Stephanie M.H. Camp, ‘Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South’

How did white control reinforce the bondage of space and time?

“was reflected and affirmed by white control over their location in space”

What tools and methods were used to control enslaved people’s physical and social mobility?

Shackles, chains, passes, slave patrols, and hounds

Which campaign did symbols of restraint become crucial?

abolitionist campaigns

What did images of restraint used in abolitionist campaigns suggest?

Highlights cruciality to inst of slavery - spacial control, entrapment

How did historian Winthrop Jordon describe slavery?

“enslavement was captivity”

Once enslaved, what were bondpeople considered?

captives of war

What did Charles Ball call the laws governing enslaved people’s movement?

“Principles of restraint” – “No slave dare leave” the plantation

Who described the laws governing enslaved people’s movement as ‘principles of restraint’?

formerly enslaved, Charles Ball

What did Fountain Hughes compare enslavement to?

A “jail sentence, was jus’ the same as we was in jail”

What year did Virginia pass its early slave law “for preventing Negroes Insurrections”?

1680

What significant slave law did Virginia pass in 1680?

The law “for preventing Negroes Insurrections”

What did the 1680 Virginia law prohibit?

“It shall not be lawful for any negroe or other slave…to goe or depart from of his masters ground without a certificate from his master”

What were Outlying runaways?

Short-term runaways - most concerning form to authorities

What brutal punishment was authorized for capturing outlying runaways in Virginia before 1772?

Authorities could “dismember” and even “kill and destroy” them — revoked in 1772 due to financial loss

What were Outlawed Escapees?

considered fugitives

What was different about slaveholders in Barbados to the rest of British North America?

A significant proportion of South Carolina’s earliest slaveholders had migrated from Barbados

When did the Barbadians found South Carolina?

1670

What did slaveholders in Barbados initiate in 1690?

Following a Barbadian legal grammar, in 1690 the colony began to regulate slave activity, implementing pass laws modelled on the Barbadian ‘ticket’ prototype

What did the 1690 South Carolina law state?

Prohibited slave holders and managers from allowing bondpeople to “go out of their plantations . . . without a ticket” on pain of a 40-shilling fine

What did South Carolina law reaffirm in 1712?

It was “lawful” to “beat, maim or assault” and even kill anyone who “refuse[d] to show his ticket”

What was the enslaved population in 1790 vs. 1810?

Grew from just under 700,000 in 1790 to almost 1.2 million in 1810 — an increase of over 70%

What did the North American slave populace number in 1790?

just under 700,000

What did the North American slave populace number in 1810?

Almost 1.2 million

How many enslaved people were there by the Civil War in 1860?

Almost 4 million — the population had tripled

How did spatial control differ by gender?

“The geography of containment was somewhat more elastic for men than it was for women”

Why did women face stricter spatial immobility?

Because the work that provided opportunities to leave the plantation was generally reserved for men

What was enslaved women’s ‘second shift’?

after they finished their daily labour - childcare, housework, cooking, etc

What happened when one Georgia woman failed to complete her task of spinning?

The manager “called her up,” cursed her, “made her strip stark naked,” and tied her to a post

How did women’s second shift intensify control?

“They also compounded women’s greater spatial immobility by making escape difficult”

How was women’s reproductive labor monitored?

Nursing mothers had “a certain time to stay; if she stayed over that time she was whipped”

How was female punishment often different from male punishment?

It was “characterised by sexual violence,” with women forced to strip naked

What did Solomon Northup recount about Patsey’s punishment?

She was stripped of “every article of dress,” laid down “upon her face” completely “naked” and beaten cruelly

Whose autobiography described the punishment of Patesy?

Solomon Northup

What conclusion does Camp draw about gendered spatial control?

“The geography of containment did not hold women and men in the same ways, nor to the same degree”