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Stephanie Camp’s Closer to Freedom examines how enslaved women in the Americas showed resistance through places, boundaries, and movement. Using a variety of sources such as plantation papers, oral histories, and other documents, Camp lays out how planters tried to confine slaves – “geography of containment” (13) – against how enslaved women’s movement despite the restraints created by the planters – “rival geography” (6). Coined by Edward Said, rival geography provides alternative ways of knowing and using space – in this case, the plantation and southern space – that conflicted with a controlled set of ideals and demands – set by the planters.
One aspect of Camp’s book I find interesting is her tendency to avoid the word “slave.” This is central to the book’s argument. “Slave” implies a static state of being, while “bondsperson” draws attention to legal status and “enslaved person” suggests that a historical process is acting upon the slave. By simply changing the descriptor, Camp gives her subjects more agency (at least compared to other slavery scholarship I have read). This can be said for terminology like “masters,” “enlsavers,” and “slaveholders.” The terms “masters” and “slaveholders” imply violence and privilege point of view. I absolutely love how Camp takes and gives agency to her actors.
I agree with Aly692 that Camp does a good job at describing different acts of resistance between bondswomen and bondsmen. It is interesting to see the explanations between their acts of resistance. While men were able to flee, women had to display a different form of resistance because they remained close to their family ties. Women often escaped then returned to the plantation to take care of children. Men were able to flee because of their more advanced knowledge of the local geography, men worked mostly outside while the women worked in and around the home.
The idea of the body as being the force of agency and freedom in the book is central to Camp’s argument. Most think that an enslaved person has no freedom when confined to the plantation. However, to quote Justice John Marshall Harlan “personal liberty . . . consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or removing one’s person to whatsoever places one’s own inclination may direct” (141). Camp uses the quote beautifully to close her argument: that the ability to move is an ability to display agency and freedom, regardless of the space one is confined to. Most simplify slavery resistance in running away, but this book is a demonstration of how enslaved people were able to resist within containment.