Blog Entry #2

           The second chapter titled, “Beyond the Limits of Decency: Women in Slavery,” from the book, Out of the House of Bondage, by Thaviolia Glymph was an extremely graphic and gruesome depiction of white mistresses attitudes and treatment of their household female slaves. Women perspectives are often excluded from history narratives, due to the patriarchal structure rooted in American society, yet this chapter drew from the narratives’ of female slaves in order to show both the lives of white and black women during the Antebellum and Revolutionary era in America. Unfortunately, both female groups were subordinate to male inferiority, yet mistresses – who maintained an upper hand just because of the color of their skin – were able to relay the battery from their husbands onto slave women. Within the plantation household, mistresses became known as the perpetual actors of violence against slaves, and were labeled as “brutal and sadistic” (Glymph 39). The narratives of female slaves, who were remembering slavery, consistently referenced the physical and psychological abuse their mistresses would utilize. The violence mistresses used ranged from “treats of hell for disobedience, verbal abuse, pinches and slaps, severe beatings, burnings, and murder” (Glymph 35). Also, they would use any form of weapon they could get their hands on against female slaves – “brooms, tongs, irions, shovels, and the cowhide whip” (Glymph 35). White mistresses where considered to be crueler toward slaves in the plantation households than the masters, which juxtaposed the conception of southern white womanliness. In the south, women were supposed to be lady-like, so mistresses acted on both their power and powerlessness to make them a place in the world of slavery, because “violent mistresses undermined patriarchal authority” (Glymph 46). Usually, the mistresses turned to violence as a form of punishment when a slave messed up a required assignment or would act out, but other times it was used as a way to show authority within the household. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, violence was a necessary tool to oppress and keep African Americans enslaved, and mistresses took advantage of their rights and created terror in order to give themselves power. The abuse female slaves received proved that the institution of slavery was made up of complex dynamics between both race and gender. The female slave narratives critiqued the idea and social expectation of the white lady-like southern mistress because they were witnesses and victims of the violent abuse inflicted by these women onto other female slaves.