Found on the National Archives youtube channel. Assumptions about history gives us a fresh us a fresh understanding, egging into primary sources and listening to the voices of those not usually heard. Todays guest author, Stephanie Jones rogers has done this in her new book, they were her property, white women as slaveowners in the american south. She uses an impressive assortment to piece together the stories of the slaveholders and the enslaved with the oral histories of formally enslaved people, news paper advertisements, slave records sells records, court doctrines and more. Two weeks ago we displayed the d. C. Emancipation act ended slavery in the district of columbia in 1860 two. Among the records generated as a result of this you will find several references to women owners. To come up for example, sot compensation for their freed slaves, one claiming one slave was a gift from her sister and worth 1500. They were her property and received favorable reviews. A writer because at a stunning new book. The New York Times reviewer says as they taught and cogent corrective that examines how historians have misunderstood and misrepresented white women as reluctant actors. The Washington Post says that the author has provided in Innovative Analysis of american slavery, one that sets a new standard for scholarship on the subject. Stephanie jones rogers is an associate professor at uc berkeley where she specializes in africanamerican history, women and gender history and the history of american slavery. They were her property is based on her revised and it dissertation which one applies for the best doctoral dissertation in u. S. History in 2013. Please welcome Stephanie Jonesrogers. [applause] thank you for the invitation and the introduction, david. Thank you all for coming this afternoon and spending your lunchtime with me. It is a pleasure to be here with you today. This is James Redpath. In 1859 after touring the antebellum south he attempted to explain for his readers why white southern women opposed the southern emancipation. He believed it was tied to a lifetime of indoctrination reared under the saddle of the peculiar institution. Slavery was quote incessantly plate praised and defended unquote. Partially everywhere these women went by virtually everyone a new and in most publications they read. Their consciences were thus easily perverted, redpath argued, or never afterward appealed to. With the result that they saw no reason to change their views. Redpath assumed white southern women did not know legal slavery as it is because their society shielded them from the institution horrific realities. Insulated by southern patriarchs he argued white women seldom saw slaverys most obnoxious features and they never attend auctions, never witness what were called examinations. Seldom if ever saw the lashings. More profoundly they did not know that the interstate trade in slaves was a gigantic commerce. Southern men revealed only one view of slavery redpath surmised, and if the women of the south knew slavery as it is he suggested they would join in the protests against it. Redpath assumption represent a commonly held view. Yet narrative sources, legal and financial documents and military and government correspondence make it clear that white southern women new the most obnoxious features of slavery all too well slave owning women not only witnessed the most brutal features of slavery, they took part in them, profited from them, and defended them. After hearing what James Redpath said about white womens relationship to slavery, might think that white women were invisible and southern slave markets. They are notably absent from this painting from 1854, which depicts a very public slave auction in the city of charleston, South Carolina. Or, we might think of them as distance from the horrors of the market, from the sales. But also from the traumatic separation that came after those sales were finalized. We might think that white women and their children were merely passive observers of all of this. And more profoundly that they were powerless to stop these hard enter medic separations, like what you see in this image. This image is a depiction of the kind of trauma and violence of those separations that occurred after a slave auction took place and an enslaved person was sold from their family and highlighted in the yellow box tore the lefthand side of the image you can see a white woman at a child distanced from at separation. Distance from that are and that trauma, separated and indirectly witness to and experiencing it but not directly implicated in the violence and the trauma of the market. But this is not how enslaved and formally enslaved people remember things at all. First, they made it clear, that white southern womens economic relationship to slavery began in childhood. In some cases during infancy. Not just in adulthood. Fillmore hancock told an interviewer his grandmother was given to the misses as her own on the date she was born. Remarkably, Fillmore Hancock recalled the old misses was only one year old than so his grandmother was given to her mistress when she was only one. One year old. Enslaved people and formally enslaved people talk about the lifelong processes of socialization by which white girls came to understand themselves as markedly different than slave people and the rituals that drove this point home for an slave free people alike. White slaveowning girls also made it clear they had the power to claim other africanamericans as their property when they selected specific enslaved children to serve them. When betty coffered was born, her masters daughter ella was only a little girl but she nevertheless claimed betty as her slave. Shortly after betty was born. They played together and grew up together, betty recalled. Eventually, betty became ellas personal servant, waiting on her and stand behind her chair during mealtime and sleeping beside her on the bedroom floor. More profoundly, formally enslaved people tell us this process of socialization was effective. Why girls often make claims of ownership in their conversations with enslaved people. A formally enslaved woman named melinda recalled her young mistress would frequent the tell her, when i get big and get married to a prince, you come with me and 10 all of my children. And when her mistress did mary, she took melinda with her as part of their new household. As southern girls, young white women thought about how enslaved people would fit into their lives, not just as playmates or companions. But as property. When they were old enough, they turned their imaginings into reality. Formally enslaved people are marked upon how this process of socialization also involved lessons about slave management and discipline, what we typically refer to as slave mastery. Nancy thomas recalled she was a special little girl for her mistresses harriets daughter polonia. Even during days she would sew and knit. Nancy went on to say how she had a little three legged stool and she would set it between polonius legs while she was setting down. Then polonia would watch her while she knitted. If she did something wrong, polonia would pinch nancys ear and say, you drop a stitch, nanny. As nancy thomass testimony shows, Polonia Smith was, what i refer to as, a mistress in the making, responsible for overseeing the production of the enslaved girl she would come to own and disciplining her when it did not meet her requirements. So, serving as the metaphorical flies on the walls of southern households, formally enslaved people talked about some of the most violent, traumatic and intimate dimensions of life for those who are bound and those who were free. They heard and saw things that typically remained obscured from view, details white slaveowning couples often left out of their personal correspondence for public medication. That is when they were able to write at all. Many of the slaveowning women i discuss in this book contended with some form of illiteracy. They were either unable to write and read or possess the ability to do one but not the other. Enslaved and formally enslaved peoples recollections about their female owners thus serve as some of the only archival records about these women to survive. This book takes its cue from formally enslaved people. No group spoke about white womens investments in slavery more often or more powerfully than the enslaved people subjected to their ownership and control. They were the people whose lives were forever changed, when amid trust when a mistress sold someone just so she could buy a new dress. They were best equipped to describe the agony that shook their bodies and souls when they returned from their errands to discuss to discover that their children were gone and there mistresses were counting piles of money they had received from the slave traders who bought them. Only enslaved people could speak about their female owners profound canonic contributions to their continued enslavement such astonishing precision. So what did formally enslaved people have to say about white femaleseconomic relationships to the institution of slavery . Formally enslaved people interviews offer insight into the most intimate workings of white households as well. Formally enslaved people like mary edwards who you see pictured, tell us some households, Breast Feeding constituted a form of labor slave owners required enslaved women to perform. One womans from one womans mother, nursing white children was one of her jobs. But for enslaved mothers like mary edwards, nursing white children was the only work they performed during slavery. These recollections make it clear that white mothers did not simply use enslaved mothers to breastfeed their children because of physiological elements that resulted in inadequate milk supply, and inability to produce milk at all, or as last resort. But that compelled enslaved mothers to perform this labor as a matter of course in some households. Moreover, in order for enslaved women to serve in this capacity consistently, they also had to give birth or at least lactate on a routine basis. But what often remains unexplored, is what led to these constant conceptions in the first place. While enslaved women perform the most arduous forms of labor in their owners fields and in their households, they also had to conceive, carry a pregnancy to full term, give birth, and lactate, in order to be able to serve as wet nurses in the first place. And sources suggest this is precisely what happened. Some of the enslaved womens children were undoubtedly conceived within relationships of love. But others were undoubtedly result of sexual assault. How widespread was this phenomenon . Widespread enough that a niche market, a small corner, but a significant corner of the slave market, emerge in order to fulfill white mothers demands for enslaved wet nurses. The market in enslaved nurses was primarily enslaved wet nurses was primarily a hiring one but these ads reveal some of the enslaved women and mothers were offered for sale. In their capacity to serve as wet nurses was a selling point. These are three examples of newspaper advertisements i collected as part of the research for this book, which reflect that white mothers were creating a demand for enslaved mothers service and labor as wet nurses. They were not only putting these ads in southern newspapers, but what you do not see in these but in others, what becomes clear is that white women were also some of the individuals who are supplying these white mothers with the enslaved mothers and wet nurses that they wanted and that they were seeking. Here, these three are examples of enslaved wet nurses, seeking enslaved wet nurses to purchase or hire. And what i found was an important intersection between the market in enslaved wet nurses and the slave market proper. Most of the men and of individuals offering enslaved women for sale were also slave traders who made their living buying and selling enslaved people. So, in addition to that, we attend closely to what enslaved and formally enslaved people had to say about white womens economic investments in slavery. It becomes clear they had so much to tell us about the institution of slavery and the roles that white women played in the slave market economy and in their continued captivity. We learned that when they said they belonged to white women, they meant belonged to buy law. Sally 19 gail owned Alice Marshall and her mother. Marsha claimed her mistresses husband jack had nothing to do with me and my mother because they belong to the mississippi law and not her husband. To the missus by law, not her husband. Here you say a lost friends add, also information wanted ads. These are unique because they emerge as the civil war is coming to an end and in the years following the civil war. They reflect formally enslaved peoples attempt to reconstitute their families. All of those individuals who belong to their families and communities that have been sold away that they wanted to reconnect with family members that had children and mothers and fathers and brothers and uncles who they had lost contact with because of sale and separation. They placed ads to reconnect with those individuals and reconstitute their families. These advertisements also show more than simply their attempts to reconnect with their families. They also show how the separations occurred in the first place and they highlight the owners who are responsible for their sale and separation. Here i am showing an advertisement placed by Caroline Mason seeking information about her family members. She says she was owned by betsey mason, a white woman, and was sold by her as well. She does not civilly say she inadvertently was sold by some man who is related. She identifies betsey as her legal owner but also the person who was ultimately responsible for the separation that occurred after the sales took place. This advertisement goes farther and shows more complex elements or dimensions of slavery. William mays highlights several things about white slaveowning women and their families, also their business practices. He identifies his female owner, elise stokes, in this advertisement, but describes the conflicts within her family over her property and Property Rights. He argues or tells us that jack sampson, his owners grandson, stole his mother and siblings from elise. So grandson and grandmother he is not willing to recognize the kind of in viability of elise stokes Property Rights in this case. He also tells us that while elise stokes held legal title to him while she was his owner, she would hire him out so he refers to this process of hiring out as living with jim some at the time. In the top element he talks about Jack Simpsons decision to sell him away from his family, i mean to steal his family away from him. And he also talks about her business practices, she would hire him out and receive his wages in return for the labor that he performed for jensen this case. The sources get at more complex dimensions of slavery that often do not enter popular understanding of the institution and ways in which enslaved people were passed between people, how separations occurred, etc. Here, what guy smith is telling us, is that he and his wife were separated from their children. And that his children were drawnthis refers to a process being drawn, by different members of his ownersfamily, some of whom were women. He also talks about the Legal Process by which the separations took place. He does not use all the terms we would think to look for. But he plainly tells us, while the separations of family members did not take place in the slave market, they nonetheless. Brought about the same kinds of medic severance from loved ones. He tells us this process of being drawn and falling to someone, refers to the process that happens during the administration of a deceased persons estate in this context. So, his owner dies. Then his property, they would have a drawing, like a lottery. They would put the names of the individual heirs into a bag or a hat. And that individual, the hei r, the name would also be written alongside a group of enslaved people. So they would draw their names out of a hat and that person be told what property they received. They would draw out a piece of paper that had a list of property they would receive. There are variety of ways this ritual took place. They literally did, in fact, draw enslaved people as part of this Estate Division process. That is what guy is referring to here. This is not simply something that enslaved people talk about in terms that are not necessarily proper legalese. But these recollections are also reflected in documents that appear in archival collections throughout the south. You see here a handwritten document that shows exactly what guy smith is referring to, an Estate Division. It lists the individual enslaved people who are part of that deceased persons estate. It also shows the ages of those enslaved people. It shows the values, the estimated values of those enslaved people. Toward the bottom of the document it shows which heirs drew which enslaved people. What was remarkable about this document, in relationship to what guy shows in his lost friends add, is that Elizabeth Henry in the top line, drew more enslaved people than Richard Henry did. Why is this important . In the book i show that colonial historians who look at history in the clip history and the colonial. In the country show that slaveowning parents would typically give their daughter more slaves than any other form of property. They would give them other property. And they would give them money. And in some cases i have seen stocks and bonds given to daughters. But they would often give their daughters far more enslaved people than other forms of property, particularly land. And they would get their sons the land. So that when those two, when the couple got together, they would have everything they needed to get a start on that new life there were going to be living. I see the same thing happen in the 19th century. You see similar patterns, where slaveholding parents would give their daughters more enslaved people than land. This is reflective of the fact that even if richard did not receive land, he actually, you can see that kind of inheritance practice play out here in this document by showing that she, elizabeth, received more slaves than the other air. Heir. That might suggest also he received land in addition to receiving those enslaved people. I think the sources are really important to show the process by which i wrote the book. I centered and foregrounded the expenses and accounts and reflections of formerly enslaved people in order to lead me in more productive directions in relationship to the sources. By looking at fragments of information, data, for those scientists in the room or mathematicallyinclined folks in the room. By using the data that formally enslaved people provided, i was able to piece together details of the lives of the female owners that they identify. So this is a really important or a really interesting example of that process for me. So James Skinner was a reverend who lives in yet he county, mississippi. On november 20, 1879, he placed this lost friends at in the southwestern christian advocate he was looking for his brother, edward. The last time john had seen edward was on october 12, 1860, in georgetown. And in the district of columbia, where we are today. Not long after the brothers crossed paths that day, john and his family were forced to leave edward behind, when their owner did what historians and individuals at the time referred to as being refugeed. Being refugeed. His owner refugeed then to mississippi and compelled them to leave this trick and leave edward behind. One year after john placed his first lost friends advertisement, he still had not found edward. So he placed another. His time he offered more detail. Each of these advertisements may clear. Angelica chu, he identifies as a woman who owned him and his family and who orchestrated the separation via that process of refugeeing, and that she was the reason that he had his family were still searching for edward. It was difficult for me to find angelica because of the variations in spelling and the ways he refers to her in these advertisements. In the first yellow box on the left he refers to her has as miss. Anne jellico chu, and the widow of phrisby, with a ph. So i said ok, jot that down. I went to the second advertisement and i said ok, he is saying something completely different the second time. So i thought, then he refers to her as angelo chu. Sizable ok, i know that sometimes today and in then when woman is married she may be referred to by her husbands first and last name. So i said ok, ok we know they lived in yazoo, mississippi. He was in georgetown. I went to ancestry. Com. They have been in trouble lately but it is an extraordinary resource where you can find archival documents the National Archives has available onsite here. I was able to find phrisby i said wait, there he is. I found phrisbee freeland chu, angelicas husband, here in the newspaper. Of the two areas are interesting. They are macabre and depressing pieces of archival fragments, but they often give these rich descriptions of peoples lives, of the deceased. And you can see migrations, all kinds of things. That is apparent in this obituary. It tells us that phrisby freeland chew were married. And he was in yazoo county, mississippi, which is where James Skinner is at the time he places his lost friends advertisement so we have that one collaboration. Then it talks about the children and that he was on his way to the government at washington. So it tells he had been appointed to a governmental position, which would explain and corroborate what James Skinner is talking about, placing him and edward and his family in washington, d. C. Also why they were in d. C. And how the connection between yazoo county, mississippi, and d. C. Came from. It tells us why the chews were in washington, d. C. And it tells us how he died. This is an interesting component. It corroborates what james is saying, this formally enslaved person is saying. It also gives details about angelicas life, her migrations, how she is moving around the country or parts of the country at this moment. And then, i am about to have a super nerdy moment. I found angelica chews fathers will. For those into genealogy this is archival gold. It underscored not simply the parental relationships between parents and daughters, and the ways their inheritance practices insured white women who received enslaved people would beat deeply and profoundly invested in the institution and its Perfect Choice and and its perpetuation. An evening continuing to invest economically in the institution by buying and selling enslaved people after they received inheritance such as this. But it also shows how they were able to maintain control over and exercise control over the enslaved people they inherited. So how does it do that . In this yellow box what it says, i will read it to you. Having made gifts by way of advancement to my dear daughter, angelica chew, and designed to make my dear daughter emmas share of my stay proportionate with her sisters share, i give and bequeath to my dear wife annemarie misko, in trust for the sole and separate use of our said daughter emme, the following servants. Then he describes the servants that emma will receive. So whys this important and why did i get excited about this . It tells us that angelica during her life, before her father died, he gave her a portion of his estate. That is important for me. And import for us to understand. When we think about slavery sometimes we think about inheritances, we often think that happens just when a person dies. And that when they leave a particular heriir property in their will. This shows and it is the argument im making in the book, slaveowners did not just leave their daughters enslaved people or property in their well. They gave them enslaved people over the course of their lives, even in their infancy. As birthday gifts, as christmas presents, and especially as wedding gifts. It would often give a group of enslaved people upon notification that they were going to get married. So they would typically have a ritual at the recital, the reception. During the reception, they would line up the enslaved people and there would be an announcement made at the wedding reception. That essentially granted that the wife and daughter, the newlywed daughter, her wedding present, which would involve a group, would entail a group of enslaved people. So what George Washington bridges go is saying is that he already gave angelica her share. And that likely means she received those enslaved people at the time of her wedding, or some time over the course of after she got married. Ok, so that is one thing that is really important that it shows. It also reflects come as historians and genealogists, that we can look elsewhere, to make these connections. That wills are important. But they are not the endall and beall to understanding property bequests and property transfers between white southerners or any folks that had the ability to own property and to transfer that property to someone else. It also shows an important legal clause that many slaveholding parents built into their wills, as we see here, but in trust estates. So these would be like trust funds established for wealthy folks these days. So we are familiar with trust funds. What slave owning parents would often do is, if they gave their daughters property before they married, or before they died. In their wills, like we see here. They would do so by creating a trust. And they would put that property in the trust, appoint a trustee. Sometimes it would be the husband or the father or a male family member. Sometimes it would be a woman as you see here. George appoint his wife as emmas trustee. He creates a separate trust estate, a separate trust fund for emma. And he puts her in charge of that estate, that property, until she comes of age. He states here the underlined clause. He puts in that really important clause, in trust for the sole and separate use of our said daughter, emme. This has such power in a legal context. What it is making clear, is that George Washington did not want emmas future husband to have any control over the property that he was giving to emma. And so, by saying in trust for the sole and separate use of emma he is telling her husband, ha ha, you thought you were going to get your hands on this property but no. Slaveowning parents and their daughters are working together before they get to the point in which women might be fearful that their husbands might dispose of their property in ways that they do not agree with. You also might wonder why that is necessary and some of you may know that when a woman is, single or widowed woman got married or remarried and this time, there was a legal doctrine referred to as coverture. This essentially says that upon marriage, any of the property that those women brought into marriage, any property they might acquire after marriage, either by inheritance or by purchase, would automatically become her husbands. After marriage she was not able to enter into contracts in her own name or to create a business in her own name or to go into court and sue on her own behalf. So this particular clause circumvents some of those constraints. It circumvents the property and wealth constraint. So it allows emme to maintain control of any property she brings into the marriage in order to continue to own property after the marriage, she wouldve had to have this will entered into the court and authorized or recognized by the courts and authenticated by the court. This is something he certainly did because we have the record here. If we did not it probably would be in a private paper and we would not know it existed. So this is an important way that slaveowning parent ensured their daughters would not be at the will of husbands that may not have their best interest in mind. But also how they were able to continue to secure ownership over enslaved people and maintain control over them, even when the law on the books looks like they should not have that ability, and have that power and control. So this is one of those documents that got me really excited. I was also able to find this extraordinary document. At the beginning of my comments, during the introduction, you are told about the washington, d. C. , emancipation act. On april 16, 1862, washington dc passed the emancipation act which provided compensation for any slaveholders willing to accept the abolitionof the emancipation of enslaved people in the district. If they were willing to do that and then submit an application for compensation, listing the enslaved people they were claiming as their own, they could receive a sum of money from the federal government to pay them for the enslaved peoples they owned and were willing to allow to be free and emancipated. This is angelica chews application for compensation after emancipation. It shows exactly those details that cooperate some of the saint corroborate some of the same details James Skinner provided in his lost friend add. Advertisement. In the yellow box on the left, it shows the names of and and biscoe, angelicas mother and angelicas name as well. As well as emmas name. It goes back to the will and James Skinners it lists James Skinner and some of his siblings as well as his mother in the yellow box. He states that in his. These are some of the ways i operated as i wrote this book. Using these interesting and seemingly disconnected fragments of information that were provided in those ads. I was able to dig a little deeper and find all of these other archival documents that were out there. Legal documents, obituaries, newspapers they were advertised and, as well as civil war era financial documents. What i think is interesting is it was not just people we are talking about. There was a host of other individuals who were slave owners. The federal government did in fact document white women as slaveowners in the census. In 1840, the business looks very different. The census looks very much let very much like a patriarchal household that we envision in the 19th century. It documented and identified by name the male head of household. The female head of household might be a widow. All the other inhabitants in that household, they would simply be checked off. Women, white women, various ages. They had to check all of these little boxes. But they would not identify individuals by name. You could not tell who owned property in that household. It just kind of bunched all of the other residents in the household together. People thought it was important. They said, we have all of these other enslaved people in the country. It might be important to know how many there are. Firstly, they did not name enslaved people in these censuses. But they did start to name people by household. They started to enumerate slaveholding throughout the nation. This is a page from the tennessee census reflecting the slaveholding. It identifies the person who owns the slave for the very first time. You are seeing this at the federal level. It enumerates the total number of enslaved people that she is claiming as her own. You can see she had a pretty sizable slaveholding. The typical slave owner owned 10 slaves or less. Women usually owned five or less. She owned a few more than 10. This makes it possible for people to be able to say, not that there were slave owning women but that they could tell us just how many there might have been. To provide concrete numbers for those who are hungry for numbers. I have been able to show that in some regions women might have compromise 60 of slaveholders. I have begun to piece together the details that are important was to know. In particular, how these women are not just in the institution of slavery. But also the racially divided characterization of our nation. That was at the state level. On the one hand, i talked about the legal action. How the law said women should not have the ability to own property. At the same time, you have state laws like this one from missouri that identify women as slaveowners. This law is reflective of what they call black codes. These are laws that pertain to the indirect actions of enslaved people. And also free black people who would constitute the minority in this period. There are constant references to not belonging to him or her. The laws on the books in this moment are not simply saying this woman may exercise a kind of power in her husbands sted or if there are no men around. The law is saying, she is empowered. She is emboldened by the law to engage with people in this way. To behave in these particular ways. It recognizes that the law holds the slaveowning women accountable for peoples misdeeds. That is huge. What is interesting is that the city level, cities like new orleans, they need labor. Slaveowning women have them. They would often contract with slaveowning women to work on public works. Here what you see is a receipt that was issued to the city of new orleans. She received money for the labor. This document probably looks funky. But what it shows is the way in which municipal officials recognize women as slaveowners. This is characterized by a vibrant, small mercantile culture. There are all these peddlers. They immersed you in all kinds of products and things in the city. The city is finding out who all of these merchants are. They need to know who needs a license. This is a page out of that censes. She is operating in an oyster restaurant. Not far from her, there are two slave traders. One is quite notorious for his engagement in the slave trade. There is the idea that the slave market as a vice. This reflects that this kind of commerce, the purchase of people, was essential to the commercial district in new orleans. There is no way that women could avoid slave markets. Even if they were offering their goods and services to those invested in the slave trade. This was a newspaper advertisement from a local jailer. When an enslaved person ran away and was captured, people would take those captured people to the local jailer and the local jailer would then interrogate that slave. They would take that information and posted in a newspaper. They would say this person belongs to you. Come down to the jail and bring proof of ownership and you can take them away. In this advertisement, there was an enslaved man who ran away and a local jailer identified a female owner. These are all the ways that at the municipal level and federal level, you see people identify as invested in the institution of slavery. What you see here is a slave traders account book. When they purchase enslaved people, they would identify the person sometimes by name. Sometimes by age. They would say how much they paid for that person. And who they sold that person to and for what amount. This page reflects the fact that he sold enslaved people to the same woman. It reflects the profit margin for the enslaved people. When those sales were finalized, places like South Carolina had preprinted bills of sale. This sounds like a very small amount. There is a website you can use to measure worth. It will calculate how much purchasing power that amount of money would have purchased or sold for today. That is a small amount back then. This receipt reflects the fact that women owned enslaved people and engaged in the selling and purchasing of enslaved people. This reflects that they did do so on a weekly basis. What is interesting about this, is there was a man. There is part of a highway in new orleans named after this guy. He is trying to find lucy. He identifies three of lucys previous owners. This allows us to see the violence of the market. The way in which enslaved people were passed from person to person. But how white womer were complicit and involved in creating this separation. During the civil war, at the confederacy, they needed fortifications. They would often impress enslaved people from local slaveowners to commandeer that work. They would not do it without paying them. They would keep track of the payments they issued to the slaveholder. This is what we called a slave payroll. There are thousands of these in the National Archives. What it showed is that women were listed among the slaveholders here. One of the things that is really interesting is how many are there. It is difficult to come to a precise want to see. The fact that she is listed makes it sometimes difficult to know the complete number of enslaved people. Were only identified by initials. Makes it difficut to have a concrete number. It is just a hiccup along the way. Even into the civil war, you see that slaveowning women are hunting down enslaved people. Even though the jig is up. They are still hunting down enslaved people. This is what i hope the book does. It takes a picture. You can find this image in hundreds of books. If not thousands. Rarely is anyone interested in what i highlight here. There are many women and children who are at the auction. This may be based on fact or not. Women were everywhere. They were hiding in plain sight. This gives you a closer perspective. Thank you so much