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== Sarah Haynesworth Gayle, “An Alabama Diary,” 1828, 1833 ==

We talk about how a lot of women's history comes from sources written by men. Therefore, it makes sense for African American sources to come form white owners or other white people. Gayle's diary is a perfect example. Even though she is mostly writing about her experiences, she does describe events and relationships with her slaves. Also, this source provides information not on only about African Americans but on the relationships with mistresses, who they most likely interacted the most. -- Michelle M.

While we have talked many times in class about the acceptance of separation between men and women who are no longer happily married, it never seemed real. I was quite intrigued then when I saw in Sarah Haynesworth Gayle diary entry for "Monday 6th July 1835" that "Mr. and Mrs. Matheson have parted." It really brought out the fact that this did actually happen. --Jennifer S.

What this text really drove home for me was how commonplace slavery was in the lives of Southerners by the 1820s and '30s. While she makes little quips about her relations with her slaves, these comments are thrown in with her everyday happenings. It also reaffirms that slave resistance was also another common aspect of the relationship between slaves and their owners as evidenced by Sarah's last entry where she comments on how difficult it is for her to control them. -- Heather T.

== Mary Boykin Chestnut’s diary, 1861 ==

This is an important source because it shows a woman who is part of a large slave-holding family realizing the atrocity of the slave system. One particularly important realization is that "Men and women are punished when their masters and mistresses are brutes and not when they do wrong..." This notion is related to that of "The Cruel Mistress," in which the mistress would punish at her own whim regardless of whether the slaves had erred. Regardless of this insight, Chesnut still closes with "my countrywomen are as pure as angels - tho surrounded by another race who are -- the social evil!" It seems that Chesnut believes the institution of slavery is wrong but not the idea of racism. --Clare O.

What is Mary Chesnut referring to when she mentions  a car? Is it a carriage? Or a train car? Also, who is she referring to when she says "tho surrounded by another race who are--the social evil!" Is it the slaves? Or the men? --Jennifer S.

== Rose Williams’s Story in the Federal Writers’ Project Interviews, 1941. ==

Of all our readings this week, I think this is the one I'm going to be thinking about the longest. The contents were no shock to me; I've taken African American history classes and the substance of Rose Williams' life is a pretty familiar story. It felt different, though, to hear it from the source. The part which really got under my skin was at the end, when she talks about deciding never to marry because "once was enough". Being forced into something her master wanted to call a relationship, but which was only a well-organized rape, would be enough to put anybody off of the idea of marriage, but it still seems particularly sad to me because of how many ways her life might have been different if this had not happened. She also never says whether she had children, as her master wanted, and I wonder how that affected her life, as well. --Rebecca W.

== Lucinda, a free woman, requests reenslavement, 1813 ==


== Connecticut woman asks other free black women to sign anti-slavery petitions, 1839 ==


== Mary Still, black abolitionist, along with other Philadelphia free women, forms “Female Publication Society” to promote the moral uplift of free and slave African Americans, 1861 ==

I find it interesting that Still follows the narrative of slaves being wicked and ignorant - isn't that what the masters said to justify slavery? (And explain mistakes made by slaves.) I can't really tell how she thinks that the moral state of slaves and the institution of slavery are linked. Would slaves (or even many free blacks) have access to a publication like the Christian Recorder anyway? --Katie C.

== Mrs. Virginia Hayes Shepherd’s memories, 1937 ==


== Thelma Jennings, “Sexual Exploitation of African American Slave Women,” 1990 ==

There were so many disturbing things in this article that it's hard to know where to start. I guess one thing I found particularly striking was the general ignorance about health - it's okay to beat a pregnant woman as long as you dig a hole for her stomach first? Did they really think that did anything at all to protect the fetus? I was also really surprised by the frequent use of the word "breeders." Was that how slave women would have referred to themselves, or how whites would have referred to them, or was that a later term? -- Katie C.

Thelma Jenning's article really had me thinking about how often an occurrence Master and Slave produced children were. I automatically thought about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming's and the result of their children (never sold and easily escaped). I never realized, however, the issue that was slave breeding. It makes (unfortunate) sense that it occurred because of the economics behind it, but even though this practice was not reportedly common, I wonder how often it really occurred. I also wonder when this practice was actually started, did it come out of the line of thought which included livestock breeding? Or was eugenics really being put into practice?-- Heather T.

== "A Reply to Harriet Beecher Stowe" Louisa S. Cheeves McCord, 1853  ==

I thought this document was enlightening and so interesting. True, she was writing things that by today's standards are offensive and politically incorrect, but this is what primary sources offer to us, someone who isn't ashamed to admit their beliefs. I want to offer a quote from the reading "To Conclude. We have undertaken the defence of slavery in no temporizing vein. We do NOT say it is a necessary evil. We do NOT allow that it is a temporary make-shift to choke the course of Providence for man's convenience. It is NOT 'a sorrow and a wrong to be lived down.' We proclaim it, on the contrary, a Godlike dispensation, a providential caring for the weak, and a refuge for the portionless." (page 219).   Understanding this statement helps one understand the entire patriarchal society. --Sara S.

I really enjoyed Louisa McCords writing, she posed some very good points in comparison to what Ms. Stowe had written in ''Uncle Tom's Cabin''. Such as the fact that Ms. Stowe had never lived in the heart of the South, or that while Mrs. Shelby was suppose to be a strong intelligent woman she was portrayed as almost weak. While Ms. McCord made some very well argued points the one I could never agree with is that the black man is intellectually inferior to the white man. "Mrs. Stowe, in spite of experience, in spite of science, determines that the negro is intellectually the white man's equal." There is not science stating that they are unequal and how can she say that Mrs. Stowe has never experienced the intelligence of a black man? Just because she lived in the north doesn't mean she never came in contact with them. --Jennifer S.

== Angelina Grimke Weld ''The Cruel Mistress'' -- 1839 ==

In this source we hear the horrid stories of slavery. However, it is different because it does not focus on the oppressive white male but on the mistress. It is interesting to see the fault in white women. Also, it is interesting that Weld pushes on the physically abuse. She has to argue that most slave owners act like this cruel mistress. Even though she hints at slaves with souls, she focuses on the physically abuse. Michelle M.

I think it is important that Angelina Grimke Weld continually emphasizes the the cruel mistress in question is "at the head of the fashionable elite city of Charleston" and more importantly "at the head of the moral and religious female society there." It is astounding that someone who claims to be of moral and pious authority can be so abusive and uncaring. However, the violence against the slaves is justified by slaveholders because slaves are viewed as property and not actual human beings. -- Clare O.

Going off of what Clare wrote I have to point at that even Grimke ackonledges the belief that "God in his providence had set over them--it was their DUTY to abide in abject submission, and hers to COMPEL them to do so--IT WAS THUS THAT SHE REASONED" (page 216. the Capitalization is in place of italics). This wasn't about cruelty to the woman mistresses, rather a belief that the slave was not a human being (mentioned at the end of the document). i also have to wonder to what extent the women mistresses were so violent and cruel had to do with an inadvert expression of their distaste for their own oppression. The slaves offerred them power so they took full advantage of it. --Sara S.

While reading this entry I couldn't help but doubt that humans could ever be this cruel. That Angelina Grimke Weld must be exaggerating the cruelness of slave owners, particularly because she is against the whole idea. But when you think about it, the evidence of the cruelty humans are capable of is all around us. --Jennifer S.