Well paced and informative. 

I’ve been mulling over how to talk about this book. It is a difficult, visceral, unflinching condemnation not only of chattel slavery itself, but of one of the most careful and egregious propagandas typically taught in regards to it — that white women were unaware, didn’t take part, weren’t just as complicit as their husbands and fathers and brothers.

Using court transcripts, contemporary accounts, and newspaper clippings, the book lays bare the reality. The narrative where white women were hapless bystanders then (just as now) doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

It’s an important read, with information that should be common knowledge but is largely lost to modern day hand-wringing and excuses.

Coming back too it but by bit. It graphicall details slavery which is white history. As a white autistic with a strong sense of justice and a soft heart this book is very hard to read but I know it is important too because it is truth.

 

"Southern white women's roles in upholding and sustaining slavery form part of the much larger history of white supremacy and oppression. And through it all, they were not passive bystanders. They were co-conspirators." 

 

I'm not sure who exactly it was, but I originally saw this in a #bookstagram post. It's been, quite possibly, years since then, so I can't give credit where it's due because my memory is just not that good. But shoutout to them, because I appreciate it coming across my radar, and my finally getting around to reading it myself. 

 

This piece of nonfiction, chock full of incredible historical research, was a perspective on slavery that not only is never really considered or given air time, but actively downplayed in an attempt to protect a certain group: white women. The prevailing understanding is that, due to the patriarchy, white women were mostly passive players in the history and reality of slavery, who had to (and chose to) cede all control of their money and decisions to the men in their life. In this text, Jones-Rogers tears down that understanding. From the role women had in financial and legal decisions about enslaved people they/their family owned, to their roles in directing the work of the enslaved people that were their "property" (including decisions on when/how punishment should be meted out, and meting it themselves), to the active role in slave markets, to their fight to retain ownership and/or receive financial compensation when the outcome of the Civil War hit, this book completely reframes the facade of powerlessness that has protected the reputation of white women in connection to slavery across time. 

 

Jones-Rogers shatters the illusions of the innocence of white (mostly Southern) women, who (whether out of genuine want/gain or due to a lack of interest - or capacity - in changing societal status quo) engaged directly in violence against enslaved people, as well as profited directly (gaining their own power and financial benefit, separate from their fathers/husbands) from the owning of enslaved people and the work they were forced to do. She erases the easy excuse of patriarchy for white women’s lack of action on solidarity with enslaved peoples (and the carryover into today's lack of intersectional feminist solidarity). Working to better yourself within a society that has constraints on you does not absolve you from the shame and judgement that should come from treating others, those that our broken society puts below you, badly in order to make their progress. The lesson that crushing others to get ahead just because that’s the only path that seems available to you is not an excuse/absolution is strong in these pages. (For even further lessons on this same theme - that life is not a zero sum game - but in a more modern context, check out The Sum of Us.) 

 

I do want to note that the writing is very academic. It's a bit like reading a textbook or dissertation (so, a bit dry)... I mean, it's definitely more narratively inclined than that, but not by too much. That being said, I was very glad to also have the audiobook to help me through it. 

 

To close, the overall picture Jones-Rogers presents within isn't new, but this new perspective she delves into was deeply researched, well presented, educational and eye-opening (in a reframing-what-you-thought-you-knew sort of way).The blurb about this book ends with "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." and I really couldn't give a better summary, nor a better reason to recommend reading it. 

This book isn’t fun, but it is painfully necessary. 
Every page of it further takes apart the story that white women during slavery were quietly on the sidelines, letting the men deal with the buying and selling of people. Instead, it offers continued evidence that women were not only bystanders, but open participants in every part of slavery- the buying, the selling, the abuse, the treating of people as simply economic investments. Whether it’s young women being given enslaved persons as gift by their parents to ensure their economic independence from their husbands or women running auctions in their backyard, they were fully aware of what was happening. The chapter of how enslaved women were used as wet nurses broke me, especially in the discussion of how white women would make sure that their chosen slaves woman was pregnant at the proper time to be a wet nurse. 
I personally think that all white women, but especially southern white women, should read this book to face up to how white women have upheld racism from the beginning, using Black people (and other marginalized groups) as tools to try to escape the sexism they face instead of banding together to destroy the social structure all together.