Abstract

Women have long been negatively stereotyped in every society usually portrayed as submissive and passive In the case of the black women in the slavery context the conception of them by their male compatriots as well as the white master is dual a working animal to do every chore in the household in the one hand and an object for the master s sexual appetite in the other hand Scholars in Amer ican slavery have grappled with the question of gender differences among slaves in the Americas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Whereas some scholars hold that both male and female slaves were assigned different roles feminist scholars hold that enslaved women labored no less than enslaved men They observed that unlike white women female slaves performed the same roles as men slaves The present research work reveals and analyses the experiences and contributions of slave women in the global American slavery system As such the focus is on themes that especially concern female slaves these include motherhood companionship marriage work on plantations and punishment Central in this study is how those female Blacks experienced slavery in America and how they help build the American economy in that period Some famous female slave writers such as Harriet Ann Jacobs Sojourner Truth and Mary Prince have worked on the issue Their narratives provide precise information about slaves living conditions dur ing slavery emphasizing o n female slave ordeal