The Day and the Life of the Slave Masters Women

The words of the women must be heard. Listen to the voices of these women that once
cried out loud and it fell upon deaf ears, their continuous tears shed that went unnoticed,
and their internal pain that was purposely ignored. From reading this document we are
going to revisit the past to bring back to remembrance of the not so good times
involving the many roles of the African Slave Women, to include being a Mistress and
to also shed light on the roles of the Slave Masters Wife during the years of the
Revolution in Early Colonial America.
The dream of having freedom and independence motivated African Slave Women and
their families to wage their own war against those that enslaved them. During that time,
slaves endured a hard and demeaning life and it was most severe in the Southern
Colonies. On the whole, slaves were poorly fed, poorly clothed, and subjected to both
physical and psychological abuse, to include, being called humiliating names and given
harsh and horrid punishments. Whether being free or enslaved, African American
Women struggled to establish and maintain a family during these tumultuous times.
Free Black Women who worked as household servants were usually not allowed to
set up an independent household with a husband or children. This was mainly due to
all that was required of them inside the home. They had many duties to fulfill and none
of them allowed any extra time for themselves. They were the primary caregivers of the
Slave Masters children, they prepared the meals for the families and their guests several
times a day, and they were also responsible for the numerous amount of domestic chores
in order to maintain the upkeep of the mansion inside and sometimes outside. They also

worked as seamstress and in some cases, as midwives, nurses, healers, and folk doctors.
Also in every southern colony, the death of a slave master or the marriage of a slave
masters child could result in a black family divided, for widows rented out slaves and the
fathers of the bride gave slaves to their daughters as wedding gifts. It was also a known
fact that some masters often sold young male slaves or sold family members off as
punishment for insolence or bad work habits.

For enslaved Black Women in the North it was a little different, but with some of the
same components. They too, were restricted from having the independence to
establish or maintain a family. The African Slave Women working in the Northern
households were often sold away when they became pregnant, forcing them to separate
from their husbands and relatives. While husbands and wives who lived on different
plantations had even greater difficulty keeping up with their relationships. Then due to
the expansion growing westward, that also contributed to forcing the slave families
further apart, in which, made it more impossible for them to ever reconnect.
Overall, slave women didnt experience slavery in the same manner as enslaved men.
Slave masters realized how profitable a fertile female slave could be over time by giving
birth every 2 years to a child that could be sold for a reasonable profit. Because of this,
a variety of incentives for reproduction from the enslaved women were introduced such
as; less work to do, more intake of food, and even rewards of silver dollars and new
dresses to wear. Nonetheless, along with the stature and the benefits, it also entailed
exhausting demands. Several days after child birth, the enslaved mother was put to work

spinning weaving, or sewing and a few weeks thereafter, they were sent back to the fields
to do mans work outside such as; cutting trees, hauling logs, plowing fields, digging
ditches, picking cotton and etc.. Once passed child bearing years at around age 40, the
workload was increased fulltime. On larger plantations the elderly enslaved women were
called Grannies and they were responsible for keeping the slaves children during the
day while their mothers worked outside. Older enslaved women also assumed primary
responsibility for nurturing family and kinship networks and anchoring slave
communities.
Unlike enslaved men, enslaved girls and women also faced the threat of sexual abuse.
The term wench was used to describe them. Wench is defined in (1812; 1832) as a
black or colored female servant; a negress. (1848) A color woman any age; A negress
or mulattress especially one in service. There were many times when the slave master
would rape a woman and or a female child in the fields or inside the cabins. Sometimes
he would lock a woman inside a cabin with a male slave whose sole task would be to
have sex with her to impregnate her, synonymous to that of breeding animals. These
kinds of acts continued repeatedly throughout slavery and was considered by slave
masters to be the norm.
Females slaves responded in different ways to the sexual abuse, some seduced their
masters away from their wives, others fiercely resisted the sexual advances and were
usually whipped or even killed for their disobedience. Sadly, some female slaves killed
their off springs rather than to see them grow up in the same horrid conditions of slavery.
One example illustrating a female slaves fierce resistant response to this sexual abuse

from her slave master, was noted in 1855, involving a 14 year old girl named Celia. This
was such a sad tragedy that ended in death for both parties involved, the slave master and
his enslaved mistress. The slave master purchased this young female slave to service him
for all of his sexual desires and after 5 years and 2 children later, she developed a love
interest with another slave. After continuously expressing this to her master and with the
request of leaving, he wouldnt release her of her commitments to him. This ended in
murder, she struck and killed him with a large stick. In the end, after numerous trials,
the final conclusion was stressed that rape of a slave by the owner was not considered
a crime, but murder was and Celia was pronounced guilty by the judge and jury and was
hung to her death. This is just an example of a grim story of a young female slaves life
and her abused conditions that highlights the skewed power structure in the South. It was
unfortunate for her, she bore a double burden, that of a slave and that of a woman living
in a male dominating society that both involved racism and sexism all in one.
Moving on to another important woman in the slave masters life, the Wife. She is held
with respect and high expectations. The wife was sometimes referred to as the Mistress
of the Plantation, similar to that of a female slave master. She supervised the daily
domestic activities of the household and assisted in managing the slaves. In the domestic
household, she was the overseer of the supply, the preparation of the food, the linen, the
housecleaning, and the caring of the sick, amongst overseeing other duties. Some would
complain and say that there is no slave like that of the wife, quoted from the diary of
Mary Chestnut who is a noted Pulitzer prize winner of her diary describing the Civil War.
Because the wives lived in such a white slaveholding culture in the South, it definitely
confronted double standards in terms of moral and sexual behaviors. While the wives

expectations were to behave as exemplars of Christian piety and sexual purity,

their husbands were held to another set of standards and their behaviors were totally
opposite and all were deemed acceptable. For the womens role of being a helpmate
persisted throughout the colonial period but it faced serious challenges. These challenges
were mainly due to the adaptability to the new circumstances being introduced, the
acceptance of their husbands enslaved mistress. During this time many women were
faced with the bitter truth of their husbands being sexually and sometimes romantically
involved with the domesticated female slave. As much as the ingestion of this was very
hard and painful to face, it definitely was an unfair reality and nothing could be said or
done to change it. In the diary that Mary Chestnut wrote, she expressed how her
household was depicted as a monstrous system. The husbands lived in one house with
their wives and their enslaved concubines along with all of the mulatto children that
resembled the white children fathered all by the same.
In numerous examples written, it was nothing for a slave owner to father children with
the female slaves, to raise them in the home, and to assume the responsibility as being the
father. An example of this was written in the book titled Wench. This small excerpt
is a conversation taking place between a slave master and his slave mistress. Havent I
done right by you? Havent I always treated you like you were my very own wife? He
then led her into the room standing behind her and pushed her onto the bed and now
fitting his body into hers and saying Dont you know how special you are? I picked
you out of all the slave negro women. Dont you know that youre the first slave girl
Ive ever bought into my house? Dont you know that youre the mother of my first

born? This was clearly an example of sexual acts that eventually turned into a taboo
relationship inside the mansion to be witnessed daily by the slave masters wife.
This at times brought on feelings of jealousy, resentment and hatred from the wife always
having to observe her husbands daily interactions with his slave mistress and her
children. Because of this, there were times when acts of physical violence tend to display
itself. The slave owners wife would lash out and physically abuse the female slave by
beating her with inanimate objects or sometimes just with her bare hands. An example of
this was recorded from the household of Lucy and William Byrd and his slave mistress
Jenny. The wife, Lucy attempted to beat Jenny with a pair of fireplace tongs and brand
her with some hot irons right before her husband, William intervened, and this only
infuriated her more for he came to his slave mistress, Jennys defense. It was no secret or
shame that enslaved women were likely to suffer violence from the hands of the slave
masters wife repeatedly. They were often the targets of the wives anger from a direct
result from the husband.
In essence, during the Colonial times, the roles of the slave masters women truly played
an important part, some weighing more than others, but both were as equally important.
The women that the slave master encountered on a daily basis was vital to his mere
existence in both, private and public. Although at times, these relationships were very
demeaning and demoralizing to both women, it deemed necessary to portraying the roles
of both, husband to his wife and lover to his slave mistress for overall satisfaction and his
needs were being met. After revisiting these times in early Colonial America and
recognizing the importance of the wife and the mistress and finally being able to release

their cries and be heard, this concludes the day and the life of the slave masters women.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berkin, Carol. Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for Americas
Independence. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print.
Brown, Kathleen M. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs: Gender,
Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia. Chapel Hill: Published for the Institute
of Early American History and Culture by the U of North Carolina, 1996. Print.
Martin, Valerie. Property. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2003. Print.
Perkins-Valdez. Wench: A Novel. New York: Amistad, 2010. Print.
Tindall, George Brown. America: A Narrative History. New York: Norton, 1984.
Print.