Graduation Semester and Year

2006

Language

English

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in History

Department

History

First Advisor

Stephanie Cole

Abstract

Slave women resisted being sexually dominated by white men, by refusing to accept that their lives were beyond their control. By examining cases of slave women who resisted white sexually assertive men, I will display how women slave women resisted the status of sexual subjugation, and instead used their sexuality to manipulate situations to improve their quality of life. Slave women were not immune to the sexual corruption in the South, but they used their circumstances to provide themselves with a healthier lifestyle. Based upon a slave woman's response to the sexual advances of whites, one can determine that there are three types of reactions--violent resistors, lifetime resistors, and virtuous resistors. I have characterized and identified the tactics and stages in which slave women followed these types of resistance. Confined by social stigmas and systems that defined southern life, slave women had to execute their behaviors so that they sidestepped the consequences of their deviant behavior while still securing their own desires. Resistant slave women surely impacted slavery and attempted to mold it to suit their needs. The desires of masters may have prevailed--but not without interference and reactions from the slaves.

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | History

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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