White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

There is an interesting book that was published in 2019. This book is called, “They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South.” It was written by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers. This Columnist found out about this book by accident. It was first circulated in Europe. When I found out about it, I recommended that it be purchased by our library. It can now be borrowed from the Central Library, located in Downtown Buffalo. I was able to purchase the CD from Amazon.com. It is the same as the book, and it is read by Allyson Johnson.

An MP3 Player is necessary to hear it. The CD is 10.5 hours long. It is worth ordering, especially if you do not have time to read the book. I listen to the CD a few hours at a time. The information in the book about the White women in the south who owned slaves is not well known. If you read the book or listen to the CD, you will learn some things that are new and shocking about the enslavement of African people.

The information in the book is well researched, and the author used a variety of sources to show that the slave-owning women were economic leaders in the south, directly engaged in and benefitting from the slave market. According to the author, white women often inherited more slaves than land, and enslaved Africans were their primary source of wealth. If women came in possession of slaves, they refused to give them up to their husbands. Martha Washington was an example of this. She simply wanted to pass on a slave to a relative as a wedding gift. This story is told in a book called “Never Caught” written by Erica Armstrong Dunbar. The name of the female slave was Ona Judge. When Ona Judge heard about this, she ran away and was never caught. It is a fascinating story.

It should be noted that the white women who owned slaves were not only effective in business, but they were in many cases just as brutal to their slaves as the men. The author forces the reader to rethink the economics and social conventions of slave-holding America. The entire story of the enslavement of African people in America has not been told. All people, both Black and White, must reexamine this history. When we do then we can erase the miseducation that continues to occur in classrooms across America.