Richard Ligon, who had originally described African women as the most beautiful he had ever seen, changed his views as the slave trade began. He then described African women as animals, unnatural, disproportionate, all while describing in detail these women’s private parts. By the early 1700s, some European male writers began to find mixed race Africans abhorrent, even as such societies emerged out of unequal relations between European men and African women.
As Europeans became dominant on the African coasts, many African women were forced either through eslavement or circumstances into public prostitution, private prostitution, and concubinage. Public prostitutes were enslaved and were assigned sex work. They sometimes received pensions when they retired. They commonly suffered from sexually transmitted diseases.
Private prostitutes were more like house servants. ale sexual needs took precedence over female desires. Ordinary European sailors probably hired prostitutes, but elite male travelers were likely provided female company by their male African host when they arrived.
Many women living in port cities were enslaved. The most common occupation for these women was in hospitality and prostitution. Often as part of trading deals, African men would offer their enslaved women to the European men. European men described how much stronger, healthier, and able these African women were than the European women they knew back home. Some European men came to prefer African women. There was a fine line between admiration and exploitation recorded over and over again in their writing.
The Americas
A world away, in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas, the mistreatment, murder, and diseases inflicted upon the indigenous populations had a devastating effect. Some estimate that 90% of the population died. Aside from the horrific human cost, slavery presented an economic predicament for those settling and establishing plantations. They sought enslaved people who were immune to these diseases and would therefore provide a stable workforce. This led to the importation of African slaves from the robust slave trading networks they had already established.
The growth of the transatlantic slave trade was gradual, with as many as 30,000 Africans crossing the Atlantic annually by 1690. Of the women who sailed to the Americas from Afro-Eurasia, 4 out of 5 of them were African. This massive assault on African populations led some women to take matters into their own hands. Sucide was not uncommon among captured Africans headed for the slave ships.
A world away, in the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in the Americas, the mistreatment, murder, and diseases inflicted upon the indigenous populations had a devastating effect. Some estimate that 90% of the population died. Aside from the horrific human cost, slavery presented an economic predicament for those settling and establishing plantations. They sought enslaved people who were immune to these diseases and would therefore provide a stable workforce. This led to the importation of African slaves from the robust slave trading networks they had already established.
The growth of the transatlantic slave trade was gradual, with as many as 30,000 Africans crossing the Atlantic annually by 1690. Of the women who sailed to the Americas from Afro-Eurasia, 4 out of 5 of them were African. This massive assault on African populations led some women to take matters into their own hands. Sucide was not uncommon among captured Africans headed for the slave ships.
Diagram of a Slave Ship, note separation of men and women, Public Domain
Middle Passage
The Middle Passage to the Americas as part of the transatlantic slave trade was designed to strip the enslaved of their personhood, and for women, their womanhood. The enslaved were packed below decks in dank spaces barely big enough for their bodies, most were unable to crane their necks or expand their shoulders. Chained to other humans in these cramped conditions for months on end without adequate food, clean water, and basic sanitation, they festered in their own excrement and became horribly sick. Many died. On one occasion, the sailors heard such a loud commotion below decks and opened the hatches to find the enslaved in different stages of suffocation, battling one another for air. Many were already dead.
Enslaved women and girls faced sexual abuse and rape by captors and crews. Pregnant women on board often died from malnutrition or inadequate medical attention. Even if they did survive labor, their babies rarely survived in these conditions. Mothers struggled not only to protect themselves but also to keep their children alive.
Given the horrors of the middle passage, it is no wonder the enslaved rebelled, despite the power difference. Quantitative historians have found that one in ten of the more than 36,000 ships that crossed the middle passage in a four year period had a slave insurrection on board. The only relevant correlation they could find for why these rebellions occurred was that the more women, the more likely a rebellion.
Women were treated differently during transport. Sometimes they were spared the cramped, disease ridden spaces below deck in order to entertain the European enslavers above deck. There, though they experienced rape and other oppression, they were sometimes left unchained and within proximity of weapons.
The ship’s log for a much later ship, the Thomas, in 1797 stated, “two or three of the female slaves have they discovered that the armorer had incautiously left the arms chest open… conveyed all the arms, which they could find, threw the ball kids to the male slaves, about 200 of them immediately ran up the force cuddles and put to death all the crew who had came in their way.”
Other enslavers weren’t so unwise. In 1776, one enslaver aboard the Thames noted, “For your safety as well as mine… You’ll have the needful guard over your Slaves, and put not too much confidence in the Women nor Children lest they happen to be instrumental in your being surprised which may be fatal.”
On arrival, the enslaved were stripped and taken to market to be manhandled and often separated from their children. From there, the enslaved journeyed into unknown lands, with unknown customs, to labor in the some of the hardest conditions on earth.
The Middle Passage to the Americas as part of the transatlantic slave trade was designed to strip the enslaved of their personhood, and for women, their womanhood. The enslaved were packed below decks in dank spaces barely big enough for their bodies, most were unable to crane their necks or expand their shoulders. Chained to other humans in these cramped conditions for months on end without adequate food, clean water, and basic sanitation, they festered in their own excrement and became horribly sick. Many died. On one occasion, the sailors heard such a loud commotion below decks and opened the hatches to find the enslaved in different stages of suffocation, battling one another for air. Many were already dead.
Enslaved women and girls faced sexual abuse and rape by captors and crews. Pregnant women on board often died from malnutrition or inadequate medical attention. Even if they did survive labor, their babies rarely survived in these conditions. Mothers struggled not only to protect themselves but also to keep their children alive.
Given the horrors of the middle passage, it is no wonder the enslaved rebelled, despite the power difference. Quantitative historians have found that one in ten of the more than 36,000 ships that crossed the middle passage in a four year period had a slave insurrection on board. The only relevant correlation they could find for why these rebellions occurred was that the more women, the more likely a rebellion.
Women were treated differently during transport. Sometimes they were spared the cramped, disease ridden spaces below deck in order to entertain the European enslavers above deck. There, though they experienced rape and other oppression, they were sometimes left unchained and within proximity of weapons.
The ship’s log for a much later ship, the Thomas, in 1797 stated, “two or three of the female slaves have they discovered that the armorer had incautiously left the arms chest open… conveyed all the arms, which they could find, threw the ball kids to the male slaves, about 200 of them immediately ran up the force cuddles and put to death all the crew who had came in their way.”
Other enslavers weren’t so unwise. In 1776, one enslaver aboard the Thames noted, “For your safety as well as mine… You’ll have the needful guard over your Slaves, and put not too much confidence in the Women nor Children lest they happen to be instrumental in your being surprised which may be fatal.”
On arrival, the enslaved were stripped and taken to market to be manhandled and often separated from their children. From there, the enslaved journeyed into unknown lands, with unknown customs, to labor in the some of the hardest conditions on earth.
Sugar Plantation, Manchester Art Museum
Sugar Plantation Life
Affy was an enslaved Jamaican woman born in 1767 who lived to see emancipation in 1834 at age 66, making her an old person for her time. Everything we know about Affy comes from the records on the plantation where she was enslaved. She started work at the age of seven growing sugar, which is what the Caribbean islands primarily produced. 85% of adult women did this kind of work, and it was considered the most onerous and backbreaking of all the work done on the sugar plantations. In her life, she had four Black and two mixed race children. The latter children are evidence of rape or a coerced sexual relationship with either her owner, or another white man. The Black children worked in the fields, while the fate of the two mixed race children was not recorded. She had two daughters who died in adulthood at 26 and 41, which was typical of enslaved women. At the age of 31, Affy was considered weak and was removed from fieldwork and sent to be a washerwoman, nanny, and seamstress. At the age of 57 she was considered an invalid, and then finally she was considered “worthless“ by her employers.
Enslaved people who lived and worked on the sugar plantations were treated viciously, and historians regularly lament their work and living conditions. One historian said enslavers “worked their enslaved people so hard and were so little concerned about how the enslaved people coped.“ At the same time, enslavers were clearly conscious of how the work was affecting the enslaved population because they kept meticulous details on their condition. These records became increasingly more precise in calculating the market value of enslaved people. t. The plantation owners made both men and women do the most labor-intensive work. Given the emphasis on productivity, the records show that there was no gender difference in their ability to produce crops and work hard. They divided the enslaved by physical capacity, not by sex. While gender division existed for the white and free population, for the enslaved, there was no such thing as “women’s work.“ One interesting caveat is that enslaved females were consistently priced lower than enslaved male at the market. This is probably because women were never permitted to become drivers or trades people. Women perpetually worked in the fields, where their value remained stagnant. Even when women did the bulk of the physically demanding work, gendered attitudes from outside the plantations impacted the way their work was perceived. Enslavers automatically assumed that the work men did was more valuable, and therefore belittled fieldwork as unmanly.
Affy was an enslaved Jamaican woman born in 1767 who lived to see emancipation in 1834 at age 66, making her an old person for her time. Everything we know about Affy comes from the records on the plantation where she was enslaved. She started work at the age of seven growing sugar, which is what the Caribbean islands primarily produced. 85% of adult women did this kind of work, and it was considered the most onerous and backbreaking of all the work done on the sugar plantations. In her life, she had four Black and two mixed race children. The latter children are evidence of rape or a coerced sexual relationship with either her owner, or another white man. The Black children worked in the fields, while the fate of the two mixed race children was not recorded. She had two daughters who died in adulthood at 26 and 41, which was typical of enslaved women. At the age of 31, Affy was considered weak and was removed from fieldwork and sent to be a washerwoman, nanny, and seamstress. At the age of 57 she was considered an invalid, and then finally she was considered “worthless“ by her employers.
Enslaved people who lived and worked on the sugar plantations were treated viciously, and historians regularly lament their work and living conditions. One historian said enslavers “worked their enslaved people so hard and were so little concerned about how the enslaved people coped.“ At the same time, enslavers were clearly conscious of how the work was affecting the enslaved population because they kept meticulous details on their condition. These records became increasingly more precise in calculating the market value of enslaved people. t. The plantation owners made both men and women do the most labor-intensive work. Given the emphasis on productivity, the records show that there was no gender difference in their ability to produce crops and work hard. They divided the enslaved by physical capacity, not by sex. While gender division existed for the white and free population, for the enslaved, there was no such thing as “women’s work.“ One interesting caveat is that enslaved females were consistently priced lower than enslaved male at the market. This is probably because women were never permitted to become drivers or trades people. Women perpetually worked in the fields, where their value remained stagnant. Even when women did the bulk of the physically demanding work, gendered attitudes from outside the plantations impacted the way their work was perceived. Enslavers automatically assumed that the work men did was more valuable, and therefore belittled fieldwork as unmanly.
The Slave Trade, Public Domain
Lack of Bodily Integrity
Sexual exploitation of enslaved women was common. Women were returned to the field 1 to 2 weeks after giving birth, making it impossible for the mothers to care for and nurture their infant children, leading to a high infant mortality rate. Planters seemed unaffected when enslaved women exercised bodily autonomy and demonstrated defiance by having abortions.
For a time, planters greatly preferred women not to become pregnant because it decreased their productive potential. However, depending on the slave society and the time period, such exploitation might or might not be intended to produce children. For example in the US slaveholding colonies, with the closing of the British slave trade in the early 19thC, US slavery had to become self-reproducing and thus women were encouraged to bear children. Rape and sexual exploitation was rampant in US slavery, and slave women were selected according to their perceived ability to bear children.
Enslaved men sometimes held positions of authority in the slave community, establishing patriarchal dominance and giving enslaved men a degree of power over enslaved women. But white men continually undercut Black male dominance over women. White men on plantations were afraid of Black men who outnumbered them . Part of the psychological warfare inflicted by enslavers upon Black men and Black women was having sexual relations with Black women to remind everyone in the enslaved community who was really in charge. In fact, most instances of Black male slaves fighting back against the planters occurred when the planters interrupted the marital relations of the enslaved community.
Early marriage laws in North America show the attempts to segregate indigenous and African people in ways not mirrored in South America. These early laws show the ways in which female autonomy over their bodies was limited, regardless of their race. They also highlight how Black women faced a double burden under law. One early Virginia law upended centuries of common law in England and placed the status of children under the mother rather than the father. It stated that if your mother was enslaved, you would be too. Lineage was matrilineal. Regardless of the status of the father, children of an enslaved mother would be enslaved. This was an incentive for masters to have sexual relations with an enslaved woman, for if an enslaved woman produced a child, it would provide more slaves for the plantation. Certainly not all white plantation owners were rapists. Many of them pursued breeding their female slaves by pairing them with male slaves.
Freedom was determined by whether your mother was white or black. For example, a free white woman who gave birth to a mixed race baby would be charged a fine for indecency, but the baby would be free. Letty Ogleton of Maryland petitioned for freedom for herself and her five children because she believed she was “entitled to their freedom having linearly descended from a free woman.“ Cases of this nature appear throughout the court records of early America.
Enslavers were able to sell mothers away from their children, force mothers to return to work before their babies were weaned, and discipline the mothers’ children. In a structure like this, enslaved women found a little room for bodily or mental autonomy. Despite all the horrors of slave life, we have examples of women who resisted.
Sexual exploitation of enslaved women was common. Women were returned to the field 1 to 2 weeks after giving birth, making it impossible for the mothers to care for and nurture their infant children, leading to a high infant mortality rate. Planters seemed unaffected when enslaved women exercised bodily autonomy and demonstrated defiance by having abortions.
For a time, planters greatly preferred women not to become pregnant because it decreased their productive potential. However, depending on the slave society and the time period, such exploitation might or might not be intended to produce children. For example in the US slaveholding colonies, with the closing of the British slave trade in the early 19thC, US slavery had to become self-reproducing and thus women were encouraged to bear children. Rape and sexual exploitation was rampant in US slavery, and slave women were selected according to their perceived ability to bear children.
Enslaved men sometimes held positions of authority in the slave community, establishing patriarchal dominance and giving enslaved men a degree of power over enslaved women. But white men continually undercut Black male dominance over women. White men on plantations were afraid of Black men who outnumbered them . Part of the psychological warfare inflicted by enslavers upon Black men and Black women was having sexual relations with Black women to remind everyone in the enslaved community who was really in charge. In fact, most instances of Black male slaves fighting back against the planters occurred when the planters interrupted the marital relations of the enslaved community.
Early marriage laws in North America show the attempts to segregate indigenous and African people in ways not mirrored in South America. These early laws show the ways in which female autonomy over their bodies was limited, regardless of their race. They also highlight how Black women faced a double burden under law. One early Virginia law upended centuries of common law in England and placed the status of children under the mother rather than the father. It stated that if your mother was enslaved, you would be too. Lineage was matrilineal. Regardless of the status of the father, children of an enslaved mother would be enslaved. This was an incentive for masters to have sexual relations with an enslaved woman, for if an enslaved woman produced a child, it would provide more slaves for the plantation. Certainly not all white plantation owners were rapists. Many of them pursued breeding their female slaves by pairing them with male slaves.
Freedom was determined by whether your mother was white or black. For example, a free white woman who gave birth to a mixed race baby would be charged a fine for indecency, but the baby would be free. Letty Ogleton of Maryland petitioned for freedom for herself and her five children because she believed she was “entitled to their freedom having linearly descended from a free woman.“ Cases of this nature appear throughout the court records of early America.
Enslavers were able to sell mothers away from their children, force mothers to return to work before their babies were weaned, and discipline the mothers’ children. In a structure like this, enslaved women found a little room for bodily or mental autonomy. Despite all the horrors of slave life, we have examples of women who resisted.
African Amazons
At the peak of Atlantic trade, many regions of West Africa faced the unbearable consequences of both regional conflicts and European incursions. Populations struggled to keep up with harvests and planting;. Groups raided, kidnapped, and sold members from rival and surrounding societies to slave traders. Individual armies were weakened by the loss of men to local and international conflicts or were forcibly sold, which only left nations at great risk.
The Kingdom of Dahomey, in modern-day Benin, faced all of these pressures and responded by bolstering their ranks with an all-female regiment. Like some other African kingdoms, the Kingdom of Dahomey captured and sold those around them into slavery to preserve their own people, traded people for European goods, and practiced human sacrifice. The Kingdom is also as a primary example of female militarism.
The first to recruit women was King Houegbadja in the mid-17th century when he allowed his daughter, later Queen Hangbe, to form a female bodyguard for the king. Her brother later used these female warriors offensively in war with surrounding societies. On their successful participation in war, their ranks, prestige, and power grew. Soon, girls as young as eight were beginning training for a lifetime of military service, and thousands served at a time.
The female presence in their military remained a century later when Western observers got their first look at the group they would name the Dahomey Amazons, based on the women warriors of ancient lore. They were not permitted to marry or have children, except maybe with the king, but were expected to dedicate their lives to military service. The Western observers wrote of how women were recruited if they had aggressive traits and could even be involuntarily recruited if their husbands or fathers claimed they were uncontrollable. They would be put to the same physical rigors, discipline standards, and requirements of the male soldiers. English naval officer Frederick Forbes wrote of the Dahomean soldiers, “Male and female emulate each other: what the males do, the Amazons will endeavour to surpass.”
At times, thousands of them served their tribe, forming up to a third of the army’s total population. They faced almost no major military losses until the region was eventually overrun by the technologically superior French in a series of wars in the 19th Century. What the Dahomey did with their military power can be considered as destructive as it was revolutionary. The French forces faced the Dahomey in two separate wars, and in both, the Amazons were reported to have engaged them with rifles, swords, and in hand-to-hand combat before being ultimately defeated.
Conclusion
Women’s sexuality was at the center of relationships between enslavers and the enslaved. Despite the horrors of slavery, women found agency, resisted, and found ways to endure. Women fought against their enslavement like the Dahomey and Njinga, even if they were unable to end slavery itself.
At the peak of Atlantic trade, many regions of West Africa faced the unbearable consequences of both regional conflicts and European incursions. Populations struggled to keep up with harvests and planting;. Groups raided, kidnapped, and sold members from rival and surrounding societies to slave traders. Individual armies were weakened by the loss of men to local and international conflicts or were forcibly sold, which only left nations at great risk.
The Kingdom of Dahomey, in modern-day Benin, faced all of these pressures and responded by bolstering their ranks with an all-female regiment. Like some other African kingdoms, the Kingdom of Dahomey captured and sold those around them into slavery to preserve their own people, traded people for European goods, and practiced human sacrifice. The Kingdom is also as a primary example of female militarism.
The first to recruit women was King Houegbadja in the mid-17th century when he allowed his daughter, later Queen Hangbe, to form a female bodyguard for the king. Her brother later used these female warriors offensively in war with surrounding societies. On their successful participation in war, their ranks, prestige, and power grew. Soon, girls as young as eight were beginning training for a lifetime of military service, and thousands served at a time.
The female presence in their military remained a century later when Western observers got their first look at the group they would name the Dahomey Amazons, based on the women warriors of ancient lore. They were not permitted to marry or have children, except maybe with the king, but were expected to dedicate their lives to military service. The Western observers wrote of how women were recruited if they had aggressive traits and could even be involuntarily recruited if their husbands or fathers claimed they were uncontrollable. They would be put to the same physical rigors, discipline standards, and requirements of the male soldiers. English naval officer Frederick Forbes wrote of the Dahomean soldiers, “Male and female emulate each other: what the males do, the Amazons will endeavour to surpass.”
At times, thousands of them served their tribe, forming up to a third of the army’s total population. They faced almost no major military losses until the region was eventually overrun by the technologically superior French in a series of wars in the 19th Century. What the Dahomey did with their military power can be considered as destructive as it was revolutionary. The French forces faced the Dahomey in two separate wars, and in both, the Amazons were reported to have engaged them with rifles, swords, and in hand-to-hand combat before being ultimately defeated.
Conclusion
Women’s sexuality was at the center of relationships between enslavers and the enslaved. Despite the horrors of slavery, women found agency, resisted, and found ways to endure. Women fought against their enslavement like the Dahomey and Njinga, even if they were unable to end slavery itself.
Draw your own conclusions
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Learn how to teach with inquiry.
Many of these lesson plans were sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University, the History and Social Studies Education Faculty at Plymouth State University, and the Patrons of the Remedial Herstory Project. |
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OTHER: African Songhay and Hausa Kingdoms
In this inquiry from Women in World History, students explore the life of Queen Amina in the 16th century. Check it out! |
Lesson Plans from Other Organizations
- This website, Women in World History has primary source based lesson plans on women's history in a whole range of topics. Some are free while others have a cost.
- The Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media has produced recommendations for teaching women's history with primary sources and provided a collection of sources for world history. Check them out!
- The Stanford History Education Group has a number of lesson plans about women in World History.
Frederick Forbes: Depiction Of The Amazon People
Frederick Forbes traveled to West Africa as an officer for the British Royal Navy and published his journal in 1851. He was sent to the kingdom to convince the King to suppress Dahomey's involvement with the slave trade. As Britain had banned the slave trade, Forbes worked to bring to the public's attention the slave hunts practiced by the Dahomey. This is one of his sketches of a Mino or Amazon warrior next to his description of the Amazons.
The amazons are not supposed to marry, and, by their own statement, they have changed their sex. "We are men," say they, " not women." All dress alike, diet alike, and male and female emulate each other: what the males do, the amazons will endeavour to surpass. They all take great care of their arms, polish the bar- rels, and, except when on duty, keep them in covers. There is no duty at the palace, except when the king is in public, and then a guard of amazons protect the royal person, and, on review, he is guarded by the males ; but outside the palace is always a strong detachment of males ready for service. The amazons are in barracks within the palace enclosure, and under the care of the eunuchs and the camboodee or treasurer. In every action (with males and females), there is some reference to cutting off heads. [T]he palace, or the grand Fetish houses…The royal wives and their slaves, I presume from the jealousy of their despotic lord, are considered too sacred for man to gaze upon ; and on meeting any of these sable beauties on the road, a bell warns the wayfarer to turn off, or stand against a wall while they pass. The king has thousands of wives… If one of the wives of the king, or a high officer's, commits adultery, the culprits are summarily beheaded ; and the skull of one of the Agaou's wives is at present exposed in the square of the palace of Agrimgomeh, in Abomey. But if adultery be committed by parties of lower rank, they are sold Marriages. If a uiau scduccs a girl, the law obliges marriage, and the payment of eighty heads of cowries to the parent or master, on pain of becoming himself a slave. In marriage there is no ceremony, except where the king confers the wife, in which instance the maiden presents her future lord with a glass of rum.
Forbes, Frederick. “Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh, leader of the en:Dahomey Amazons.” Dahomey of the Dahomans. 1851. (being the journals of two missions to the king of Dahomey, and residence at his capital), 23-24. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/dahomeydahomansb00forb/page/n41/mode/2up.
Questions:
The amazons are not supposed to marry, and, by their own statement, they have changed their sex. "We are men," say they, " not women." All dress alike, diet alike, and male and female emulate each other: what the males do, the amazons will endeavour to surpass. They all take great care of their arms, polish the bar- rels, and, except when on duty, keep them in covers. There is no duty at the palace, except when the king is in public, and then a guard of amazons protect the royal person, and, on review, he is guarded by the males ; but outside the palace is always a strong detachment of males ready for service. The amazons are in barracks within the palace enclosure, and under the care of the eunuchs and the camboodee or treasurer. In every action (with males and females), there is some reference to cutting off heads. [T]he palace, or the grand Fetish houses…The royal wives and their slaves, I presume from the jealousy of their despotic lord, are considered too sacred for man to gaze upon ; and on meeting any of these sable beauties on the road, a bell warns the wayfarer to turn off, or stand against a wall while they pass. The king has thousands of wives… If one of the wives of the king, or a high officer's, commits adultery, the culprits are summarily beheaded ; and the skull of one of the Agaou's wives is at present exposed in the square of the palace of Agrimgomeh, in Abomey. But if adultery be committed by parties of lower rank, they are sold Marriages. If a uiau scduccs a girl, the law obliges marriage, and the payment of eighty heads of cowries to the parent or master, on pain of becoming himself a slave. In marriage there is no ceremony, except where the king confers the wife, in which instance the maiden presents her future lord with a glass of rum.
Forbes, Frederick. “Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh, leader of the en:Dahomey Amazons.” Dahomey of the Dahomans. 1851. (being the journals of two missions to the king of Dahomey, and residence at his capital), 23-24. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/dahomeydahomansb00forb/page/n41/mode/2up.
Questions:
- How did he describe the Amazon women?
- Why might this British officer have a different perspective on the Amazons than the Dahomey themselves? How might that impact this account?
Alfred Skertchly: Dahomey As It Is
Alfred Skertchly left England in 1871 to collect zoological specimens West Coast of Africa. He traveled to Abomey, the capital of Dahomey, to train the King on the use of new weapons. He expected to stay for eight days but was held as an unwilling, yet well treated guest. This is his account of the Amazons.
One of the most singular institutions of Dahomey is the female army, or Amazons, as they have been called. When these soldieresses were first introduced into the country is unknown… Who has not heard of the ferocious actions of a drunken woman; and do not the daily papers bear witness to the fact that, once roused, a woman will perpetrate far greater cruelty than a man? Did not the petroleuses of Paris wander about like she-demons of the nether world? What spectacle is more calculated to inspire horror than a savage and brutal woman in a passion? and when we imagine such to be besprinkled with the blood of the slain, and perhaps carrying the gory head of some decapitated victim, one may cease to wonder at the dread with which these female warriors were, and still are, looked upon by the surrounding nations… [I]t would… be a happy release from their relatives if all the old maids could be enlisted, and trained to vent their feline spite and mischief-making propensities on the enemies of the country, instead of their neighbours. At any rate, they would be removed out of the way of the sycophantic parasites, who invariably hover round them, should they be possessed of any property, in the hope of cajoling them out of it. Instances are not by any means rare, of females who have donned the soldier's uniform, and fought bravely side by side, not taking into consideration such heroines as Joan of Arc, Margaret of Anjou, Boadicea, and a host of others… As for physical endurance, do not scores of charwomen and laundresses drag out a life of literal slavery… Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the Amazonian army of Dahomey is one of the causes of its slow decadence… Dahomey will have to be classed among the nations that have been.
Skertchly, J. Alfred. “Dahomey as it Is.” London: Legare Street Press, 2021. First published in 1884 by Chapman and Hall, 454-459.
Questions:
One of the most singular institutions of Dahomey is the female army, or Amazons, as they have been called. When these soldieresses were first introduced into the country is unknown… Who has not heard of the ferocious actions of a drunken woman; and do not the daily papers bear witness to the fact that, once roused, a woman will perpetrate far greater cruelty than a man? Did not the petroleuses of Paris wander about like she-demons of the nether world? What spectacle is more calculated to inspire horror than a savage and brutal woman in a passion? and when we imagine such to be besprinkled with the blood of the slain, and perhaps carrying the gory head of some decapitated victim, one may cease to wonder at the dread with which these female warriors were, and still are, looked upon by the surrounding nations… [I]t would… be a happy release from their relatives if all the old maids could be enlisted, and trained to vent their feline spite and mischief-making propensities on the enemies of the country, instead of their neighbours. At any rate, they would be removed out of the way of the sycophantic parasites, who invariably hover round them, should they be possessed of any property, in the hope of cajoling them out of it. Instances are not by any means rare, of females who have donned the soldier's uniform, and fought bravely side by side, not taking into consideration such heroines as Joan of Arc, Margaret of Anjou, Boadicea, and a host of others… As for physical endurance, do not scores of charwomen and laundresses drag out a life of literal slavery… Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the Amazonian army of Dahomey is one of the causes of its slow decadence… Dahomey will have to be classed among the nations that have been.
Skertchly, J. Alfred. “Dahomey as it Is.” London: Legare Street Press, 2021. First published in 1884 by Chapman and Hall, 454-459.
Questions:
- Underline words used to describe the Amazon warriors.
- Overall, how would you say they are viewed?
- How might differences in culture impact his account?
Remedial Herstory Editors. "21. 1500-1600 GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND THE SLAVE TRADE ." The Remedial Herstory Project. November 1, 2022. www.remedialherstory.com.
Primary AUTHOR: |
Kelsie Brook Eckert
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Primary Reviewer: |
Jacqui Nelson
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Consulting Team |
Editors |
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Kelsie Brook Eckert, Project Director
Coordinator of Social Studies Education at Plymouth State University Dr. Nancy Locklin-Sofer, Consultant Professor of History at Maryville College. Chloe Gardner, Consultant PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at Edinburgh University Dr. Whitney Howarth, Consultant Former Professor of History at Plymouth State University Jacqui Nelson, Consultant Teaching Lecturer of Military History at Plymouth State University Maria Concepcion Marquez Sandoval PhD Candidate in History at Arizona University |
Amy Flanders
Humanities Teacher, Moultonborough Academy ReviewersAncient:
Dr. Kristin Heineman Professor of History at Colorado State University Dr. Bonnie Rock-McCutcheon Professor of History at Wilson College Sarah Stone PhD Candidate in Religious Studies at Edinburgh University Medieval: Dr. Katherine Koh Professor of History at La Sierra University Dr. Jonathan Couser Professor of History at Plymouth State University Dr. Shahla Haeri Professor of History at Boston University Lauren Cole PhD Candidate in History at Northwestern University Modern: Dr. Barbara Tischler Supervisor for Hunter College Dr. Pamela Scully Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and African Studies at Emory University |
Slave Trade and Abolition reveals how women known as donas (a term adapted from the title granted to noble and royal women in the Iberian Peninsula) were often important cultural brokers. Acting as intermediaries between foreign and local people, they held high socioeconomic status and even competed with the male merchants who controlled the trade. Oliveira provides rich evidence to explore the many ways this Luso-African community influenced its society. In doing so, she reveals an unexpectedly nuanced economy with regard to the dynamics of gender and authority.
The Woman of Colour is a unique literary account of a black heiress’ life immediately after the abolition of the British slave trade. Olivia Fairfield, the biracial heroine and orphaned daughter of a slaveholder, must travel from Jamaica to England, and as a condition of her father’s will either marry her Caucasian first cousin or become dependent on his mercenary elder brother and sister-in-law. As Olivia decides between these two conflicting possibilities, her letters recount her impressions of Britain and its inhabitants as only a black woman could record them.
For many years, Euro-African families lived in close proximity to the violence of the slave trade. Sheltered by their Danish names and connections, they grew wealthy and influential. But their powerful position on the Gold Coast did not extend to the broader Atlantic world, where the link between blackness and slavery grew stronger, and where Euro-African descent did not guarantee privilege. Daughters of the Trade uncovers the vital role interracial marriage played in the coastal slave trade, the production of racial difference, and the increasing stratification of the early modern Atlantic world.
Johnson draws on archival documents scattered in institutions across three continents, written in multiple languages and largely from the perspective of colonial officials and slave-owning men, to recreate black women's experiences from coastal Senegal to French Saint-Domingue to Spanish Cuba to the swampy outposts of the Gulf Coast. Centering New Orleans as the quintessential site for investigating black women's practices of freedom in the Atlantic world, Wicked Flesh argues that African women and women of African descent endowed free status with meaning through active, aggressive, and sometimes unsuccessful intimate and kinship practices. Their stories, in both their successes and their failures, outline a practice of freedom that laid the groundwork for the emancipation struggles of the nineteenth century and reshaped the New World.
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"I am a human being; I am a woman; I am a black woman; I am an African. Once I was free; then I was captured and became a slave; but inside me, here and here, I am still a free woman." During a period of four hundred years, European slave traders ferried some 12 million enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. In the Americas, teaching a slave to read and write was a criminal offense. When the last slaves gained their freedom in Brazil, barely a thousand of them were literate. Hardly any stories of the enslaved and transported Africans have survived. This novel is an attempt to recreate just one of those stories, one story of a possible 12 million or more. Lawrence Hill created another in The Book of Negroes (Someone Knows my Name in the U.S.) and, more recently, Yaa Gyasi has done the same in Homegoing.
In 1804, shortly before the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue is renamed Haiti, a group of women gather to bury a stillborn baby. Led by a lesbian healer and midwife named Mer, the women's lamentations inadvertently release the dead infant's "unused vitality" to draw Ezili - the Afro-Caribbean goddess of sexual desire and love - into the physical world. As Ezili explores her newfound powers, she travels across time and space to inhabit the midwife's body - as well as those of Jeanne, a mixed-race dancer and the mistress of Charles Baudelaire living in 1880s Paris, and Meritet, an enslaved Greek-Nubian prostitute in ancient Alexandria.
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HOW TO TEACH WITH FILMS:
Remember, teachers want the student to be the historian. What do historians do when they watch films?
- Before they watch, ask students to research the director and producers. These are the source of the information. How will their background and experience likely bias this film?
- Also, ask students to consider the context the film was created in. The film may be about history, but it was made recently. What was going on the year the film was made that could bias the film? In particular, how do you think the gains of feminism will impact the portrayal of the female characters?
- As they watch, ask students to research the historical accuracy of the film. What do online sources say about what the film gets right or wrong?
- Afterward, ask students to describe how the female characters were portrayed and what lessons they got from the film.
- Then, ask students to evaluate this film as a learning tool. Was it helpful to better understand this topic? Did the historical inaccuracies make it unhelpful? Make it clear any informed opinion is valid.
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12 Years a Slave (2013)
In the antebellum United States, Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York, is abducted and sold into slavery. IMDB |
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bibliography
Berry, Diana R. and Leslie M. Harris, Ed. Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2018).
Hall, Rebecca Martínez Hugo and Sarula Bao. 2021. Wake : The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed. New York NY: Simon & Schuster.
Miles, Rosalind. The Women’s History of the World. London, UK: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.
Mintz, Steven. “Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery.” Gilder Lehrman Institute.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery#:~:text=The%20volume%20of%20 slaves%20 carried,leaving%20Africa%20in%20love%20 ships
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Morgan, Jennifer. Laboring women: Reproduction and gender in new world slavery. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Morgan, Jennifer L. "" Some could suckle over their shoulder": Male travelers, female bodies, and the gendering of racial ideology, 1500-1770." The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1997): 167-192.
Strayer, R. and Nelson, E., Ways Of The World. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016.
Hall, Rebecca Martínez Hugo and Sarula Bao. 2021. Wake : The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed. New York NY: Simon & Schuster.
Miles, Rosalind. The Women’s History of the World. London, UK: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.
Mintz, Steven. “Historical Context: Facts about the Slave Trade and Slavery.” Gilder Lehrman Institute.
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery#:~:text=The%20volume%20of%20 slaves%20 carried,leaving%20Africa%20in%20love%20 ships
.
Morgan, Jennifer. Laboring women: Reproduction and gender in new world slavery. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004.
Morgan, Jennifer L. "" Some could suckle over their shoulder": Male travelers, female bodies, and the gendering of racial ideology, 1500-1770." The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1997): 167-192.
Strayer, R. and Nelson, E., Ways Of The World. 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016.