A Different Kind of Slavery for the Black Woman

The role of the Black woman during slavery was much different than that of the Black man. Although a black man was bound to cultivating the land, the black woman was often inside in close proximity to their white masters. This made black women vulnerable to the vicious sexual attacks of their apathetic masters. At this point in time in the the mid and late 1800s in the United States black women were viewed as mere property to their masters; they were to clean the house from top to bottom as well as fulfill the sexual needs of their masters - those that did not were beaten, sold, or killed. Black women in America were identified as "promiscuous" (African American Women & the Metalanguage of Race) and accused of having "wicked lifestyles". This labeling of an entire race and gender lessened the black woman to a role equivalent to that of an animal, therefore condoning their objectionable advances toward black women. Even statutory law did not stand behind one young black woman enslaved at the age of fourteeen and forced to bear two of her masters children. Young Celia of 19 years was hung after being denied the rights granted her by Missouri law that "any woman" is "protected from attempts to ravish, rape, or defile" after accidently killing and intentionally burning to ashes her master. Clearly, the law did not stand behind a black woman that was raped.

This conflict between the black woman and the United States at this time was one of the largest injustices that have somehow attained a level of aninimity amongst the American people today. Black women at this time tried to counteract their (unearned) stereotype as immoral, "promiscuous" beings by becoming "super moral." Yet unfortunately today even black women have forgotten the "reputation" they were once given, reducing themselves to erotic dances in popular music videos. Indeed, this subject in US History is one that would not hurt for many to revisit.


African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham
Signs, Vol. 17, No. 2. (Winter, 1992), pp. 251-274.