Women of Violence: Challenging Perceptions of Enslaved Women's Resistance in the Antebellum United States, 1815-1861

This thesis will investigate the utilisation of violence by enslaved women in the Antebellum South as a form of resistance between 1815-1861. Southern plantations became sites of significant conflict between white planters and their enslaved property, as enslaved communities opposed and resisted their enslavement in a variety of ways. The majority of historians have analysed black testimonies to uncover the breadth of violence inflicted upon women, however few have examined the nature and scope of violence utilised by bondswomen themselves against slavery. Furthermore, leading scholars such as William Dusinberre and Deborah Gray White have typically identified resistance tactics which incorporated violence as a gendered form of resistance almost exclusively undertaken by men. In contrast, female slaves have been perceived to be perpetrators of non-violent resistance who conformed to the utilisation of indirect, subtle forms of dissidence. Cases of female inflicted violence have thus been viewed to be sporadic and uncommon despite evidence that enslaved women frequently rejected slaveholder dominion through violence.