Summary Of Jennifer Morgan Some Could Suckle Over They Carry

Reading Response: “Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder
In historian Jennifer L. Morgan’s article, “Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder” complies journal entries from various European explorers dating from the sixteenth to eighteenth century, and argues that the authors of these journal “ represented African women’s bodies and sexual behavior to distinguish Africans women from European women”(25). European explorers commonly described the Native American and African women encountered as savage, beastly, and monstrous. The European dairy entries also make note of preconceived notation of the African women sexual behaviors noting that they are strange (shameful), animalistic, and hypersexual. After examining Morgan’s work I noticed that the

For example the African female body was seen as desirable by Ligon however, a laborer body could not be seen as beautiful. So to justify actions for the slave trade Ligon and other European slave traders had to write their (African females) bodies off as repulsive and “monstrous”(26). Another relative example of the lust that the European explorers had for both African and indigenous women would be comparing their bodies to a medieval wild woman who’s breasted sagged to the ground and could be thrown over her shoulders. This imagery used in comparing shows the lust of the explorers, because it was believed that her beauty and youth was a disguise to permit seduction on her “victims”. In excerpts from the travel narratives of Richard Ligon and Sebastian Munster this idea of a woman’s body being both desirable and repulsive is clearly

Munster explains the Native Americans from their initial encounter from his perspective; he describes their physical characteristics (women), social institutions, and social context (27). In Munster descriptions of the Native American woman he describes how smooth and their bodies are as well as how fertile she is. He also describes how shameful their culture is it comes to institutions such as marriage and appearance (clothing). In this travel narrative we see how easily it was for the European explorers to pass judgement on other cultures without wanting to understand others, and we also can see how the Europeans lust for the Native American women when they talk about their