Enslaved Black Women & Resistance
The black body in what was to be known as the United States of America has been a vessel to be tortured, mutilated, rejected, and resurrected by its own gumption. According to the tradition of United States law and social practice, one's humanity is neither innate nor reserved for every person occupying space in this country. This violence was meted out based on arbitrary and faulty but potent reasoning that even inspired citizens excluded from positions of political power to enforce these practices within their own sphere of influence effectively crafting a wholly hostile environment to exist for the black body in America. For the forms carrying the souls of enslaved black women, the introduction and subsequent subjugation under American chattel slavery was tragic notwithstanding the moments of solace they captured throughout their lives. The gendered resistance of black women under enslavement is necessary to study to fully have an understanding of the unique experience of women at the intersection of racism, sexism, and classism. Enslaved African American women are often represented in archetypes which fail to accurately exemplify their incredibly nuanced experiences in America.
Gendered resistance explores the unique ways that enslaved black women used a variety of means to undermine the institution of slavery. Resistance does not necessarily only cover the attempted revolt at Harper’s Ferry by John Brown and his co-conspirators; mutilation of tools, feigned illness, and temporary abscondment are also covered under the scope of forms of resistance. Oftentimes, enslaved women had different links to the plantation that kept them from severing ties with their prison. Responsibilities to their own children, even less protection from sexual predators on the treacherous journey to freedom, the vulnerability in escaping with youngsters among a range of other reasons kept the population of escaped women lower than that of escaped men.
In general, enslaved people of African descent used a multitude of rebellion tactics to resist the constant and oppressive force of the institution of slavery. Enslaved people rebelled through insurrection on the plantation or on a larger scale such as the 1811 rebellion that moved from St. John Parish to New Orleans. Resistance also occurred through ‘self-stealing’ or becoming a runaway from plantations in some form or another as well as the ordinary acts of resistance that slowed down the productivity of the workforce. Some enslaved ancestors went so far as to disrupt the entire plantation operation by killing the slave master like the case of an enslaved woman who was killed by the state in 1755 in Charleston, South Carolina who poisoned her master, ultimately taking his life. Consistent and sometimes indirect resistance directly conflicts with the narrative of the happy, docile slave oftentimes portrayed by media of the period and even into collected contemporary literature.
The risk of resistance was always high and the reward did not always come to fruition as intended if at all. Resistance provided temporary escape and occasionally permanent liberation from bondage. Oftentimes the ordinary acts of resistance did not have a major immediate impact on the daily yield of the plantation but they did serve as an exercise in pursuit of mental catharsis. Conducting acts of defiance also meant accepting the near certainty of trauma being meted out with discovery. Enslaved people also had to be hyper vigilant in who earned their trust as betrayal was always an ever-present ambient thought. Anyone from their own peers to any white person could take advantage of the enslaved souls' subordinate status for their own gain often ending in a death sentence for the enslaved person.
The reward of resistance could be from euphoric deliverance into the Promised Land to mental consolation that one had some agency over their existence. To be free was the ultimate goal like the roaming Maroons in Jamaica and the successful Haitian revolution from 1791 – 1804. Life free of real and imagined chains wasn’t the only marker of success. When one absconded temporarily from enslavement and forced their owner to expend resources to ascertain their whereabouts and recapture them they lost time and productivity. Disrupting the chattel slavery ecosystem in any way contributed to the ultimate disintegration of American slavery. Those expansive and local acts of resistance over the course of three centuries would erode the foundation that held them steadfastly in the grips of enslavement which conclusively proves that defying immoral and unethical law can affect change.
Enslaved African people collaborated on insurrections from the time they were captured and loaded on to the slave ships, while out to sea, and within the confines of their new communities. However, insurrection was not the only way to challenge the white power structure present in all aspects of an enslaved person’s life. Retaining some form of their West African spiritual practices was common with the enslaved women’s community. A formerly enslaved woman noted that “Ma is a root doctor for sho,” when retelling the story of how she looked for a cure for an ailment. This former unnamed enslaved woman also noted that “I was informed that people visited her house at all hours of the day and night and that Ma had been known to work effective cures for many who had had spells cast on them by enemies .”
Retaining the belief systems and remedies of their homeland was an act of resistance in and of itself because it challenged the notion that these people had no culture or unique way of life. It disregarded the idea that their purpose on Earth was to suffer and be the mules for the white supremacist structure. Spirituality, even today in the descendants of enslaved people, utilizes their connection to an omnipotent being to guide them, center them, and reassure them of the fullness of life beyond oppression. Oftentimes, enslaved men and women would be forced to attend the religious gatherings of their masters and were indoctrinated into a greater understanding of the Eurocentric view of Christianity which they interpreted and utilized to cope with the daily subjugation of enslavement. Enslaved women passed spiritual rituals to succeeding generations and some even eked out a respectable position within their community through religion like Aunt Rebecca ,an enslaved woman in Virginia, who “often would give lengthy, passionate prayers garnering the attention and respect of other congregates,” which was quite exceptional. The anomaly lies in that “Aunt Rebecca was a woman, and she was a slave,” and also that she would “pray sometimes for half-hour an’ white folks would sit there jus’ as ‘spectful as if she was de white preacher.” Spirituality provided some disassociation and dignity from the daily toils and back breaking labor of enslavement especially for enslaved women who worked alongside the men and were the primary caretakers of their own communities once the daily plantation work concluded.
As caretakers and mothers of the community, enslaved women had the responsibility of bearing children for their master’s profits as well as to build their own families and raise the children of their masters while striving to prevent complete neglect of their own beloved children. Through spirituality, forced gender roles, an enslaved status, and a personal commitment, black women became pillars of their own communities and necessary resources to their masters. Oftentimes, these roles put enslaved women in intimate positions with their masters and co-conspirators alike allowing for more opportunity to undermine the slave dependent society. Enslaved women were the most vulnerable of society and susceptible to the winds of plantation tyranny. (read more)