ipl-logo

White Women In Early America Essay

1647 Words7 Pages

Early American social hierarchies differed markedly for women of color—whether free or enslaved—whose relationships to the white regimes of early America were manifold and complex. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, women in the colonies of the English West Indies and Carolinas, particularly women of color, were seen as subordinate by white male slave owners because of race and shared oppression of the female gender. However, these women were a means of economic gain for white slave owners. Taken from Africa to the New World as slave laborers, white slave owners valued these women for their ability in domestic work and fieldwork where they performed primarily unskilled agricultural tasks, as well as their potential to bear children. White slave owners of the Early Americas, driven by greed and opportunism, used political laws, physical characteristics of women, and social constructs of gender roles to appropriate …show more content…

Ironically, though white perspective was considered repressed, sexual duties and childbearing were of primary importance to white men as they were inexplicably drawn to the ‘exotic charms’ of African womanhood and beauty. Early modern English writers did conventionally set the black female figure against one that was white—and thus beautiful. They were particularly intrigued by tawny appearances of the African Women.1 In June 1647, Englishman Richard Ligon recorded the physical appearance of a black woman he encountered in his True and Exact History of Barbadoes: “she was a Negro of the greatest beauty and majesty together: that ever I saw in one woman. Her stature large, and excellently shap’d, well favour’d, full eye’d, and admirably grac’d . . . was with far greater Majesty and gracefulness, than I have seen Queen Anne, descend from the Chaire of State.”

Show More
Related

Summary Of New Word Slavery By Jennifer Morgan

295 Words | 2 Pages

Jennifer Morgan’s Laboring Women: Gender and Reproduction in New World Slavery is an examination of the construction of gender and race and the ideas of black women’s production and reproduction in West Africa, Barbados, and colonial America. Similar to historians before her, Morgan places gender at the center of her study in order to underscore the importance of black women’s productive and reproductive roles in New Word slavery. She argues that the duality of these roles contributed to black women’s experiences in slavery vastly different than black men. She states, “[g]ender functioned as a set of power relationships through which early slave owning settlers and those they enslaved defined, understood, and adjusted the confines of racial

Read More

Theda Perdue And Morgan Gender Analysis

401 Words | 2 Pages

Expounding on Scott’s gender analysis are Theda Perdue and Jennifer Morgan who focus specifically on the bodies of Indian and black women. For both Cherokee and black women, they are often overshadowed by men, their stories eclipsed due to the assumption that under the institution of slavery, women’s experiences were not much different than men. Perdue and Morgan challenge this notion, demonstrating that the lives and experiences of black and Cherokee women were different than black and Cherokee men. In placing black women and Cherokee women at the center of the narrative, Perdue and Morgan seek to enhance understanding the functions Cherokee and black women played in colonial America and how they responded to the gendered roles they were expected

Read More

Jennifer Morgan Laboring Women

1407 Words | 6 Pages

At times the assertions in Jennifer L. Morgan’s Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery can seem unexpectedly straightforward, for example when she merely states that, “African women were there” (197). At other points, the connections she proposes between race, gender, the body, colonialism, and ideology are almost overwhelmingly entangled and complex. But it is perhaps this mix of the explicit and the theoretical that make the book such an insightful and transformative work in the field of early Atlantic history. For while her topic is focused, the depth of her questioning, the scope of her research, and the attention she pays to the theoretical framework within that topic are profound. Morgan’s overall goal for the book

Read More

What Is The Central Idea Of The Plantation Mistresses By Catherine Clinton

1539 Words | 7 Pages

If given the choice to be a slave, a white woman, or a white man throughout the pre-civil war era, a white man would always end up being the common choice. Catherine Clinton delved into the oppression of women in the 19th century, which was often overlooked in history, throughout her book: The Plantation Mistresses: Woman’s World in the Old South. From the role of religion, to the importance of the family circle, and even the examination of moral standards, Clinton pointed out that in every aspect of Old South living, a woman’s status always fell beneath that of a man’s. Throughout her book, Catherine Clinton brought forth an argument of a biracial salve society that had never been mentioned before; through the use of personal accounts written

Read More

White Women In The 18th Century

163 Words | 1 Pages

White women were in short supply, but high demand, in eighteenth century South Carolina. Women were “ill-equipped” to complete the work farm life required of them, so they migrated to the South in smaller numbers than their male counterparts. The women who did reside in South Carolina were highly sought after by the men, though. Young marriages, re-marriages, and inbreeding, thus, were not uncommon. It was important for women to marry young in hopes of producing farm hands and it was important for them to remarry, what with the astonishingly high mortality rates, to secure the future of the farm or plantation.

Read More

Comparing Brown And Slavery

217 Words | 1 Pages

In the colony, race as a social construct is strongly examined when Brown discusses the legal limitations placed on African women. These limitations lent themselves to the notion that to be African was to be slave. While English attitudes were not the causes of slavery, they did however, mold the “legal and intellectual framework within which slavery emerged.” For African women, gender relations in their masters’ households produced the fundamental and ideological foundation for determining that all Africans were slaves and stripping away any opportunities for acquiring freedom. Brown writes, “it was this subordination of African women to the needs of English labor and family systems that ultimately provided the legal foundation for slavery

Read More

Summary: The Transatlantic Slave Trade

916 Words | 4 Pages

Edmund Burke once said, “Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.” During the years of 1450-1860 slavery was the only way of life for many African-Americans. This time was known as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Millions of African-Americans were transported as slaves across the Middle Passage. During the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, African women were seen as something of little value compared to other slaves

Read More

Our Eyes Were Watching God Feminist Analysis

1082 Words | 5 Pages

Apart from hard work and obedience at home, they were the source of sexual pleasure not only for their husbands but also for the white males. They were considered as exotic sexy women who easily surrender themselves to colonizers. In the colonial space black woman experiences a much harsher and severer oppression because of the colonialist’s excessive attention to the body of black woman as sexual object to be watched and enjoyed; that is just one dimension of black woman’s unfortunate fate. This woman has already been and is simultaneously dominated by the black traditionally male-centred society. Therefore, the Afro-American women can be considered as doubly colonized in their encounter with the white-American

Read More

Discrimination Of Women In The 1930s Essay

715 Words | 3 Pages

During the 1930s it was a very difficult time for everyone. Many women who did not have a job were in a way forced to find a job because their husbands were laid off or suffered from a wage-cuts and couldn't support their families financially(). In other situations, men just walk out on their families and left the mother with no support. () Women in the 1930s were supposed to be home stayed moms; basically, that was staying at home taking care of the children, maintaining a good home, dress well for their husbands, cook, and set the table attractively. () For many women that were not a choice, they could have.

Read More

Pre Colonial America

784 Words | 4 Pages

As the number of indentured servants, and later slaves, increased in pre-revolution era America, elements of a new American way of life began to materialize. Among these were a dislike of doing our own work, and the mistreatment of people that were believed to be of a lower class. Although these ideals mostly began to disappear over time, they were a core part of the American culture for centuries. Over the course of about 150 years, the number of Africans being imported to the Americas rose from 500 to a quarter of a million. A very scarce few of these slaves were eventually released, therefore “the assumption slowly spread that blacks would remain in service permanently.”

Read More

Native Women Sexualization

1064 Words | 5 Pages

One side is at more of a disadvantage because that side, the one the Native American woman is on, was never looked at as a person but instead as an object. Perhaps an even more stark differentiation is the treatment of white women versus black women’s bodies in the late eighteenth to early nineteenth

Read More

White Women In Advertising Essay

760 Words | 4 Pages

Typically white women are portrayed in regal dresses and tend to be advertising a luxurious item. Considering the ideal woman in the global society is white, most ad campaigns primarily deploy white women to advertise. However, the cases in which colored women are advertised tends to be demeaning, racist, and making cultural assumptions. For example, black women are often advertised as “wild” while white women are seen as “poised”. 3.

Read More

What Role Did Women Play In The Slave Trade Essay

912 Words | 4 Pages

Understanding the role the women played in the slave trade and community is important to offer a new dynamic to the study of slave culture in general. Not only were slave women subordinate because of race but they also shared the trials of the oppression of the female gender. Women slaves played a key role in the development of slave communities through the development of African Sexuality, Family Structure and Economic Productivity. It is therefore infinitely important that we must understand the slave trade from a female perspective to understand the development of these slave communities.

Read More

White Girl Research Paper

761 Words | 4 Pages

How many times a day does someone stereotype someone as a “basic white girl” just because they like starbucks coffee, their skin may be white, and their gender is female. I would assume a lot for this specific stereotype because even I would be called this a lot even though I am so much more than what they call a “basic white girl”. No girl is a “basic white girl” because each girl is different in their own unique way. For instance Nadra Kareem Little said it perfectly in the “Stereotype” article she wrote where she said “It’s Important to judge a specific individuals rather than the groups of which they are apart. ”(Little 11).

Read More

Essay On Black Feminism

1209 Words | 5 Pages

Black Feminism “The most disrespected woman in America, is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America, is the black woman” Malcolm X. That is what Malcolm X said this at the funeral for Ronald Stokes a man of color was killed by the police. .

Read More

More about White Women In Early America Essay

Open Document