A review by leasummer
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

5.0

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This is such an interesting book. It talks about the horrors of chattel slavery and the white women’s roll in perpetuating it. It breaks apart the myth of the southern women being too dumb, dainty and pure to have played a roll in slavery. To the victor goes the story and they sold a story after chattel slavery was “over” to portray themselves as the motherly carer of their Black property that simply wasn’t true.
The research in this book is substantial. I appreciated the critique of others work on why certain stories were left out of historical narratives based in the same references.
White women are just as cruel and protective of their self interests as white men. This book proves that again and again. The equality to which white men and women are capable of horror and self interest are laid bare. Further illustrating the equality of white women to protect her property and self interest over the men who we’re taught to believe had total control over her. There was no tone of judgement or ridicule by the author toward the white women presented in the book.