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They Were Her Property

White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

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They Were Her Property

By: Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
Narrated by: Allyson Johnson
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About this listen

A bold and searing investigation into the role of white women in the American slave economy.

Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African-American history, this audiobook makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth.

Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave-owning men.

White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave-owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America.

©2019 Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers (P)2019 Tantor Americas Gender Studies Social Sciences State & Local United States
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Most relevant
Thoroughly researched and well written accounts of a little known aspects of slave soviet in antebellum south. The involvement of white women. It puts paid to the myth that white women were hapless or helpless outsiders devoid of power, and places them front and centre. As owners and traders of slaves.

Hidden history

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This was recommended by someone in my book group and it was as good as they suggested. I have never studied US history and so I found this a fascinating insight into the US, particularly around its relationship to slavery from a white female perspective.
A small criticism that a couple of sections were overly long and some repetitiveness but it does rather make the point by the extensive examples given.
Narration is very clear on audio version. I would however recommend that the publishers ask a Black narrator to voice the Black people quoted within the book as this seemed out of touch with the valuable learning around race in this book and so for that I have given 3 stars to performance.

valuable learning, eye opening for white readers

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It was an interesting read that and I did not want to put up down. I just had to binge listen.

Very informative

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An excellent analysis of the subject. Although they were a minority, white women slave owners and sometime traders were not rare.

Shows a range of attitudes - from the detestable to the relatively merciful. Also how women slave owners have been largely overlooked in the history of slavery, and the gendered presumptions for that.

Excellent analysis

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It is an eye opener that white ladies owned slaves. The cruelty is distressing. The cruelty to slave children is upsetting. Amazing book, lots of detail. I am listening to it again.

The racism

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