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The Slavery and Gender System in Antebellum America

Slavery was the most crucial problem of antebellum American life and the fundamental cause of the Civil War. There was much in the slave experience that men and women shared. For both sexes the broad outline of racial oppression was similar, as was the general way in which the race survived. Black males and females, however, did not experience slavery the same way. This was due to the different expectations slave owners had of male and female slaves from the very beginning. Different expectations gave rise to different responsibilities, and these responsibilities often defined the life chances of the male or female slave. Male slavery centered mostly around the work that black men did for whites. Female slavery had much to do with work, but much of it was concerned with bearing, nourishing, and rearing children whom slaveholders needed for the continued replenishment of their labor force. Slaveholders realized that the reproductive function of the female slave could yield a profit. As a result, the manipulation of procreative sexual relations became an integral part of the sexual exploitation of female slaves. The responsibilities of childbearing and child-care seriously circumscribed the female slave's life. Most female slaves had to rely on themselves for protection against the sexual attacks of masters and overseers; for them marriage did not translate into protection or security. Some female slaves violently resisted sexual exploitation. Some murdered their masters, some were arsonists, and still others refused to be whipped. Slave women's lives were in contrast to that of most 19th white American women. American white women were expected to be passive because they were female, but female slaves had to be submissive because they were black and slaves. Biological and social motherhood had different implications for slave women than it did for white women. By the same token, it also provided different life patterns from that of male slaves. In fact, female slaves had the least formal power and were perhaps the most vulnerable group of antebellum Americans. However, they not only developed their own means of resistance but also organized their own network for overcoming their difficulties. Consequently, cooperation and interdependence among female slaves played a crucial role in the lives of female slave. The self-reliance and self-sufficiency of slave women, therefore, must not only be viewed in the context of what the individual slave woman did for herself, but what slave women as a group were able to do for one another.