In the area of production, the slaves—pressed into the mold of beasts of burden—were forcibly deprived of their humanity. (And a human being thoroughly dehumanized has no desire for freedom) But the community gravitating around the domestic quarters might possibly permit a retrieval of the man and the woman in their fundamental humanity. We can assume that in a very real material sense, it was only in domestic life—away from the eyes and whip of the overseer—that the slaves could attempt to assert the modicum of freedom they still retained. It was only there that they might be inspired to project techniques of expanding it further by leveling what few weapons they had against the slaveholding class whose unmitigated drive for profit was the source of their misery.
Via this path, we return to the African slave woman: in the living quarters, the major responsibilities “naturally” fell to her. It was the woman who was charged with keeping the “home” in order. This role was dictated by the male supremacist ideology of white society in America; it was also woven into the patriarchal traditions of Africa. As her biological destiny, the woman bore the fruits of procreation; as her social destiny, she cooked, sewed, washed, cleaned house, raised the children. Traditionally the labor of females, domestic work is supposed to complement and confirm their inferiority.
But with the black slave woman, there is a strange twist of affairs: in the infinite anguish of ministering to the needs of the men and children around her (who were not necessarily members of her immediate family), she was performing the only labor of the slave community that could not be directly and immediately claimed by the oppressor. There was no compensation for work in the fields; it served no useful purpose for the slaves. Domestic labor was the only meaningful labor for the slave community as a whole (discounting as negligible the exceptional situations where slaves received some pay for their work).
Precisely through performing the drudgery that has long been a central expression of the socially conditioned inferiority of women, the black woman in chains could help to lay the foundation for some degree of autonomy, both for herself and her men. Even as she was suffering under her unique oppression as female, she was thrust by the force of circumstances into the center of the slave community. She was, therefore, essential to the survival of the community. Not all people have survived enslavement; hence her survival-oriented activities were themselves a form of resistance. Survival, moreover, was the prerequisite of all higher levels of struggle.
But much more remains to be said of the black woman during slavery. The dialectics of her oppression will become far more complex. It is true that she was a victim of the myth that only the woman, with her diminished capacity for mental and physical labor, should do degrading household work. Yet, the alleged benefits of the ideology of feminity did not accrue to her. She was not sheltered or protected; she would not remain oblivious to the desperate struggle for existence unfolding outside the “home.” She was also there in the fields, alongside the man, toiling under the lash from sunup to sundown.
This was one of the supreme ironies of slavery: in order to approach its strategic goal—to extract the greatest possible surplus from the labor of the slaves—the black woman had to be released from the chains of the myth of femininity. In the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, “ . . . our women in black had freedom contemptuously thrust upon them”8 In order to function as slave, the black woman had to be annulled as woman, that is, as woman in her historical stance of wardship under the entire male hierarchy. The sheer force of things rendered her equal to her man.
Excepting the woman’s role as caretaker of the household, male supremacist structures could not become deeply embedded in the internal workings of the slave system. Though the ruling class was male and rabidly chauvinistic, the slave system could not confer upon the black man the appearance of a privileged position vis-à-vis the black woman. The man-slave could not be the unquestioned superior within the “family” or community, for there was no such thing as the “family provided” among the slaves. The attainment of slavery’s intrinsic goals was contingent upon the fullest and most brutal utilization of the productive capacities of every man, woman, and child. They all had to “provide” for the master. The black woman was therefore wholly integrated into the productive force.
The bell rings at four o’clock in the morning and they have half an hour to get ready. Men and women start together, and the women must work as steadily as the men and perform the same tasks as the men.9
Even in the posture of motherhood—otherwise the occasion for hypocritical adoration—the black woman was treated with no greater compassion and with no less severity than her man. As one slave related in a narrative of his life:... women who had sucking children suffered much from their breasts becoming full of milk, the infants being left at home; they therefore could not keep up with the other hands: I have seen the overseer beat them with raw hide so that the blood and the milk flew mingled from their breasts.10
Moses Grandy, ex-slave, continues his description with an account of a typical form of field punishment reserved for the black woman with child:She is compelled to lie down over a hole made to receive her corpulency, and is flogged with the whip, or beat with a paddle, which has holes in it; at every stroke comes a blister.11
The unbridled cruelty of this leveling process whereby the black woman was forced into equality with the black man requires no further explanation. She shared in the deformed equality of equal oppression.
But out of this deformed equality was forged quite undeliberately, yet inexorably, a state of affairs that could unharness an immense potential in the black woman. Expending indispensable labor for the enrichment of her oppressor, she could attain a practical awareness of the oppressor’s utter dependence on her—for the master needs the slave far more than the slave needs the master. At the same time she could realize that while her productive activity was wholly subordinated to the will of the master, it was nevertheless proof of her ability to transform things. For “labor is the living, shaping fire; it represents the impermanence of things, their temporality . . .”12
The black woman’s consciousness of the oppression suffered by her people was honed in the bestial realities of daily experience. It would not be the stunted awareness of a woman confined to the home. She would be prepared to ascend to the same levels of resistance that were accessible to her men. Even as she performed her housework, the black woman’s role in the slave community could not be identical to the historically evolved female role. Stripped of the palliative feminine veneer which might have encouraged a passive performance of domestic tasks, she was now uniquely capable of weaving into the warp and woof of domestic life a profound consciousness of resistance.
With the contributions of strong black women, the slave community as a whole could achieve heights unscalable within the families of the white oppressed or even within the patriarchal kinship groups of Africa. Latently or actively it was always a community of resistance. It frequently erupted in insurgency, but was daily animated by the minor acts of sabotage that harassed the slave master to no end. Had the black woman failed to rise to the occasion, the community of slaves could not have fully developed in this direction. The slave system would have to deal with the black woman as the custodian of a house of resistance.
The oppression of black women during the era of slavery, therefore, had to be buttressed by a level of overt ruling-class repression. Her routine oppression had to assume an unconcealed dimension of outright counterinsurgency.
III
To say that the oppression of black slave women necessarily incorporated open forms of counterinsurgency is not as extravagant as it might initially appear. The penetration of counterinsurgency into the day-to-day routine of the slave master’s domination will be considered towards the end of this paper. First, the participation of black women in the overt and explosive upheavals that constantly rocked the slave system must be confirmed. This will be an indication of the magnitude of her role as caretaker of a household of r
esistance—of the degree to which she could concretely encourage those around her to keep their eyes on freedom. It will also confirm the objective circumstances to which the slave master’s counterinsurgency was a response.
With the sole exceptions of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, black women of the slave era remain more or less enshrouded in unrevealed history. And, as Earl Conrad has demonstrated, even “General Tubman’s” role has been consistently and grossly minimized. She was a far greater warrior against slavery than is suggested by the prevalent misconception that her only outstanding contribution was to make nineteen trips into the South, bringing over 300 slaves to their freedom.
[She] was head of the Intelligence Service in the Department of the South throughout the Civil War; she is the only American woman to lead troops black and white on the field of battle, as she did in the Department of the South . . . She was a compelling and stirring orator in the councils of the abolitionists and the antislavers, a favorite of the antislavery conferences. She was the fellow planner with Douglass, Martin Delany, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, and other leaders of the antislavery movement.13
No extensive and systematic study of the role of black women in resisting slavery has come to my attention. It has been noted that large numbers of freed black women worked towards the purchase of their relatives’ and friends’ freedom. About the participation of women in both the well-known and more obscure slave revolts, only casual remarks have been made. It has been observed, for instance, that Gabriel’s wife was active in planning the rebellion spearheaded by her husband, but little else has been said about her.
The sketch that follows is based in its entirety on the works of Herbert Aptheker, the only resources available to me at the time of this writing.14 These facts, gleaned from Aptheker’s works on slave revolts and other forms of resistance, should signal the urgency to undertake a thorough study of the black woman as antislavery rebel. In 1971 this work is far overdue.
Aptheker’s research has disclosed the widespread existence of communities of blacks who were neither free nor in bondage. Throughout the South (in South and North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama), Maroon communities consisting of fugitive slaves and their descendants were “an ever present feature”—from 1642 to 1864—of slavery. They provided “... havens for fugitives, served as bases for marauding expeditions against nearby plantations and, at times, supplied leadership to planned uprisings.”15
Every detail of these communities was invariably determined by and steeped in resistance, for their raison d’etre emanated from their perpetual assault on slavery. Only in a fighting stance could the Maroons hope to secure their constantly imperiled freedom. As a matter of necessity, the women of those communities were compelled to define themselves—no less than the men—through their many acts of resistance. Hence, throughout this brief survey the counterattacks and heroic efforts at defense assisted by Maroon women will be a recurring motif.
As it will be seen, black women often poisoned the food and set fire to the houses of their masters. For those who were also employed as domestics, these particular overt forms of resistance were especially available.
The vast majority of the incidents to be related involve either tactically unsuccessful assaults or eventually thwarted attempts at defense. In all likelihood, numerous successes were achieved, even against the formidable obstacles posed by the slave system. Many of these were probably unpublicized even at the time of their occurrence, lest they provide encouragement to the rebellious proclivities of other slaves and, for other slaveholders, an occasion for fear and despair.
During the early years of the slave era (1708), a rebellion broke out in New York. Among its participants were surely many women, for one, along with three men, was executed in retaliation for the killing of seven whites. It may not be entirely insignificant that while the men were hanged, she was heinously burned alive.16 In the same colony, women played an active role in a 1712 uprising in the course of which slaves, with their guns, clubs, and knives, killed members of the slaveholding class and managed to wound others. While some of the insurgents—among them a pregnant woman—were captured, others—including a woman—committed suicide rather than surrender.17
“In New Orleans one day in 1730 a woman slave received ‘a violent blow from a French soldier for refusing to obey him’ and in her anger shouted ‘that the French should not long insult Negroes.’ ”18 As it was later disclosed, she and undoubtedly many other women, had joined in a vast plan to destroy slaveholders. Along with eight men, this dauntless woman was executed. Two years later, Louisiana pronounced a woman and four men leaders of a planned rebellion. They were all executed and, in a typically savage gesture, their heads publicly displayed on poles.19
Charleston, South Carolina, condemned a black woman to die in 1740 for arson,20 a form of sabotage, as earlier noted, frequently carried out by women. In Maryland, for instance, a slave woman was executed in 1776 for having destroyed by fire her master’s house, his outhouses, and tobacco house.21
In the thick of the Colonies’ war with England, a group of defiant slave women and men were arrested in Saint Andrew’s Parish, Georgia, in 1778. But before they were captured, they had already brought a number of slave owners to their death.22
The Maroon communities have been briefly described; from 1782 to 1784, Louisiana was a constant target of Maroon attacks. When twenty-five of this community’s members were finally taken prisoner, men and women alike were all severely punished.23
As can be inferred from previous examples, the North did not escape the tremendous impact of fighting black women. In Albany, New York, two women were among three slaves executed for antislavery activities in 1794.24 The respect and admiration accorded the black woman fighter by her people is strikingly illustrated by an incident that transpired in York, Pennsylvania: when, during the early months of 1803, Margaret Bradley was convicted of attempting to poison two white people, the black inhabitants of the area revolted en masse.
They made several attempts to destroy the town by fire and succeeded, within a period of three weeks, in burning eleven buildings. Patrols were established, strong guards set up, the militia dispatched to the scene of the unrest . . . and a reward of three hundred dollars offered for the capture of the insurrectionists.25
A successful elimination by poisoning of several “of our respectable men” (said a letter to the governor of North Carolina) was met by the execution of four or five slaves. One was a woman who was burned alive.26 In 1810, two women and a man were accused of arson in Virginia.27
In 1811, North Carolina was the scene of a confrontation between a Maroon community and a slave-catching posse. Local newspapers reported that its members “had bid defiance to any force whatever and were resolved to stand their ground.” Of the entire community, two were killed, one wounded, and two—both women—were captured.28
Aptheker’s Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States contains a portion of the transcript of an 1812 confession of a slave rebel in Virginia. The latter divulged the information that a black woman brought him into a plan to kill their master and that yet another black woman had been charged with concealing him after the killing occurred.29
In 1816, it was discovered that a community of three hundred escaped slaves—men, women, children—had occupied a fort in Florida. After the United States Army was dispatched with instructions to destroy the community, a ten-day siege terminated with all but forty of the three hundred dead. All the slaves fought to the very end.30 In the course of a similar, though smaller, confrontation between Maroons and a militia group (in South Carolina, 1826), a woman and a child were killed.31 Still another Maroon community was attacked in Mobile, Alabama, in 1837. Its inhabitants, men and women alike, resisted fiercely—according to local newspapers, “fighting like Spartans.”32
Convicted of having been among those who, in 1829, had been the cause of a devastating fire in Augusta, Georg
ia, a black woman was “executed, dissected, and exposed” (according to an English visitor). Moreover, the execution of yet another woman, about to give birth, was imminent.33 During the same year, a group of slaves, being led from Maryland to be sold in the South, had apparently planned to kill the traders and make their way to freedom. One of the traders was successfully done away with, but eventually a posse captured all the slaves. Of the six leaders sentenced to death, one was a woman. She was first permitted, for reasons of economy, to give birth to her child.34 Afterwards, she was publicly hanged.
The slave class in Louisiana, as noted earlier, was not unaware of the formidable threat posed by the black woman who chose to fight. It responded accordingly: in 1846, a posse of slave owners ambushed a community of Maroons, killing one woman and wounding two others. A black man was also assassinated.35 Neither could the border states escape the recognition that slave women were eager to battle for their freedom. In 1850, in the state of Missouri, “about thirty slaves, men and women, of four different owners, had armed themselves with knives, clubs, and three guns and set out for a free state.” Their pursuers, who could unleash a far more powerful violence than they, eventually thwarted their plans.36
This factual survey of but a few of the open acts of resistance in which black women played major roles will close with two further events. When a Maroon camp in Mississippi was destroyed in 1857, four of its members did not manage to elude capture, one of whom was a fugitive slave woman.37 All of them, women as well as men, must have waged a valiant fight. Finally, there occurred in October, 1862, a skirmish between Maroons and a scouting party of Confederate soldiers in the state of Virginia.38 This time, however, the Maroons were the victors, and it may well have been that some of the many women helped to put the soldiers to death.
Words of Fire Page 28
