Monday, December 20, 2010

Mistreatment of Woman

Women during slavery had to take care of their children and had to face punishment. They also lived with the threat of being sexually abused or raped by their owners. Among the entire punishments woman faced during slavery, whippings were the most common. The wips were made of plaited cow skin. 
Woman would run away trying to protest whippings or also to escape from being mistreated.  Their job wasn’t different from the men. They both did equally difficult work; woman worked in the fields with the men. However pregnant women and nursing mothers were given lighter work called “trash gang”, which consisted of pregnant, nursing and elderly women.  Woman that will confront their masters were punished severely if not by death their hand would be amputated. They were hung from trees and burnt with fire as they swing them.  A form of domestic punishment women faced was to have the domestics kneel with their bare knees on pebbles and work.  They lived their lives threatened to being rape, the mistreatment from the planters were sick mentality and showed immense hatred towards the blacks. The females slave misery continued for a long time, with no hopes of ever ending.

http://scholar.library.miami.edu/slaves/womens_resistance/individual_essays/harmony.html