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A review by allisonwonderlandreads
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
They Were Her Property turns an academic eye on white women as slave owners in the United States and as full participants and beneficiaries of slavery as a system. They were not bystanders. Their delicate female sensibilities were not protected from the slave trade. They were calculating, economic minds that knew how to navigate the system for their own gain. This narrative is a reminder of the importance of intersectional feminism. Correcting the dominant historical narrative to acknowledge women's agency isn't an uncomplicated victory for women because it demands white women abandon using gender to absolve ourselves of guilt. The author chronicles how white women were busy framing their own experiences in the postwar era to distance themselves from slavery or to cast a maternal, nurturing light on their past behaviors. Historical documents and recorded interviews do not uphold that story.
I love returning to academic nonfiction for the miles of footnotes and precise connections between evidence and argument. This book is especially compelling for the variety of source material and for consulting overlooked and dismissed accounts. Newspapers, court documents, and contracts are bolstered with white women's diaries and personal or business correspondence. The author also directly quotes from WPA interviews with formerly enslaved people, who give valuable insights into the actions and thoughts of their mistresses in the home, where no written records reach. Their voices are one of the most powerful aspects of the book beyond the strengths of the central thesis.
What most struck me about this book, of the many carefully laid arguments, was the concept that slavery was inescapable in the United States, especially but not limited to life in the South. It permeated public and private spheres, it was the economic foundation of society, and there was no way to shield white women from its practices, even to support a feminine ideal. And the author makes it clear that this futile goal wasn't even actively sought. White women were taught how to be slave mistresses from childhood, they received slaves in their own right to mark important life events, and they were more than capable of managing their own wealth whether through business (buying/selling/hiring) decisions or philosophy towards the care and discipline of slaves they owned.
I highly recommend this as an opportunity to reevaluate your understanding of a crucial, dark aspect of American history with clear implications for current events. It's especially important for white women to become familiar with this information not only as a way of taking responsibility for our own history but to prevent ourselves from becoming comfortable in a harmful, fallacious white feminism viewpoint.
I love returning to academic nonfiction for the miles of footnotes and precise connections between evidence and argument. This book is especially compelling for the variety of source material and for consulting overlooked and dismissed accounts. Newspapers, court documents, and contracts are bolstered with white women's diaries and personal or business correspondence. The author also directly quotes from WPA interviews with formerly enslaved people, who give valuable insights into the actions and thoughts of their mistresses in the home, where no written records reach. Their voices are one of the most powerful aspects of the book beyond the strengths of the central thesis.
What most struck me about this book, of the many carefully laid arguments, was the concept that slavery was inescapable in the United States, especially but not limited to life in the South. It permeated public and private spheres, it was the economic foundation of society, and there was no way to shield white women from its practices, even to support a feminine ideal. And the author makes it clear that this futile goal wasn't even actively sought. White women were taught how to be slave mistresses from childhood, they received slaves in their own right to mark important life events, and they were more than capable of managing their own wealth whether through business (buying/selling/hiring) decisions or philosophy towards the care and discipline of slaves they owned.
I highly recommend this as an opportunity to reevaluate your understanding of a crucial, dark aspect of American history with clear implications for current events. It's especially important for white women to become familiar with this information not only as a way of taking responsibility for our own history but to prevent ourselves from becoming comfortable in a harmful, fallacious white feminism viewpoint.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Racism, and Slavery
Moderate: Child abuse, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, and War