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A Kick in the Belly

Women, Slavery & Resistance

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A Kick in the Belly

By: Stella Dadzie
Narrated by: Bahni Turpin
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Enslaved West Indian women had few opportunities to record their stories for posterity. Yet from their dusty footprints and the umpteen small clues they left for us to unravel, there's no question that they earned their place in history. Pick any Caribbean island and you'll find race, skin colour, and rank interacting with gender in a unique and often volatile way. In A Kick in the Belly, Stella Dadzie follows the evidence, and finds women played a distinctly female role in the development of a culture of slave resistance—a role that was not just central, but downright dynamic.



From the coffle-line to the Great House, enslaved women found ways of fighting back that beggar belief. Whether responding to the horrendous conditions of plantation life, the sadistic vagaries of their captors or the "peculiar burdens of their sex," their collective sanity relied on a highly subversive adaptation of the values and cultures they smuggled with them naked from different parts of Africa. By sustaining or adapting remembered cultural practices, they ensured that the lives of chattel slaves retained both meaning and purpose. A Kick in the Belly makes clear that their subtle acts of insubordination and their conscious acts of rebellion came to undermine the very fabric and survival of West Indian slavery.©2020 Stella Abasa Dadzie Americas Black & African American Social Sciences United States Women Caribbean Latin American Africa West Indies
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Heartbreaking in the realisation that research like this simply touches on what was recorded by those who could be bothered (and were able to) document what was seen and (more importantly)experienced by them. The tip of an enormous ice berg.

The full breath of the horror of the European slave trade in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas will never be known. But what we do know—and continue to learn—should never be forgotten.

In depth research

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Great book, we'll researched. It adds to the important literature highlighting the experience of ignored groups in history

Great to have the female experience highlighted

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A Her-Story brilliantly told and Everyone should have the opportunity to Hear Uncover and Learn the findings of this excellent study. If you know your history you are equipt to excel. The ongoing impact of the same mindset and disinformation can be seen in the struggle for Racial Justice. indeed the central role of women in insuring the survival of the individual and the group. Well Done

Her-Story

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I know about the history of slavery.
but never imagined how deep and maximum of human cruelty was.
All poverty, human trafficking and the low life of Africans are one of the results of those times. The one who did this to us are now acting as human rights watcher's and lead the world as they want to their benefit. But we Africans, rumination holding us back causing us anxiety , leading us to live in a constant poverty, impairing our ability to focus on how great we were and we can be again, sapping our motivation and limiting our ability to feel joy and respect ourslf. Many thanks to the author who gave us this wonderful book(ugly history), we should use as wake up call to end rumination and go forward.
-Kidus

Unbelievable

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