Courtship and love among the enslaved in North Carolina

cover image

Where to find it

Davis Library (5th floor)

Call Number
E445.N8 F73 2007
Status
Available

North Carolina Collection (Wilson Library)

Call Number
C326.1 F842c
Note
Dustjacket.
Call Number
C326.1 F842c
Status
In-Library Use Only
Item Note
Dustjacket.

Stone Center Library

Call Number
E445.N8 F73 2007 c. 3
Status
Available

Undergrad Library

Call Number
E445.N8 F73 2007 c. 2
Status
Available

Authors, etc.

Names:

Summary

Through an examination of various couples who were forced to live in slavery, Rebecca J. Fraser argues that slaves found ways to conduct successful courting relationships. In its focus on the processes of courtship among the enslaved, this study offers further insight into the meanings that structured intimate lives.

Establishing their courtships, often across plantations, the enslaved men and women of antebellum North Carolina worked within and around the slave system to create and maintain meaningful personal relationships that were both of and apart from the world of the plantation. They claimed the right to participate in the social events of courtship and, in the process, challenged and disrupted the southern social order in discreet and covert acts of defiance.

Informed by feminist conceptions of gender, sexuality, power, and resistance, the study argues that the courting relationship afforded the enslaved a significant social space through which they could cultivate alternative identities to those which were imposed upon them in the context of their daily working lives.

Contents

  • Acknowledgments p. ix
  • Introduction p. 3
  • 1 "Love Seems with Them More to be an Eager Desire": Racialized Stereotypes in the Slaveholding South p. 22
  • 2 Asking Master Mack to Court: Competing Spheres of Influence p. 32
  • 3 Getting Out to Play and Courting All They Pleased: The Social and Temporal Geographies of Enslaved Courtship p. 52
  • 4 Taking a Whipping for Lily: Courtship as a Narrative of Resistance p. 69
  • 5 A Red Satin Ribbon Tied around My Finger: The Meaning of the Wedding Ceremony p. 88
  • Conclusion p. 101
  • Notes p. 105
  • Bibliography p. 123
  • Index p. 133

Other details