Sexual relationships between female slaves and their masters



     African Americans resisted the practice of slavery and the trade of slavery from its inception in the United Stated in the early 1600s to its end in the middle 1800s. They resisted it in the fields and in the big house; they resisted by organized rebellions; and they resisted by direct, spontaneous acts of courage. For their freedom slaves killed and were killed. They ran away, and their masters ran after them. They fought and died, but they also survived. The conditions of slaves that survived varied. How well were they treated depended on their owner and the type of work they did. However, in my paper I will discuss the life of slave women and their relationships with their white masters. Since the beginning of slavery gender and social relations shaped the lives of slave in such a way that slave women experiences were different from slave men.
     Did gender make a difference in how slave women were treated by their masters? Yes. Gender was like a major force in shaping slave society. Slave men experiences were different from slave women, who were exploited both for reproductive and productive reasons. Throughout the long years of slavery women were abused by their master, physically, sexually, and mentally, while men were abused physically and mentally. Not only did women suffer much harsher physical abuse, they were also sexually abused. Although, not suggesting that black men suffered less than black women under the oppression of slavery, only that gender considerations played a major part in shaping the task assignments given to blacks by their owners and in shaping the way in which blacks build relationships among themselves” (Jones 20).
The lives of female slaves were a little more trying than that of a male slave. This is partly due to the sexual harassment, which slave women must endure. Sexual relationships between masters and female slaves were very common on the plantation during the eighteenth century. These forced sexual relationships often began with cruel beatings before the slave would submit to savage rapes. Out of fear of pain or death, female slaves had no other alternative but to obey their masters. According to Lyerly, “As many historians of slavery have noted, slave women lived not only with slavery’s routine restraints upon their will; they also had to fight for control over their bodies. Victims of sexual abuse by whites, slave women were often subject to the will of others in the most intimate ways” (209). Sexually, black women had no control over their bodies and no choice of denying their masters.
The most memorable slave and master relationship were between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Sally hemings was owned by Jefferson, to whom she bore many children. However, The affair between the two sparked a controversy because Jefferson was also an owner of slaves. These kinds of relationships were quite common for the time period. It is known for some slave women to be willing to have children by their masters, hoping that it would give them privileges not given to other slaves on the plantation. “While some black women may have regarded sexual unions with whites as advantageous, providing privileges and possible manumissions, such relations also represented a natural extension of the power of white over black” (Gaspar and Hine 194). Although Jefferson eventually gave Sally Hemings her freedom after years of being oppressed, and took care of her children. Jefferson still was still condoning the exploitation of women when he said, “I consider the labor of a breeding woman as no object, and that a child raised every two years is of more profit than the crop of the best man” (Gaspar 147). Slave women often became victims of harsh abuse by being forced into sexual activities by white men, especially when the trading of slaves from Africa had ended in the early nineteenth century. According to Jones, “whether or not slave women were expected to bear children for her master’s use, she remained vulnerable to his sexual advances, and the constant threat of rape injected raw-edge into black family” (23).
The reproduction of slaves was highly due to forced sexual harassment. Slave reproduction was beneficial to slave owners in making more profit and expanding his or her plantation. “Sexual harassment was more likely to be economically dysfunctional in that it interfered with productivity both physically and psychologically” (Gaspar and Hine 25). Most slave masters did not care how their slave population would expand sometimes slave master would force a slave woman to be with another slave in order to procreate. “Slave breeding involved the selection of “prime stock” to breed, regardless of the will of the participants, with the chief aim of producing superior children for the purpose of sale or labor” (Gaspar and Hine 25). Much of the abuse that slave women endure was particularly due to the belief that white men had of them that they could not be raped because they were promiscuous by nature. “The more comely a slave girl, the greater the possibility that she would experience sexual abuse and sale as “fancy girl” for illicit purposes” (Gaspar and Hine 158).
The rates of fertility skyrocketed during the nineteenth century time period. Slave master felt that if they could no longer buy slaves they could produce them at any cost. Slave women endured very bad conditions while pregnant, because they were poorly cared for. In a statement by Gaspar, “ In any case, it was unrealistic for slave women to expect any consideration from the white men who impregnated them. It was possible, however, for the slave mother to enjoy attention from the slave father if both belonged to the same owner and lived together or if they belonged to different owners but were partners in “abroad” marriages” (148).
      Gender and social relation were important factors in determining the fate of a slave even though slave owners often did not differentiate between genders in the assignment of labor. Therefore, women often ended up in the fields alongside men. However, a woman’s place in society back then, throughout the travesty of slavery, was somewhat different. Women often performed domestic duties, attempted to keep the slave family health and together, and tended to their masters’ demands and whims. “Within the slave community a slave women’s activities were tied more directly to their personal relations with men, as for example, when they cooked and sewed for their own families. But their roles as daughters, wives, and mothers depended upon the sufferance of a master who could break up families. Under these conditions the slave’s sense of herself as a woman- her gender identity- remain separable from the gender relations and roles that depended heavily on the vicissitudes of power in a slave society” (Genovese 193).
     Socially, slave women had to learn how to survive on their own. They were dominated by their master and neglected by their slave men. Slave families were often unstable due to the institution of slavery because it was not certain families would remain together. Even so, slave women prove to be the authority figure within the family having the men listening to her. A slave woman authoritative figure was also responsible for the spiritual up lifting of the slave community. Slave mother would also educate their children about the evil of slavery and how wrong it was to enslave another human being. This kind teaching by slave mothers gave slave children hopes of one day walking around without the watchful eyes of a master or a plantation overseer. The slave women’s choices in life were not limited to her happiness, but she had to think about her children. A mother had different responsibilities that she had to deal with. By having to deal with sexual abuse and thinking about her children women were less able to leave their people behing.
I would also like to discuss the differences in fertility between the slave women in the United States and slave women in the Caribbean. Slave women in the Caribbean had very low birth percentages to that of the United States during the eighteenth century. According to Morrissey, “Caribbean slave women have been variously described as frequent contraceptive users, skilled practitioners of abortion, and sexual abstainers” (112). In addition, “Slave men during the eighteenth century thought of slave women to promiscuous and more likely to contract venereal diseases and thus become more sterile, ” (Morrissey 113).
In a society dominated by white males, the treatment of slave women by white varied. Slave women both in the United States and the Caribbean were subject to random physically abused by their owners, if they did not comply with their masters wishes to be sexually exploited.” Women were occasionally executed. Six women were broken alive upon the rack, and two girls were decapitated” (Morrissey 152). Evidently, it was so horrifying in being a slave because the female slaves did just about everything from keeping their children to become slaves. Due to these brutal punishments slave women exhort to escaping sometimes leaving their children behind. According to White, “for those fugitive women who left children in slavery, the physical relief which freedom brought was limited compensation for the anguish they suffered” (62). To be a plantation owner and owner of slaves prove to be a very lucrative business since the owners had free manual labor and they could keep all the profit from the crops for themselves. They also had to justify what they were doing by telling themselves that these slaves were barbaric and not smart enough to be civilized. These slave owners also owned huge houses in the middle of their plantations and thought of themselves as noblemen. In actuality, it was the slaves who were living nobly while the Europeans were living barbarically. Many slave owners throughout the United States and the Caribbean thought that slaves were only good for manual work because, slaves did not speak English, they were not smart enough, and they did not have a written language. This was proven not to be true either. However, There is a moral way to make money and then there is an immoral way to make a living. Slavery is the number one event in our country’s history that has disgraced and put shame to our culture. Even though not everyone owned slaves, one bad apple spoils the bunch. Hopefully people will learn from history, and immoral actions or events like slavery will not take place again.