Reading "My Mother Was Much of a Woman": Slavery
Vocabulary words and page number they appear on.
| regimen (11) | brood (11) | antebellum (11) | patriarchal (12) | subordinate (12) |
| rhetorical (12) | qua (12) | callousness (12) | platitudes (15) | unctuous (15) |
| osnaburg (15) | chasseurs (17) | exigencies (17) | recalcitrance (18) | pathological (20) |
| sadism (20) | commensurate (21) | obeisance (22) | catharsis (27) | arduous (29) |
| clandestinely (31) | fictive (31) | nexus (32) | menarche (33) | eugenics (34) |
| fecundity (35) | stoicism (36) | concubinage (37) | mulatto (37) | subsistence (39) |
| reciprocal (41) | conflagration (43) |
Comprehension Questions:
What does "The peculiar configuration of enforced labor and sexual relations under slavery converged most dramatically where the two forms of social domination overlapped " refer to? (12)
What were the reasons that female slave labor was a problem of plantation management?
What does it mean that "American slavery was an economic and political system"? (13)
Why did "slave owners face a real dilemma when it came to" the treatment of female slaves? (19)
Describe the labor as it pertain to life in the "Big House".
What does it mean that "The circle of women's domestic work went unbroken from day to day and from generation to generation"? (23)
Who were the "slave of slaves"? (25)
Why did mistresses often lash out at slave women?
For slaves, was work in the "Big House" easier than work in the fields? What accounts for this perception?
What is "fictive-kin"? (31)
How does the "nuclear family" relate to the "sexual division of labor"? (32)
How did masters "practice a form of eugenics"? (35)
What does the term "social destiny" refer to in the reading? (36)
What role did older, female slaves play in the slave community? (39-41)
Interpretation (Synthesis and Analysis) Questions:
What power did slave women have over themselves?
Consider that black women endured the double burden of being black and female; how did survival mechanisms developed under slavery serve bondwomen in their role as woman and laborer?
How did the intricate web of choices forced upon them affect or alter the lives of bondwomen?
Is oppression human nature? Can it be overcome?