Introduction
The African slave trade is one of the most brutal chapters of human history. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, several million Africans died aboard transatlantic slave ships, huddled together in stuffy, unclean-filled holds. Not only did the slave trade kill people in transit, but providing a constant supply of new bodies encouraged enslavers to force their slaves into hard labor and then replace them with new ones. However, even those enslaved people in relatively good conditions lived under the perpetual threat of whipping, rape, mutilation, forced separation from family members, and execution.
Despite the complete prohibition, certain forms of slavery still exist today, with governments worldwide emphasizing their gendered grounding by drawing attention to the massive discrimination against women. Slavery does have gender differences, but given the experiences of Phyllis Wheatley, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington, they have been around for a long time. Male and female slaves faced significant differences in social problems depending on their gender.
Gender Differences in Slavery
It is important to note that the history of slavery is diverse and cannot be generalized. Each formerly enslaved person’s experience is unique and depicts different aspects of the thorny life of those deprived of the most important thing: freedom. Individuals’ experiences differ according to the historical context and the social challenges enslaved people faced (Finkelman 16). At the same time, a detailed dive into the history of each allows one to identify some details from the overall puzzle that reflect the differences in the social problems faced by male and female slaves.
Labor Distribution
The first social aspect is markedly different for men and women in labor and the distribution of labor roles. Both men and women were forced to perform impossible tasks. Nevertheless, most men were assigned physically hard work in agriculture and various handicrafts. The men faced the pressure to perform tedious work to meet the expectations of their owners. (Washington 5) Enslaved women, by contrast, were usually assigned household chores, including cooking, cleaning, raising children, and sometimes sewing or weaving. They often worked within the household of their owner. Thus, it is essential to note that regular work was characteristic of both sexes, but it was most often the men who were physically responsible for the tasks.
Sexual Dominance
At the same time, sexual slavery, both now and then, was predominantly of the female sex. The Roman law partussequitur ventrem thesis deserves special attention in this context. It was a legal rule for livestock and other domestic animals (Muller 284). However, it also applied to enslaved people and meant that the descendant of a slave girl inherited her mother’s status and was enslaved in possession of her mother’s owner. Treating enslaved people as property and reducing their status to that of domestic animals gave an additional advantage to white men who were free to have sexual relations with slave girls (Muller 284).
In a society with a massive gender imbalance, with many more men than women, this law gave a considerable advantage to white men. Masters were free to have sex with their slave women without encountering any official prohibitions (Wheatley 16). Confirmation can be found in the lines Wheatley devoted to the masters’ behavior and how she assessed their role.
Wheatley compares the fate of women to unwilling horses who would like to be free and run over the field. She writes:
“There the bold coursers bounded o’er the plains,
While their great masters held the golden reins.
Ismenus first the racing pastime led,
And rul’d the fury of his flying steed” (Wheatley 39).
We can be sure that these lines indicate that Wheatley experienced long-suffering and a lack of freedom in life. Her slavery affected her perception of her own identity, which was locked in golden chains. Wheatley (16) also suggests that the soul could only be freed after the death of the master, but even this did not erase the traces of the abuse she had endured. Thus, Phyllis Wheatley, enslaved women, constantly faced the threat of sexual violence, including rape, which was used as a tool of control and power.
Reproductive Violence
Except for sexual exploitation, enslaved women were victims of reproductive violence. Numerous stories tell of forced pregnancies to reproduce against their will or even sell their offspring (Jacobs 8). Since children born to enslaved people automatically became enslaved, women were often forced to bear more children to exploit them further. Emotional stress and the necessity of separation from their children caused unbearable psychological trauma to slave women with no right to their bodies or children (Owens and Fett 1340). It was due to the gender differences and characteristics that women, rather than men, succumbed to sexual and reproductive exploitation trauma from which there was no cure.
The horror of violence and slavery is described in Jacobs Harriet’s memoirs. She writes, “for a fund to purchase her children,” referring to women being forced to buy back their children to return them to their families (Jacobs 5). In addition, she speaks of mothers serving their masters and their children rather than their own: “My mother had been weaned at three months old, that the babe of the mistress might obtain sufficient food” (Jacobs 5). Women experiencing this separation from their children were invariably unhappy because any possibility of controlling any part of themselves was taken away from them. Children could bring joy, but slavery took away the chance to love them freely.
Social Roles
Social expectations of gender roles influenced the treatment of male and female slaves. Women’s and men’s experiences of slavery significantly differed because of the peculiarities of gender discrimination and social roles within the slave system. Enslaved men were expected to have physical strength, endurance, and a sense of autonomy within the slave system, sometimes resulting in harsher punishments for perceived resistance (Douglass 23). Enslaved women were expected to be obedient, submissive, and caring, conforming to the gender norms associated with domesticity. At the same time, the problems of both male and female slaves should not be compared, for both sexes were forced to undergo the most severe trials without the right to influence their destiny.
Conclusion
Despite the differences in experiences of slavery between men and women, it is essential to note that both sexes experienced the horrors of the system and suffered deprivation, violence, and incarceration. Both faced the destruction of family ties, unbearable labor, and inhumane treatment. The interplay of race, gender, and other factors played a role in shaping the unique difficulties faced by male and female slaves. In their own unique ways, the tales of Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Phyllis Wheatley illustrate the injustices and humiliation that enslaved people and slave women endured during the American era of slavery. These stories help everyone understand the complexity and diversity of the experience of slavery and the impact of the system on the lives of people of different genders.
Works Cited
Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an enslaved American. Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.
Finkelman, Paul. Slave Trade and Migration. Routledge, 2019.
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Tayler and Eldridge, 1861.
Muller, Christopher. “Exclusion and Exploitation: The Incarceration of Black Americans from Slavery to the Present.” Science, vol. 374, no.6565, 2021, pp. 282-286. Web.
Owens, Deirdre Cooper, and Sharla M. Fett. “Black Maternal and Infant Health: Historical Legacies of Slavery.” American Journal of Public Health, vol.109, no.10, 2019, pp. 1342-1345. Web.
Washington, Booker. Up from Slavery. Lerner Publishing Group, 1901.
Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Aldgate, 1773.