Reading Guide #5 Essay Example

Marriage among slaves helped them see their master as either good or bad. A good master let them have a church wedding and all the trimmings. The Bride and Groom chose each other and were in love. The opposite would be the bad master who was just out to make money and saw his slaves as little more than cattle. They had no say in who they married or if they could get married. Some men fathered dozens of children with different woman and had little contact with his children. A pregnant slave was seen as a good and a bad thing at the same time. Some didn’t want to lose the labor the woman provided, but the baby was valuable as a future belonging. Women weren’t allowed to raise their babies they had to get back to their jobs as soon as they were able leaving the baby in the care of other slaves.
Sex leads to all kinds of tragedies in slavery. Slaves worked long hard hours and didn’t get to spend time raising their own kids. Some women were forced to breed with men they didn’t like, and forced into a loveless relationship with the man. Men could be the father of a bunch of kids and never see them. If a white male slave owner got one of his slaves pregnant he would eventually have to decide to sell the child or not.
Masters got the final say in which slave could or could not have children and with whom they could do it with. Eugenics wasn’t really in play here, the love of money was. The breeding of slaves could be likened to the breeding of livestock. The best bull got the best cows. Producing the best offspring worth money was the goal.
The power of ownership comes into play when the master male or female seduces their slaves. A slave can say no but there would be consequences. Many just did as they were told, because they had too. Slaves were in the perfect position to be abused sexually, they weren’t seen as anything but property. If they dared to say no they faced punishment or other repercussions. A slave owner could breed them as they saw fit because they were property. Even a married slave could find themselves ordered to have intercourse with someone who wasn’t their spouse.
The testimony of the slaves that was taken during the civil war was kept secret because something quite unexpected was revealed. Women were just as guilty of using slaves for sex as their male counterparts. This was not good; it could be seen as polluting the blood line of white families. It could also lead to marriage between a white woman and a black man that would also lead to a polluted blood line. It also contradicted the picture of what the ideal upper class woman was.
Upper class women were seen as innocents, soft with a tendency to be weak, they were the victims when a sexual affair with slave came out. The lower class women, however, had to live with the negative labels of being lower class. This caused them to be seen as no better as the slaves or the freed blacks. An upper class family could cover up an affair with a slave and keep it out of the courts and away from society’s prying eyes. Lower class women if discovered having an affair and it was a common thing for a white servant to have relationship with a slave willingly had to face the consequences of society and the courts.
Foster carries on with the forced sex is a big issue that is not often discussed during slavery in the south. He, however, explores the male victims. They have been largely overlooked. He uses some of the same testimonies and stories as Hodes and Jennings. He sees the male slaves in the stories as another victim of the cruelty the slave owners put their slaves through.
Male rape is not often discussed because it is seen as something that doesn’t happen. Even today. Rape is seen as a crime between a man and woman. The man is always seen as the attacker and the woman the victim. Shame of being a victim often keeps the victim quiet. They would rather suffer in silence then have the truth known.
Slaves lived in fear that if they didn’t do as told they could lose their family. If they were the victims of sexual abuse they had to suffer in silence adding to the mental abuse. If they didn’t do as they were told a slave faced being beaten, whipped and in some cases raped by the master. They worked hard long hours, living of fear of repercussions, and were seen as an object to be owned if that isn’t abuse I don’t know what is.
Women having sex with their slave was a show of power for the most part. A daughter could be seen as copying her brother or father in sleeping with the slaves, but that was just an excuse. White women finally had power over something and that was the slaves. White woman had no power over a white man, but they did have power over a black man. They could use manipulation and coercion to get what they wanted. A slave even a free black man might be afraid of what she would do if they said no and didn’t do what she wanted.