Unsung History17 Jul 2023

Enslaved Women who Murdered their Enslavers

In the American colonies and then in the antebellum United States, the legal system reinforced the power and authority of slaveholders by allowing them to physically abuse the people they enslaved while severely punishing enslaved people for even minor offenses. Some enslaved women, who could find no justice in the courts, sought their own justice through lethal resistance, murdering their enslavers.

Joining me now to help us understand the enslaved women who chose lethal resistance, what drove them, and why these stories are important to tell, is Dr. Nikki M. Taylor, Professor of History at Howard University and author of several books, including Brooding over Bloody Revenge: Enslaved Women's Lethal Resistance.

Our theme song is Frogs Legs Rag, composed by James Scott and performed by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons. The mid-episode music is “Desire for Freedom” by Lexin_Music from Pixabay and is used via the Pixabay Content License. The image is “Silhouette portrait of slave Bietja,” by Jan Brandes; it is available in the public domain.

Additional Sources:

Surviving Southampton: African American Women and Resistance in Nat Turner's Community, by Vanessa M. Holden, University of Illinois Press, 2021.
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, by Rebecca Hall, Simon & Schuster, 2021.
“Poetry of Defiance: How the Enslaved Resisted,” Zinn Education Project Teaching Activity, by Adam Sanchez.
“Slave codes,” National Park Service.
“The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice,” by William Goodell, 1853, Published in Learning for Justice.
“Hidden Voices: Enslaved Women in the Lowcountry and U.S. South,” The Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (LDHI).
"Thrice Condemned: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Practice of Leniency in Antebellum Virginia Courts," by Tamika Y. Nunley, Journal of Southern History 87, no. 1 (2021): 5-34.

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