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The reading for this week, Closer to Freedom, Enslaved Women & Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South by Stephanie M. H. Camp, was very interesting and enlightening. Outside of books and articles I have read about slavery, my slavery knowledge comes from television shows such as North & South, The Blue & the Gray, and Roots. Many of the topics and discussion points those books, articles and shows presented mirrored what Camp wrote about in her book. However, there were portions and topics that Ms. Camp discussed that I truly had no knowledge of. One of the bigger topics that was new to me was the amended 1694 statute on fences. This South Carolinian statute was amended in 1827 to “enclose and protect the crops of property holders, including crops grown for market by larger farmers.” (pg.5) Although this specific amendment focused around fences, land and crops, it was understood by most Southerners, especially slave holders, that the “property” also included slaves. Slave holders understood that if they could curtail slave movements, institute time regulations, and control the lives of their slaves, they would have complete control over them. So in essence, the slave holders actually twisted this law to suit their own needs and purposes. The containment of slaves had begun, and soon spread to other states. “the 1827 law initiated a “slow and steady” erosion of common rights…”, especially when pertaining to slaves. (pg. 5) The Fence Law not only established the boundaries around plantations, smaller farms, and neighboring residences, but it also had the damaging effect of “slowly erod[ing] common access to land, waterways, and roads.” (pg. 5) This public closure of roads in some cases led to large plantations adopting or creating official leave of absence passes or certificates for slaves. This, in addition to other effects of The Fence Law, severely limited the movement of slaves.
These plantation adoptions increased the slave owner’s control to such a degree that all aspects of a slave’s life were at the whim of their owner(s). Women’s lives, in particular, were extremely difficult for they not only had to work in the fields, or in the owner’s house during the day, but they also had to “cook supper…to clean the cabin; to produce household goods, such as soap and candles; and to wash and mend their own and their family’s clothing. They also had to make that clothing, as well as any bed linens, bonnets…and produce textiles for general plantation use.” (pg. 33) For some women these continual double shifts were too much to take, so to escape this unrelenting drudgery, some women became short-term runaways, wherein they left the planation without notice and authorization for up to weeks at a time, but returned and were punished. Another way, although less frequented by slave women, was to actually run away and become a fugitive and try to find a way North. Family duty, honor, and respectability within and on the plantation kept many slave women from pursuing this option.
Morgan and Taylor make an interesting point: Ms. Camp’s book re-imagines slave life from the women’s perspective, a viewpoint that makes for an interesting point of view. I have read a lot on slavery through my school years and the background of Ms. Camp’s book I have read before, but her use of personal narratives after emancipation brought the plight of slave men and women into a new light. Such narratives allowed her book to feel more grounded and personal than other slave oriented books. As such, she presented female slaves at times as the foundation of the home and family; yet, at other times they were abused the same or worse than their male counterparts. They were rarely allowed to leave the plantation because it was felt they had no official reason to go except under special circumstances, i.e., visiting their husband on a neighboring plantation. As stated above, plantation female slaves worked under horrendous conditions and endured abuse from not only their male and female owners, but also the overseers, the drivers, and at times their own male counterparts.
These laws, limitations and abuses bound the slaves to the land, and this bondage was carried forward after the Civil War and emancipation in the form of Southern sharecropping and the Jim Crow laws of segregation. (pg.140) Only recently have these laws and practices of visible and invisible bondage been abolished.