They Were Her Property White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

4/5stars When we listen to what enslaved people had to say about white women and slave mastery, we find that they articulated quite clearly their belief that slave-owning women governed their slaves in the same ways that white men did; sometimes they were more effective at slave management or they used more brutal methods of discipline than their husbands did. This is one of those books which is tagged as the Must Read/Basics of theory for Black history and I'm just here to reiterate that. This book is packed with information on the black history, specifically the slave trading history in South America and the key role women played in this business back then. White women were in no way the victims or the mute observers of these crimes, they actively participated and the author brings to light enough evidence in support of this argument. Slave-owning women not only witnessed the most brutal features of slavery, they took part in them, profited from them, and defended them. Although this book might be a difficult read for a lot people, especially if you are from a non-academic background because the text is very research-y. But if you keep at it, by the end of this book you will have a great knowledge about the workings of the systems in place back then. This I think should be a compulsory read for any feminist or historical class. Or for anyone else willing to learn about the economic history of slave trading and how white women profited off of it equally, if not more. Although, the legalities of the things mentioned in the book sometimes tend to get a little repetitive it is important to read and critically analyze them to understand the gravity of the situation. Enslaved people also remembered slave-owning women giving their children human property, which contradicts historians’ claims that bequests and gifting of enslaved people were practices in which only slave-owning men engaged HIGHLY RECOMMEND, GIVE THIS ONE YOUR TIME. IT DESERVES!

This is an excellent look at an often misunderstood part of American history. Incredibly thorough, well documented, and (aside from the nature of the content) easy to parse. I do think the chapters are too long - they are chunky & it made it a bit harder to get through than I think it needed to be. It is a bit repetitive due to the nature of it's thoroughness, and I'm not sure how exactly that could have been done differently, as I can absolutely understand the need to be absolutely, and abundantly, clear on how often certain things were happening. I particularly recommend white folks, and especially white women, to take the time to read this. Even more so if you are Christian, and again more so if you have bought into the common narrative about the role white women played in the Antebellum South, white supremacy, and racism in this country at large.

I think I saw this on one of my fellow Twitter mutual’s currently reading shelf and thought it seemed like an interesting part of history to get to know more about. I did have to wait a bit to get it from the library waitlist and it took me even longer to finish the book, but it was definitely worth it. This book is written in a very dry manner, almost like an academic exercise citing sources and testimonials, lots of legal cases from the 19th century and how the law worked in those days. So, it could be tedious to read sometimes because of the writing style, but once I decided that remembering the names mentioned in the book was not important but what actually happened was, I could get through it much more easily and the audiobook helped as well. But what I found most surprising about the book is how dispassionate it feels sometimes despite containing page after page of stories about the brutal ways in which slaves were sold, separated from families, assaulted, maimed and murdered. But I guess it could be very difficult to get through it otherwise if we are not able to maintain a bit of that distance as a reader. And then comes the whole point of the book - the role of southern white women in the business of slavery. It’s a common misconception that women in the 19th century were subservient to the men in their family and only took care of their household and kids. But the author dives deep into first hand testimonies from former slaves, newspaper clips from the era and lots of legal documents to prove that this is indeed a false perception. White women were indeed a part of the slave economy, being taught from their childhood by parents how to treat and punish the people they owned, slaves being given as gifts and dowries so that their daughters could have their own independent source of income even after getting married and not having to depend on or get cheated by money hungry husbands. And the author shows with overwhelming evidence that white women exercised their ownership over their slaves fully - whether it came to punishments, buying or selling them, suing their husbands or creditors when they believed that their independent property was being co-opted to pay off the debts of their husbands or being mismanaged by their trustees - women were very much a part of the southern slave driven economy. I truly don’t want to recite the horrors this book contains about the treatment of the Black people, but what’s more sickening is how callous and indifferent the white women were to their plight and just considered the subjugation of an entire race of people their god given right, exercised it to the full extent of the law, and taught the same to their kids. The commodification of every single aspect of the Black body is nightmarish to read about, but the true atrocity is the complicity of the whole system, irrespective of men or women. In the end, I can only say that this was very informative and eye opening, teaching me a part of history I didn’t know much about, making me realize that when we say women and men are equal - it also means that women can be equally cruel and barbaric when given the power to oppress someone for the sake of their own profit. This is a hard read and can even come across as boring, so try and read it in short intervals or maybe through the audiobook - but do give it a try because it’s an important and often neglected part of history, while also giving us lessons on the importance of promoting intersectional feminism separated from the clutches of white supremacy because otherwise, there will never be true equality.

This was a very well written and well researched book that stuck to the main focus and made great arguments against the "accepted" history by showing facts that disproved it. I definitely recommend for anyone who is history reader or wants to read more history. I tend to have issues with a lot of authors losing focus or getting de-railed in a tangent, but Jones-Rogers does not suffer from this problem and compels the reader to continue.

*** read for supplemental material for seminar paper *** However, it was very informative. Even though it was heart wrenching I feel like I learned alot of the history of the slave trade; things I didn't know and most definitely are not taught in schools. The extent of which the white supremacy and the link white women have to the trade is mind blowing-- obviously it also heart wrenchingly disgusting that this is a part of American history.