“… tore her child from her arms, threatening to cut off his head to avenge, he said, the deaths of several blacks killed by citizen Dubuisson…” (pg. 158)
This sentence is the most important sentence in the passage and it reflects on how women were treated during the insurrection. It is described that the Black man took a woman’s child and threaten to kill him, justifying his attempt by saying it is revenge for his people as they were killed by citizen Dubission. Thus showing, that women back then were used as a scapegoat because they would endure the pain for what their people did. It is stated in the small excerption before the passage that women weren’t at all treated with abuse or pain, rather this though contradicts this statement. Yes, they weren’t punished for what they did, rather they were punished for what their ancestors and current people did. Also, the fact that they would kill their children just shows that the Blacks really wanted to cause pain for what happened to them. Killing children would cause a civilization from vanishing, as what the Blacks had to go through when their own people were being vanished. It was an eye for an eye, and thats how women were treated. Even their men were taken away, as they felt pain from multiple angles. The fact that the author doesn’t even tell us what the race of the women were makes it hard to conclude what really happened in the end and throughout the testimony.
I found the point you made on the use of woman as scapegoats to be very agreeable and not only did this quote portray this aspect of being a women during the insurrection but it showed what little respect everyone else had for women. During this time period women also had very little rights and this lowered their standing in society as a whole to be far lower. The event that took place above is but another key example of this idea of the disrespect and scapegoating of women.Being that they had a very minor role within society prior to this usually as someone who tends to the house.