They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

Jones-Rogers begins her introduction with a retelling of New York Times editor James Redpath’s 1859 explanation for why white women opposed the emancipation of enslaved people in the antebellum South. Redpath writes of the indoctrination of these women who were born and surrounded by pro-slavery sentiment. Redpath argues that these Southern white women were unaware of slavery’s most horrifying details; he believes that, if these women knew of the true atrocities of slavery, they would join the movement to abolish it. However, Jones-Rogers argues that “Redpath’s assumptions represented a commonly held patriarchal view” (10). In contrast, Jones-Rogers states her claim clearly: that white women played an active role in and profited from the owning of enslaved people.

Jones-Rogers presents a specific example of a white female slave owner when she introduces Martha Gibbs, who is described by one of her former enslaved people Litt Young as “a ‘big, rich Irishwoman’ who ‘warn’t scared of no man’” (x). Jones-Rogers reports how Gibbs kidnapped the people she enslaved after the Civil War. Despite their freedom, Gibbs kept these legally free but still enslaved individuals under her control for a year after the war’s end. Jones-Rogers then confronts how little scholarly attention is paid to women like Gibbs. Most historians have focused on the single and widowed women who owned slaves. Jones-Rogers argues that this led historians to “rarely consider why slave ownership might have mattered to the women in question, to the enslaved people they owned, to slaveholding communities, to the institution of slavery, or, more broadly, to the region” (xi). Jones-Rogers also points out the historical representation of the typical southern slave owner as having owned over ten enslaved people. In reality, the majority of southern slave owners owned ten enslaved people at most. Jones-Rogers notes the discrepancy between historians’ views of the authority wielded by slave-owning men and women. These historians believed that slave-owning women did not enjoy wielding this power and served as “fictive masters” who assumed these roles only out of necessity (xii).

Jones-Rogers states the ways in which she will depart from these earlier analyses. She will focus on married slave-owning women or women who owned enslaved people outright. She will also explore the intersections between gender, slavery, and capitalism by examining women’s relationship to slavery in practical economic terms, rather than solely in ideological terms. Through this analysis, Jones-Rogers seeks to address the ways in which white women contributed to the rise of capitalism within the United States. She confronts the common understanding that marriage was the primary or only option for financial security for 18th and 19th century women by addressing the fact that many white men were financially dependent on or indebted to their wives. Circumstances existed in which men sought marriage matches to wealthier women to secure their own financial stability. Slave-owning women were particularly attractive matches for Southern suitors who sought these women’s wealth and status. This wealth often financed the husbands’ ventures, but many of these women viewed their husbands’ control over their wealth and property as only temporary.

Jones-Rogers transitions into a discussion of the chapter’s title, “Mistresses of the Market.” Jones-Rogers first addresses the typical use of the term mistress to connote a sense of dependence on male figures and a begrudging acceptance of masculine tasks only out of necessity. Jones-Rogers clarifies that she defines the term mistress as one who “exercised ‘dominion, rule, or power’” and functioned as “the master’s equivalent” (xv). She documents the ways in which enslaved people viewed both men and women who owned enslaved people as equals in authority. Jones-Rogers also lists how women who owned enslaved people were savvy at navigating the slave market. These women who owned enslaved people faced legal battles against doctrines placing their holdings under the control of their husbands. The women Jones-Rogers highlights in her book sought through legal means the ability to retain control over the enslaved people they inherited, received as gifts, bought themselves, or acquired through marriage. The author argues that slavery offered southern white woman a freedom “to mitigate some of the harshest elements of the common law regime as it operated in their daily lives” (xvii).

Given that many of the women she features in her book were fully or partially illiterate, Jones-Rogers relied upon the firsthand accounts of slavery by formerly enslaved people as documented by the Federal Writers’ Project. She addresses the criticisms of this reliance on firsthand accounts. The main criticism addresses the age of the witnesses who would have only been children at the height of slavery. In response, the author highlights the testimonies of witnesses who were adults at the time of the Civil War. Jones-Rogers honors the resilience and strength of these firsthand witnesses who shared their testimonies “in an atmosphere of intense racial hostility and in a region where simply refusing to step off the sidewalk when a white person passed by could result in their deaths. They believed that telling their stories was worth these risks” (xix).

Finally, Jones-Rogers addresses her use of controversial language that she fears may be offensive to contemporary readers and perceived as derogatory toward her subjects. However, she fears that any revisions to these accounts could threaten to sanitize or distort formerly enslaved people’s lived experiences.