Clange227s10
DuckDuck08
The life of a slave was no easy task. Everyday duties included cooking, working in the fields, fetching water, and other physically as well as mentally exhausting activities. Slave masters kept a watchful eye over the slaves and punished them whenever necessary. This is what we as Americans think of when it comes to slavery, but often times we fail to remember the much harsher difficulties slaves had to endure, in particular female slaves. In order to keep a steady supply of slaves and to increase the amount of labor being done, slave masters often raped slave women. The female slave, having no support from the government, had no way of preventing this and was ultimately powerless. Slave masters took advantage of their freedom and continually raped their female slaves, fully aware that they would not be persecuted legally
"Seduction and the Ruses of Power"
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Rape is defined as forcing someone to participate in sexual intercourse without their consent. However, the article points out that during the time that female slaves were being raped, they were not protected by the law. This means that the term "rape" didn't even apply to slaves. Slaves were considered "property" not "persons." An owner has total control over his property and therefore does not need to think about the things that he does on it or to it. This is exactly how slave masters behaved. They saw the female slaves simply as property and felt no need to ask for permission to force them into having sex. After all, he was only taking what was his. On top of this, slaves had no free will. Almost everything they did was regulated by the master or some other leader. Slave masters used this to their advantage and did not expect any resistance to their demands and actions. I found this article in Collex but the actual link is in Project Muse. |
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This article talks about how slave masters used severe punishments to keep their slaves in line. No slave wanted to purposely be defiant and disobey their master's orders because they wanted to keep from getting hurt or even losing their lives. This article is important because it gives a good reason as to why the slave women were slow to resist being sexually abused by their masters. If they were smart, they knew that the best thing to do would be to go along with it and in return have the privilege of waking up to see another day. Slave masters knew they had a great amount of fear instilled in their slaves and hardly expected a woman to turn down his advances. Even if a slave decided that she would resist, the master could always threaten her with some form of punishment and hope that the slave would give in easily. I found this article within Collex but the link is found in Jstor. |
"Christian Violence and the Slave Narrative"
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