J. Morgan states (2005) that transatlantic slavery is a unique case of outrage against humanity, when millions of African residents were transported out of their homeland. Being captured and forced to serve as a sort of livestock those people suffered from moral and cultural devastation. Indeed, the female role in slave trade is somehow disregarded by historians, although having some specific peculiarities. Actually, enslaves women did the agricultural work, served at households, fed and brought up their youngest masters and, besides, were the factual bearers of their native culture (p. 51).
As also mentioned in Morgan (p. 52-55) a known European traveler to Africa, Jean Barbot, was deeply impressed by female position in local communities as females seemed to do all the work around the households, were responsible for farming duties and basic parenting activities. On the opposite, men seemed to do almost nothing, which was definitely striking for western mentality. In addition, to Europeans’ mind, African females’ manner of dressing, or, actually, undressing, and their sexual behavior contributed to the entire misunderstanding of their mentality, which drew to a wrong assumption about of possible, even necessary enslavement of African natives.
With the reference to D. Ramey (The New Georgia Encyclopedia, 2005), there is no exact date of appearance of first enslaved women in America. For instance, before 1750 some slaves were delivered to Georgia from South Carolina but after there were great numbers of enslaved females brought from other colonies, Africa and West Indies. However, before eighteenth century the overwhelming majority of slaves were men.
Some sources explained this with traders’ opinion about female physical weakness. However, there is evidence that as far as women were busy with all sorts of drudge in their native continents, there was just no possibility to enslave equal number of men and women, free from basic duties. In other words, African females had been already enslaved.
This factor of unequal gender number of slaves had a great impact. Thus, with the reference to Morgan, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries women compounded the overwhelming majority of African population.
As it has been mentioned before, African women provided their slaveholders with specific agricultural knowledge and were busy with field works, while the enslaved men were involved in building, sailing, loading the transport, sewing, etc. (Morgan, p. 63). Ramey points out that approximately 60 per cent of enslaved women served as major field workforce on coastal plantations.
The engagement of female slaves with white people’s children and household duties is connected with entire development of white society and the growth of their financial abilities and wealth. However, the need for domestic slaves did not facilitated Africans’ lives as they were forced to work all day long even harder than field workers as having no opportunities to normally satisfy their basic needs. Moreover, the great number of whites was sure that slaves were prone to rebellions and killings and wanted to poison or murder their masters. (Morgan, p. 64).
Another specific feature of female experience in slavery is their full …