Grand total : 3062 Slaves belonging to the King The number of slave women increased from what can be seen from the tables, between 1785 and 1788. More slave women were being placed at work, although the total number of female slaves remained inferior as compared to the total number of male slaves on the island. It is a fact now, that slaves women in eighteenth century isle de france, were not only employed as domestic workers. Figures show that these slave women were also employed at the port, in the hospitals and in other sectors. However, the eighteenth century did not only witnessed slave women at their occupational roles in Isle de France. Slave women in various colonies were also put at work during this century. 2.2 Occupations of slave women in the Caribbean The presence of women in the Caribbean was due to the fact that they provided a pool for labour. Europeans need slave women in the Caribbean mostly for field works. Slave women were either field workers, ‘house wenches’, cooks or washer. Compared to the slave men who undertook the most difficult tasks on the plantations such as, cane-cutting, holing and sugar boiling, on the other hand slave women were in charge of the less demancding tasks on the plantations. Slave women, cut canes, weeded and manured . As a result, slave women in the Caribbean either worked on the plantations or worked as domestics. They looked after the children, cleaned the house and did the laundry. As such, like in eighteenth century Isle de France, many slave women in Barbados were domestics and had to be at the disposal of their owners anytime. Slave women in Barbados, like in Isle de France ruled the slave-owner’s households, whether on t... ... middle of paper ... ...oss, slave women in cape town, were treated as passive objects of men’s sexual needs. This can be attributed to the fact that slave women were in minority in the eighteenth century cape town. It thus created an unbalanced sex ratio. Moreover, for what concerns the positions of the African and American slave women, slave women worked on the plantations and performed the same difficult work assigned to male slaves. Women worked in the fields alongside the men. However, pregnant women and also nursing mothers were often given lighter work, such as the “trash gang”. Trash gang was a gang of hands which consisted of pregnant, nursing and elderly women. African-American slave women, were given the task of the cook. They cooked for their owners as well as for the slave community, and many of these slave women were attributed the task of sewing. 2.4 Occupations of
African-American labor was beginning to be more valuable than white labor. African laborers were beginning to be looked at as property, as well as being treated that way. By the 1660’s, the status of the African ...
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
The majority of the nearly 500,000 slaves on the island, at the end of the eighteenth century endured some of the worst slave conditions in the Caribbean. These people were seen as disposable economic inputs in a colony driven by greed. Thus, they receive...
Women of the seventeenth century had many reasons to accept the challenge of traversing to the New World. Life in England was not always easy, in fact, sometimes worse than in Virginia. Working conditions were appalling, with little pay and long hours. Many found work as servants to the upper class or turned to prostitution. The type of women who gladly boarded the ships were mostly young, single women of low class roots. Sometimes they were young widows who had been left impoverished or women who had no male in their lives for support and protection.1.
Female children born into low income families in Jamaica and other islands of the Caribbean are burdened with a stereotype that their male counterparts will never know. When faced with the gender oppression their society has constantly been feeding, and the fact that so many women must act as the single financial heads of their families, many women of the Caribbean must settle for low paying occupations associated with 'female' or domestic labor. For women born into families at the bottom of the economic ladder, there is little hope of social mobility or escape from the fist of poverty. In most cases, the cycle continues to feed itself from mother to daughter. In my paper I will demonstrate this cycÀle by examining the Caribbean women's role in the family as head of the household and the education, employment and survival strategies characteristic to many of these women. I will conclude my paper by discussing some of the new organizations and movements that have surfaced in the Caribbean within the past thirty years that are fighting for women's empowerment.
Motherhood is something that many slaves dealt with mainly when slaves were children having some type of relationship with their mother. Women had to be dedicated to their children because there seemed to be a survival of the fittest mentality. Mothers usually took on the role of caring for their children and also doing their jobs as slaves and u...
Liberia, located in the west part of Africa, was a settlement to native Africans in the 1800’s would eventually stablish a settlement consisting of thousands of individuals, freed or non-slaves. This was an attempt of resolving the moral issue of enslavement by colonizing Liberia with freed, or ex-slaves. Not only were freed black men transported across the Atlantic, but women as well. No provisions had been made to ensure equality as a foundation to colonize which causes the issues misogyny and with the lack of historical content of women in Liberia the need for further analysis it is noted that women were hardly acknowledged and only seen as an object in creating a bigger population needed
In the North, women, especially colonial wives, had basically no legal rights. They could not vote, sell or buy property, or run their own business. Women in the North also had extensive work responsibilities when it came to housework. Northern society considered slaves less than human beings, and, consequently, did not give slaves any rights that would protect them from cruel treatment. The Southern colonies’ were no different. “Women in Southern society - and Northern society as well - shared a common trait: second-class citizenship”(74). In the South, women could not vote or preach and had very little education. They were instead taught to perfect the skills that could be used around the house such as sewing or gardening. In the South, slaves were branded as savages and inferior and did not possess any rights. Southern slaves possessed even less legal rights than Northern Slaves. Although the colonies had similar social structures, they had different
Slaves during the mid-1800s were considered chattel and did not have rights to anything that opposed their masters’ wishes. “Although the slaves’ rights could never be completely denied, it had to be minimized for the institution of slavery to function” (McLaurin, 118). Female slaves, however, usually played a different role for the family they were serving than male slaves. Housework and helping with the children were often duties that slaveholders designated to their female slaves. Condoned by society, many male slaveholders used their female property as concubines, although the act was usually kept covert. These issues, aided by their lack of power, made the lives of female slaves
2. Female workers in Lowell, MA can be compared to slaves in the south in many ways but they are also very different. The conditions that the women in Lowell and slaves had to live in were very unsanitary and unbearable. The woman even felt like slaves. They were constantly watched as were slaves and they were also forced to go to church. Unlike slaves they were paid, even though they were paid very little because they could do the work of a man but get paid less, they still got paid. They had choices of what jobs to do where slaves were assigned to certain jobs. The women got some free time and even a 30 minute lunch break while slaves had very little or no brakes at all.
...re taken advantage of, put down, and stripped of their dignity after they were victimized and sexually abused. Jealous and enraged mistresses, who were dismayed at the fact that their husbands were living a life of infidelity, mistreated them. In some cases, they were deprived of their most prized possessions, their children. This kind of life for the female slaves was overwhelmingly painful. They dealt with many circumstances that were not a part of the lives of male slaves. For this reason, it is fair to say that the lives of female slaves were harsher than the lives of male slaves.
Harsh, cruel, and stressful are three words to describe the life of African American women domestic workers during the Civil Rights Movement. During the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, there were many contributions other than just the typical marches, speeches, and violence that everybody hears about. One of the many topics that have not been heard about frequently is the life of the colored maids during this time period. What were black domestic workers? These women worked for many white families usually in the south for practically their whole lives taking care of their employer’s children and working their houses cleaning and doing many other tasks. The life of a black maid had many responsibilities and difficulties that challenged these women on a daily basis.
In slavery, the positions of seamstress and cook were the only positions for female slaves that were considered as skilled or artistic work. Many cooks that worked in the kitchen were raised in the kitchen at an early age and were taught how to cook across generational lines. Mandy Marrow, a former slave recalled:
During the period of 1640-1690 the expansion of the Caribbean “economy, was made possible by the expansion of the European colonisation over the Atlantic. However Africans were captured for slave trade to sustain the development of sugar industry, through slave labour to produce sugarcane.” (Grouchier & Walton, 1629: 418-420). The scramble for Africa brought about gender inequality within the African society, the European invasion in the Atlantic introduced some political conflicts regarding the demand for economic control and to take over the Atlantic. (Hornsby & Hermann, 2005: 127). Nevertheless sugar plantation was jointly supported by the cooperate finance and the state. (Stuart, 2004: 3-8). However according to Richards most sugar plantation owners would have to anticipate that their international investors would desire a large amount of raw sugar. (Richard, 1974: 38). nevertheless the attitude of the plantation owners was partly due to an increased amount of “optimism” and partly because of the difficulty of international communications in the 17th century. This shared attitude brought a lot of farmer’s to debtor’s prison while some extremely prospered. (Mints, 44-45). Nevertheless this essay will pay attention to economic, political and social consequences of the sugar revolution in the Caribbean.
...en that were enslaved with Northup were forced to live up to the expectations of their slave masters. Out on the field, the women did not receive any special treatment, as was the case for Patsey. Under the cover of darkness, the slave masters would have their way with the women slaves, claiming that they were “their property to do as they please with”. Finally, the worst was the separation of women from their children as they were sold into slavery. Without a doubt, the experiences of slaves were gendered in many ways.