The Necessity to Dig Deeper

In antebellum literature the black woman is described as "sexless, for she is ugly; and she is religious and superstitious, because she is black. She prefers the master's children to her own, for as a member of a lower species, she acknowledges almost instinctively the superiority of the higher race" (Christian cited in Cannon 34). This text excerpt reflects the opinion of the white majority. I profoundly disagree with this statement, because it perpetuates ignorance and white disdain of blacks. An individual's beauty does not affect his or her gender. Likewise, one's skin color does not innately determine that individual's faith and beliefs.

I think that white supremacists wanted to reassure themselves that they were justified in the work they forced black women to do. Female slaves were forced to put their energy into their owners’ industry rather than having the free will to take care of their own families as their top priority. Labor constraints often prevented female slaves from taking of their own children, but they were forced to constantly reproduce. In the eyes of slave owners, female slaves were excellent at making more baby slaves. With this attitude permeating American society, black women are considered a commodity.

Black women were thought of as a profitable and necessary component of slavery in the South that kept the economy going. When treated as merely an item to be “bought and sold, traded for money, land or other objects,” the black woman was not able to act as a “free moral agent” (Cannon 32). She does not have autonomy in her own life. Although Cannon states that “black women had the status of property" and that "her master had total power over her,” she also alerts the reader of black women serving as primary care-givers in her slave community (Cannon 31, 34). Female slaves would often sneak scraps of food and materials from the master's home for the other slaves. The black woman were extremely nurturing to both their own children and to children who had been taken away from their own parents.

It is extremely dehumanizing to only be thought of as a “work-ox” or “brood-sow” (Cannon 32-3). This is the attitude that a black woman is only as good as the income she makes for her owner. This places the woman, especially the black woman, subordinate to the white man in every possible context. The idea of equality is not even a conversation at this time. Although to whites, these "women were not counted and considered as human beings at all,” to their own slave communities, they were strong, nurturing and heroic (Cannon 31). It seems that these black women experienced the most human of humanities; they lived, breathed and died slavery.