Sleeve owners in some regions, shes the author of they were her property, white women and sleeve owners and the american south. This event was hosted by the American Archives in 2019. Question exceptions about history gives us a fresh understanding of our past. Digging into primary sources helps us to uncover and listen to the voices of those who usually havent been heard. Todays guest and author, stephanie, rodgers has done this in her new book. They were, property sleeve owners in the american south. She uses a impressive assortment of records to piece together the stories of the sleep holders. And the enslaved. Oral histories of former inslee, people newspaper advertisements, sales records, legal documents, were records and. More two years ago here at the National Archives we displayed the d. C. Emancipation act which ended slavery in this district of columbia in 1862. Among the records generated as a result of this law you will find several references to women owners, teresas awful and elizabeth wrinkled, for example, such compensation for their freed slaves. They claim that hearing goodman, the former sister, was over 1500 dollars. They were her property has received a number of highly favorable reviews, recommending calls it a sitting nubuck. Harry from the New York Times calls it a corrective that examines how historians had misunderstood and misrepresented with women as reluctant actors. In the washington post, Elizabeth Baron writes hes provided a Innovative Analysis of African American slavery, one that sets scholarship on the subject. Stephanie Jones Rodgers as associate professor of history at the university of california berkeley. Where she specializes an African American history, womens and gender, history and the history of american slavery. They were her property is based on her revised dissertation, which when the organization of american historians learners scott prize for the best doctoral dissertation in u. S. History in 2013. Please welcome, stephanie jonesrogers. Thank you so much for the invitation and the introduction, david. Thank you all for coming this afternoon and spending your lunch time with me. Its truly a pleasure to be here with you today. This is james red path. In 1859, after touring the antebellum south, he attempted to explain for his readers why white southern women opposed southern emancipation. He believed that their sentiments were tied to a lifetime of indoctrination, reared as they were under the shadow of the peculiar institution. Slavery was, quote, incessantly priced and defended, and quote. Virtually every where these women went by everyone the new, and in most of the publications that they read. Their conscience is were easily perverted, redpath argued, whenever afterwards appeal to. With the result that they saw no reason to change their views, redpath assume that white southern women did not know me grow slavery as it is because their societies shielded them from the institutions horrific realities. Insulated by southern patriarchs, he argued, white will men saddam sought slaverys most of noxious features, and quote. They, quote, never attend auctions, and quote. Never witnessed what were called examinations. Seldom if ever saw, quote, them lashed, and quote. More profoundly, they did not know that the interstate slave trade insulates was a gigantic commerce. Southern men revealed only the south side view of slavery redpath surmised. If the women of the south new slavery as it is, he was convinced they would join in the protests against it. Red path redpaths assumptions reflect a white help patriarchal view. Yet sources, legal documentation and correspondents make it clear that white southern women knew the most of not just features of slavery all too well. Slave owning women were not only witness to 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, we might think that white women were invisible in southern slave markets. They are most 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 distanced from the horrors of the market. From the sales, but also from the traumatic separations that came after those sales were finalized. We might think that white women and their children were merely passive observers of all this. And more profoundly, that they were powerless to stop these horrors and dramatic 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 in enslaved person was sold away from their family. Highlighted in the yellow box towards the lefthand side of the image, you can see a white woman and a child distanced from that separation. Distanced from that horror and trauma. Separated from and indirectly kind of witness to, but experiencing that, but not directly implicated iny the violence in the trauma of the market. But this is not how enslaved and formerly enslaved people remembered things at all. First, they made it clear that white southern womens economic relationships to slavery began in childhood. And in some cases, during infancy. Not just in adulthood. Fillmore hancock, for example, told his interviewer that his grandmother, quote, was given to the misses as her own on the day she was born. Remarkably, film or hancock recalled that old mrs. Was only one year old then. So his mother was given to her mistress when she was only one year old. Enslaved people and formerly enslaved people talked about the lifelong process of socialization by which white girls came to understand themselves as markedly different than enslaved people. The rituals that drove this point home for enslaved and white people alike. It was also made clear they had the power to claim other African Americans as their property when they selected specific enslaved children to serve them. When betty convert was born, for example, her masters daughter l it was only a little girl, but she nevertheless claimed betty cough or as her slave shortly after betty was born. They play together and grew up together, but he recalled,. Vengefully, betty became ellis personal servant, weighing on her, standing behind her charging mealtimes and sleeping beside her on the bedroom floor. More profoundly, formerly enslaved people tell us that this process of socialization was effective. White girls often make claims of ownership in their conversations with enslaved people. A formerly enslaved woman named melinda recalled her young mistress would frequently tell her, when i get big and get married to a prince, you will come to me and attend all of my children. When her mistrust did in fact mary, she took melinda with her as part of their news household. As southern girls, young white women fought about how enslaved people would fit into their lives, not just his playmates or companions, but as property. When they were old enough, they turned their imaginings into reality. Formerly is laypeople remarked on how this process of socialization also involved lessons about slave management and discipline. What we would typically refer to as slave mastery. Nancy thomas recalled she was the special little girl for her mistress daughter. Even during days, she would so and knit. Nancy went on to say how she had a little three legged stool and would set it between the legs while she was sitting down. Then, polonia would watch her when she needed. If she did something wrong, polonia would pinch her ear a little and say you dropped a stitch, many. As the testimony shows, polonia smith was what i referred 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. Serving as the metaphorical flies on the walls of southern households, formerly enslaved people talked about some of the most violent, traumatic and intimate dimensions of life for those who were bound and those who were free. They heard and saw things that typically remained obscured from view. Details that white slave owning couples often left out of their personal correspondence or public communications. That is when they were able to write it all. Many of these labeling 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. Enslavement formerly and slave peoples recollections about their female owners thus service some of the only archival records about these women to survive. This book takes its cue from formerly 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 peoples whose lives were forever changed when a mistress sold someone just so that she could buy a new dress. They were best equipped to describe the agony that shook their bodies and souls when they return from their errands to discover that their children were gone and their mistresses were counting positive money they had received from the slave traders who bought them. Only enslaved people could speak about their female owners profound economic contributions to their continued enslavement with such astonishing precision. So what did formerly enslaved people have to say about white females economic relationships to the institution of slavery . Formerly insulate peoples interviews offer insight into the most intimate workings of white households. Formerly enslaved people like mary edwards, the you see pictured here for example, tell us that in some households, breastfeeding constituted another form of labor that slave owners required in slave women to perform. For warren taylors mother, for example, nursing white children was one of her primary jobs. But for enslaved mothers like mary edwards, nursing white children was the only work they perform during slavery. These recollections make it clear that white mothers did not simply use enslaved mothers to breast feed their children because of physiological ailments that resulted in inadequate milk supply and inability to produce milk at all, or as a last resort. They rather compelled enslaved mothers to perform this labor in some households. In order for enslaved women to serve in this capacity consistently, they also had to give birth, or at the very least lactate on a routine basis. Whats often remains unexplored is what led to these constant conceptions in the first place. While enslaved women performed the most arduous forms of labor in their own owners fields and in their households, they also had to conceive, carry a pregnancy to full term, give birth and lactate in order to serve as witnesses in the first place. Sources suggest this is precisely what happened. Some of the enslaved womens children were undoubtedly conceived within relationships of love, but others were undoubtedly the result of sexual assault. So how widespread was this phenomenon . Widespread enough that eight niche market, a very small corner, but nevertheless a significant corner of the slave market emerged in order to fulfill white mothers demands for enslaved white nurses. Wet nurses. The market in enslaved nurses was primarily a hiring one. But these ads reveal that some of the enslaved women and mothers were offered for sale and that their capacity to serve as witnesses was a selling point. So these are just three examples of some of the newspaper advertisements that i collected as part of my research for this book. It reflects a number of things. One, white mothers were creating such a demand for enslaved mothers services and labor as wet nurses, that they were not only putting these ads in southern newspapers, but would also becomes clear is that white women were also some of the individuals who were supplying these white is witnesses that they were seeking. Here, these three are examples a enslaved wet nurses seeking and slaved witnesses either for purchase or for higher. What i also found was there was an important intersection in connection between the market ing of enslaved witnesses and the slave market proper. So most of the men and individuals who were offering enslaved women for sale to serve in this capacity were also slave traders who made their living by buying and selling enslaved people. In addition to that, we attend very closely to what enslaved and formerly enslaved people had to say about white womens economic investments in slavery. It becomes clear that 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 that they belong to white women, they meant belonged to by law. Sally nightingale own Alice Marshall and her mother, for example. Marshall claim that her mistresses husband had nothing to do with her and her mother because they belong to the misses by law and not her husband. So what you see here is what is referred to as a lost friends and. Also, they were typically referred to as information wanted ants. These are very unique in large part because they emerge right as the civil war is coming to in and, and also in the years following the civil war. What do they reflect is formerly enslaved peoples attempts to reconstitute their families. So all of those individuals who belong to their families and communities that had been sold away from them, that they wanted to reconnect with. Family members who had children and mothers and fathers, and even brothers and uncles who they had lost contact with because of sale and separation. They placed these ads in order to try to reconnect with those individuals. To find those people and reconstitute there is families. So these advertisements also show more than simply their attempts to reconnect with their families, but they also show how those separations occurred in the first place. And they highlight, many of them highlight the owners who are responsible not simply for their sale, but their separation. Here what i am showing is an advertisement placed by caroline mason, seeking information about her family members. So what she says here is that she was owned by that seem mason woman, and was told by her as well. So she doesnt simply say that she inadvertently was sold by some man that was related to her, she identifies betsy as her legal owner, but also the person who is ultimately responsible for the separations that occurred after the sales took place. When this is another advertisement that was a little bit farther, more deeper, it shows more complex elements or dimensions of slavery. The advertisement highlight several things. Not simply about white sleeve owning women and their families but also their business practices. So he not only identifies his female owner in this advertisement. He also describes the conflicts within her family over her property, and Property Rights. He argues or he tells us that the owners grandson stole his mothers sibling. So grandson and grandmother. Hes not willing to recognize the kind of in viability of elise stokes is Property Rights in this particular case. But he also tells us is that while elise stokes help legal title to him while she was his own, or she would hire him out so he refers to this process of hiring out as living with him at the time. So 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 also talks about e. L. I. S. A. S business practices, she would hire him out, and then receive his wages in return for the labor that he performed for jensen in this particular case. And here, these sources really get at some of the more complex dimensions of slavery that often do not enter into kind of popular understanding of the institution, of the ways in which inslee people were passed between people, how separations occurred, etc. Here would guy smith is telling us is that he and his wife were separated from their children. And that his children were drawn. Refers to a process of being drawn by different members of his owners family. Some of whom were women. But in doing so, he also talks about the Legal Process by which the separations took place. He does not use all of the terms that we would think to look for. It but he very plainly tells us, that while the separations of family members didnt take place in the slave market, they nonetheless brought about the same kind of dramatic severances from loved ones. He tells us this process of being drawn and falling to someone, refers to the process that happens during and the state, the administration of a deceased person state in this particular context. So his owner dies. And then after that owner died, all of his property was then, they would in fact have a. Drawing very much like a lottery. So they would put the names of the individual errors into a bag or a hat. And that individual air, the knee would also be written by a group of asleep people or that person would draw. So they would draw either need out of a hat and that person would beat received, or they would draw out a piece of paper that had this list of property that they would receive. There were a variety of ways that this ritual took place. They literally did in fact, draw enslaved people as part of this state Estate Division process. That is what guy is referring to here. This is not simply something that enslaved people talked about in terms that are not necessarily proper legal ease. But these recollections also reflected in documents that appear in archival collections throughout the south. But you see here is a hand written document that shows exactly what guy smith is referring to, and a state division and which it lists the individual and slip people, who are a part of that deceased persons estate. It also shows the ages of those enslaved people. It shows the valleys. The estimated values of those enslaved people. Towards the bottom, the very bottom of the document, it shows which heirs drew which inslee people. What i thought was really remarkable about this document in relationship to what guy shows in his lost friends ad, is that Elizabeth Henri, in the top line there, Elizabeth Henri drew more enslaved people than the other air, Richard Henry did. Why is this important . I showed in the book, colonial historians, historians who look at history in the colonial period, have shown that sleeve owning parents would typically give their daughter more slugs than any other form of property. They would give them property. And they would give them money. And in some cases i have seen stocks and bonds given two daughters. But they would often give their daughters for more asleep people that other forms of property, particularly. Land and they would get their suns 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 theyre going to be living. I see the same thing happened in the 19th century. You see similar, patterns were sleep holding parents would give their daughters more enslaved people than land. This is reflective of the fact that even if richard did not receive land, you could actually see that kind of inheritance practice play out here in this document, by showing that she received, elizabeth received more slaves than the other heir which might suggest that he received land in addition to receiving those enslaved people. So i think these sources are really important to showing the process by which i wrote the book. I centered and for granted the experiences, the accounts, and reflections of formerly enslaved people, in order to lead me in more conductive directions, in additional directions and relationship to the. Sources by looking at fragments of information, data, for the scientists in the room or mathematically inclined folks in the room. By using the data that formally enslaved people provided, i was able to piece together some of the details of the lives of the female owners that they identify. And so this is a really important, or a really interesting example of that process for me. So James Skinner was the reverend who lived in yasmine county, mississippi. Another 20, 1870, nine he placed this lost friends ad in the southwestern question advocate, he was looking for his brother, edward. The last time john had seen edward was on october 12th, 1860, in georgetown. And in the district of columbia, right where we are today. Not long after the feathers crossed paths that, john and his family were forced to leave edward behind, when their owner did with historians and individuals at the time referred to as pink refugee. His own a refugee them to mississippi, and compel them to leave the district, and leave edward behind. When youre after john placed his first lost friends advertisement, he still had not found edward. He placed another. As time offered more detail. So each of these advertisements meet one point clear. And a look at, you but you can see, here he spells her name different in both advertisements, nonetheless, he identifies angelica as the woman who owned him and his family, who orchestrated the separation of yet that process a refugee. And and that she was the reason that he and his family were still searching for edward. It was difficult for me to find angelica in large part because of the variations in spelling, in the ways in which he refers to her in these advertisements. As you can see in this first advertisement in the yellow box to the left, he refers to her as an to, and the widow of frisbee, with a ph. As a judge that. Down whats going on here. You can see he refers to her as he angela low chiu, i said i know in this period and even today when a woman is married or without she maybe refer to as mrs. But by her husband first and last name. So angela oh chiu . Whats going on. I was looking at the records and i was like we know that he was in yasmine, mississippi, he was in georgetown. We know that this womans last name is chiu either spelled with a e or u will figure it out. Nevertheless its a wonderful resource where you can find extraordinary archival documents, like the National Archives has available on site. Here so is able to find frisbee. There he. Is i found him. I found until it has husband. His obituary in this newspaper. Obituaries are very interesting. Even though they are macabre, very dark, depressing pieces of archival fragments if you want to call it that, nevertheless, they often give these very rich descriptions of these peoples lives, of the deceased persons life. And you can really see migrations. You can see all kinds of things. That is what is apparent in his obituary. So it tells us that yes. He was married to misses chiu. He doesnt refer to her by name, as he was in 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 that he had been appointed to a governmental position, and it would explain and cooperate with james connor was talking, about placing him and edward and his family in washington d. C. Also why they were in d. C. And the connection between yes county, mississippi, and d. C. Came from. It tells us why the family was in d. C. , and how the family died. So this is a really interesting component because again it corroborates wet jean to. Saying this formerly asleep 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 on you. Then i found angelica chiu wells, for those who are into genealogy, for those into any kind of history, know that this is archival gold. So for me it was really important again because it underscored these kind of parental relationships between parents and daughters. And the ways in which their inheritance practices almost ensured that white women who received inslee people would be deeply and profoundly invested and institution and its perpetuation. And even and continue to invest economically in the institution by buying it selling these people after they received inheritance such as this one. But it also shows how they were able to maintain control over, and exercise control over the inslee people that they inherited. So how does it do that . In this yellow box, with it, says i will just read it to you. There is, not i think immediately, apparent to a lot of you what it says. It says, im going to say it in what i would imagine washington disco would send look at these moments. Having made my way of advancement to my dear daughter, and desiring to make my dear daughter, emma, share of my state proportion, with her sister share, i give to my dear wife and murray miss go, interest for the sole and separate use of our said daughter emma. The follow servants. Why is this important . Why did i get excited about it . What it tells us is that angelica sometime during the rest of her life, before her father died, he gave her a portion of his estate. Thats important for me and important for us to understand in large part because when we think about slavery sometimes, we think about inheritances, we often think that happens just when a person dies. That when they leave a particular air property in their wheel. With this shows, and this is an argument i make in the book, its that sleigh voting parents did not just leave their daughters enslaved people as their property in their wills. They gave them enslaved people over the course of their lives, even from infancy, as birthday gifts, as christmas presents and especially as wedding gifts. They would often give them a group of enslaved people, as i mentioned earlier, upon notification that they were going to get married. They would typically have a ritual at the reception. At the reception, they would essentially lineup the enslaved people and then there would be a kind of announcement made at the wedding reception. It essentially granted the wife, the daughter, the newlywed daughter, her wedding present. That would involve a group of enslaved people. With washington biscoe is saying here is that he already give gave angelica her share. That likely means she received those enslaved people at the time of her wedding or at some time over the course of after she got married. That is one thing that a really important thing that it shows. But it also reflects is, as historians ingenious adjusts, that we can look elsewhere to try to make these connections. That rules are important, but they are not the end all be all to understanding property transfers between white southerners, or any folks that had the ability to own property and to transfer that property to someone else. What it also shows is an important legal clause that many slave holding parents not only built into their wills as we see here, but also in trust estates. These would very much be like trust funds that are established for wealthy folks these days. So we are familiar with trust funds. Whats leoni parents would often do as well 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. They would put that property in a trust, appoint a trustee. It would sometimes be the husband, the father, or a family member, sometimes it was even a woman. As you see here, george appoints his wife as his daughters trustee. He creates a separate trust fund for emma and puts his wife in charge of that property until she comes of age. He states here the underlying clause, he puts in that really important clause. Interest for the sole and separate use of our said daughter emma. This has such power in a legal context because what it says, 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. So by saying interest for the sole and separate use of emma, he is essentially telling her husband you thought you were going to get your grubby hands on this property, but no. So slave holding 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 be wondering why that would be necessary. Some of you may know that when a woman, a single woman or a widow woman, got married or remarried in this period, there was a legal doctrine which essentially said that upon marriage, any of the property that those woman brought into marriage, any property that they might acquire after marriage either by inheritance or by purchase, would automatically become her husbands. After that point after marriage, she wasnt able to enter into contracts in her own name, to create a business in her own name and to go into court and sue on her own behalf. So what this particular cause does is it circumvents some of those constraints. Its circumvents the property and wept constraint. It essentially allows for emma to maintain control of any property that she brings into the marriage in order to continue to own property after the marriage. She he would have to have this will entered into the court and authorized or recognized by the courts. Authenticated by the courts. That is something that he certainly did because we have the record here. If we didnt, it would probably be in some private paper and we would not know it existed. So this is a really important way, not only that slave owning parents and sure their daughters would not be at the wheel of husbands that might not have their best interests in mind, but also how they were able to continue to secure ownership over enslaved people and to 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. This is one of those documents that gets me really excited. I was also able to find this extraordinary document. At the beginning of my comments, actually during the introduction, you were told about the d. C. Emancipation act. On april 16th, 1862, d. C. Did in fact past the emancipation act which provided compensation for any slave holders that were willing to accept the abolition of enslaved people in the district. If they were willing to do that and then submit an application for compensation listing can slip people they were claiming as their own, they could in fact receive a sum of money from the federal government to pay them for the enslaved people that they owned and that they were willing to allowed to be free and emancipated. This is angelicas emancipation application for compensation. Would it also shows is exactly some of the details that corroborate some of the same details that James Skinner provided in his and. In the yellow box on the left, it shows the names of biscoe, angelica animas name. It goes back to the will and goes back in some ways to James Connors information that he details in those advertisements. But it lists James Skinner and some of his siblings as well as his mother in the yellow box. At that time, their surname was gray. He states in his lost friends and. So these are some of the ways that i operate as i wrote this book. Using those really interesting in seemingly disconnected fragments of information that james provided in those lost friends ads, i was able to dig a little deeper and find all of these other archival documents that were elsewhere. Legal documents, obituaries, newspaper advertisements, as well as civil war era financial documents. Those corroborate some of the information that james was telling us, but also tracing and trying to reconstruct some details of angelicas life as well. So what i think is also interesting is that it wasnt just formerly enslaved people that we are talking about that were talking about white womens economic investments in this institution. There was a host of other individuals and ended to tease that similarly described or documented white slave Holding Womens investment in the institution. At the very top, the federal government did in fact document white womens slave ownership in the census. Its what is interesting about the census, which you have ample access to, is that in 1840, the census looks very different than 1850 and 1860. In 1840, the census looks very much like the patriarchal household that we envision in the 19th century. It documented and identified by name simply the male head of household. If there was a female head of household because she might be a widow, it would identify that individual by name. Then all of the other inhabitants in that household, all the other residents would simply be checked off under these categories. Women, white women aged zero to 12. Then they would check off all these other boxes and enumerate individuals. But they would not name them. They would not identify them by name. So you could not tell who owned property in that household or whether women owned enslaved people in that household. It bunch them altogether. But in 1850, people thought i suppose was important that it was important. We have all these and slay People Living in the country. It would probably be good to know how many people there are. They started to count them. Unfortunately, they did not name enslaved people in the 1850 census and in the 1860 census. What they start to do is name the residents of white households, identifying them by name whether they were male or female, so we can gather that information. But they also started to enumerate individual Slave Holdings throughout the nation. So what you see here is a page out of the tennessee census reflecting the slave holding of mrs. Sarah rhodes. It identifies the person who owns the slaves for the very first time. Youre seeing this at the federal level anyway. Then it enumerates the total number of enslaved people that she is claiming as her own. So you can see she had a pretty sizeable slave holding. This number is pretty typical atypical. The typical slave holder was not the person who owned 1000 slaves. They were actively slave holders that owned thousands of slaves, particularly in louisiana. The typical slaveowners owned ten enslaved people or less. Women typically owned five or less. So these women i talk about in the book are in fact part of the majority of slave holders. They were admittedly a small number of southerners. Im not arguing in any way in this book or at this top that slave owners were all southerners. There were a small percentage of all southerners, but women were among the majority of slave holders. That means they typically owned ten enslaved people are less. Sarah owns a few more than ten. Shes right on the edge of becoming what would be considered an elite slave holder here. This makes it possible now to be able to say not simply that there were slave only women, but to actually kill us how many there may have been to provide calculations, concrete numbers for those who are hungry for numbers. Some historians are really hungry for numbers. And so by looking at census data ive been looking at census data for several years now in collecting it and looking specifically at the slave Holding Women in the census data. I have been able to show that in some regions, women may have constituted up to 40 of slave holders. Prior estimates place them a 10 . So by looking at the rich sources, some of which are available here like the census information, im able to start to piece together some of the kind of details that are really important for us to know as a nation. In particular, how these women are not simply invested economically in the institution of slavery, but also in a kind of racially divided social order that characterizes our nation and continues to shape our encounters with each other today. And at the state level. So that was at the federal level, but at the state level, what i thought was interesting is, on the one hand i talked about the legal doctrine of coverage or. I talked about how the law says that women shouldnt have the ability to own property after they get married. Exercising these [interpreter] to engage in these economic and legal activities. But at the same time, you had state laws like this one from missouri, that identify women and recognize white women as slave owners right in the laws. So this law is essentially reflective of what they call black codes. These were laws that were specifically pertaining to the actions of enslaved people and also free black people who would often constitute the minority in this period. What you see here is there are constant references to the mistress. Constant references to not belonging to him or her. Not to be her own, her plantation. So the laws on the books of our states in this moment are not simply saying this woman may exercise i certain kind of power in her husbands stated. Or, if there are no man around, the law is actually saying she is equally empowered. Equally emboldened by the law to engage with and interact with enslaved people in this way. To behave in these particular ways. It also recognizes that the law holds the sleigh boning women accountable for enslaved peoples misdeeds. That is huge. But the laws at the state level are recognizing the importance that womens ownership, but also their importance to maintaining a system of surveillance that keeps enslaved people in their place. What is also really interesting is at the city level, in cities like new orleans, they need laborers. Slave owning women have them. So they would often contract with slave only women, as they did with other slaveowners in the city, to work on public works. So here what you see is a receipt that was issued by the city of new orleans were for work on the public works. She received a dollar and 50 cents, which is a pretty significant amount for that period of time, for roses labor. So again, the cities are documenting the property ownership, the slave ownership of white women in the south. This document probably looks really funky to you guys from over there. What it shows is the ways in which the municipal officials recognize women a slave owners. So in new orleans, if youve never been i highly recommend it. Its an extraordinary city where its kind of characterized by this really a vibrant small mercantile culture. There are all of these peddlers or vendors that emerged shoe in all kinds of products and things in the city. White women were a part of that mercantile culture. So the city is really interested in finding out who all these merchants are. They are issuing licenses to these merchants. They want to know who needs a license. So they begin to create a census specifically of the merchants in the city. This is a page out of that census. When i see here is the first red arrow, thats madame harriet. Shes operating an oyster restaurant. Not far from her art to slave traders. One is quite matory us for his engagement in the slave trade. What this shows is that there are these ideas that the slave market was a vice. That it was put in a little dark corner of the city and you only went there like, you know, a red light district. People think of slave markets operating in red light districts, but that is not the case at all. With this reflects is that this kind of commerce, the slave trade, the purchase and sale of enslaved people with central to the commercial districts of new orleans and that women were parts of those commercial districts. So there was no way that women could avoid slave markets, even if they never bought a slave. They could not avoid in countering the slave market. In some cases, actually benefiting from the offering of goods and services to those individuals invested and involved in the slave trade. That is not how that was supposed to look. [laughs] so, i apologize for that. Essentially, so lets see. I can tell you what it was supposed to look like. This would have been a newspaper advertisement placed by a local jail or. When enslaved person ran away and was captured, people would take those captured runways to their local jailer and the local jailer within interrogate and its life person. He would ask them with their names were, where they came from and who owned them. They would take that information and posted in the newspaper. In there they would say this person says that they belong to you if you are the Rightful Owner of this person, come down to the jail, bring proof of ownership and then you can take him away. In this particular advertisement that you do not see, there was an enslaved man who ran away and a local jailer asked him who he belong to. He identified a female slave owner, a female owner in his advertisements. All of these ways at the municipal level, the federal level, the state level, the city level and on these individual levels, you see people identifying women as invested in the institution of slavery. So what you see here is a slave traders account book. When a slave trader, the meticulous ones, when they it purchased enslaved people, they would identify the enslaved person sometimes my name, most often not. They were identified by age. They would say how much they paid for that person and who they saw that person to and for what amount. This page out of john whites slave trade account book reflects the fact he sold enslaved people to the same woman four times. It reflects the profit margin for the enslaved people he sold to her as well. When those sales were finalized, places like South Carolina actually had preet printed bills of sale. These are very much like receipts that we received today when we buy something. And this particular case, Elizabeth Morrison sold an enslaved woman to a notorious South Carolina slave trader for 410 dollars. Again, it feels it sounds like a small amount, but theres a website you can use coal measuring worth. You can actually put in the amount of money at the individual was bought or sold four and it will calculate how much purchasing power that amount of money would have today. So using measuring worth to do that, i was able to calculate that 410 dollars would have been the equivalent of 13,600 dollars in 2018 money. It seems like a small amount today, but not back then. It was an extraordinary amount of money. So this receipt reflects the fact that women not only owned is lay people, but actually engaged in the selling in purchasing of enslaved people as well. And they did so while interacting with other slave traders. That is something other historian suggested they did not do on a regular basis. But looking at these kinds of documents reflects they did in fact do so on a regular basis. I think what is really interesting about this one here so, this man theres actually a highway named after this guy. Slay raised everywhere new orleans but nowhere at the same time. So this man is trying to hunt lucy down. Lucy run away from him and he is trying to find lucy. Whats really interesting is that he identifies three of lucys previous owners. So he says captain kelly owned her at one time, then mrs. Too good on her and then mrs. Clark on her. By doing so, he creates this chain of ownership that allows for us to see, not only the violence of the market in the ways in which and slay people were passed from person to person, but also the Important Role that white women played in that chain as well. The roles there locations on those chains, that they were in fact links. But also they were complicit and involved in creating the separation through the process of sale as well. You probably cannot see this very clearly from where you are, but during the civil war the confederacy needed fortifications to protect themselves, as did federal troops. They would often impress slaved and sleigh people to local slaveowners to come and do that work and get it done. They would not do it without paying them though. So they would keep track of the payments that they issued to the slave holders whose slaves had been empressed into constructing these fortifications. This is what was called the confederates like payroll, a document that is housed in the National Archives here. There are thousands and thousands of them. What it shows is that women were counted among the slave holders whose enslaved people were impressed by the confederacy, but also those who were paid for the work that those enslaved men typically did. You have a lies sims listed. So is her son. You had marry their. Lets see where i can take i can find the other one. When this also shows is that one of the things interesting that when people asking about the numbers they talk about how many are at their. I talk about the difficulties of coming to a precise quantity because of things like this. The fact that ella is listed not as ella but as he crosby makes it sometimes difficult to know the complete number of slave only women because of the fact they were often referred to only by their initials. So you are unable to identify whether they were women are not in some cases. That makes it difficult to come to a concrete number more broadly. Its just a hiccup along the way. Nevertheless, it shows women even into the civil war era are benefiting from the labor of enslaved people. Then even into the civil war era, you see that slave owning women are hunting down enslaved people. Even when you would think the jig is up, they are still hunting down enslaved people. So these are ultimately the kinds of documents that i used to construct the narrative that i tell. It after i kind of been working on this book for ten years, this is what i hope the book does. It takes a picture. You can find this image in hundreds of books, if not thousands of books, and rarely is anyone interested in what i highlight here, which is that there are many women and many children that are at the auction even though its a pictorial illustration that may be based on facts or not. Nevertheless, women were everywhere. They were hiding in plain sight. It just takes a little bit more closer perspective. A lens upon which to show their presence and their roles and their importance in the institution more broadly. So thank you so much everybody for listening and for being here