The author Thavolia Glymph explains Slavery in the book “The House Of Bondage” and that slavery was when African Americans were enslaved for labor. She explains how slavery was an evil time. She shares different experiences that people had with slavery. Thavolia Glymph explains what these people had to go through and that it was horrible. Thavolia Glymph did an interview with Lulu Wilson, who was a former slave. Lulu Wilson explains that she knows a lot about slavery and goes into detail that slaves were treated unfairly. Their masters had all the power and saw slaves as property, the text states “He beat and starved the few slaves he owned and kept up a steady pattern of selling her mother’s children.”(page 18). The reading gave me more knowledge on slavery by having the different points of view that people actually experienced. And that female slaves were utilized. They were abused because they were seen to have no power. Women’s life was terrible and had the classic role of being a housewife or housemaid. The text states that “Difficulties arise, however, when the stories of women of different backgrounds encounter one another. The plantation household was just such a site of con- tact between women whose access to power, privilege, and opportunity, much less food, clothing, and citizenship, was vastly unequal.” (page 21). I learned that slavery during this time (the 1930s) was brutal. There were black and white women in plantation households. White women were slaves to their husbands. All women either a slave or not were only seen as an object. Women didn’t have equal rights to men, even if they were wealthy. This makes me question if the roles were reversed between men and women how would things be the same or different? Also, if capitalism is a modern form of slavery?
Glad to see this reading resonated with you. But although you hone in a little closer towards the middle of your post, you never fully identify the focus of Glymph’s book, which is not about slavery or even enslaved women per se but focuses on the plantation mistress, the white women who were matriarchs of slaveowning families or owned slaves themselves. How does Glymph suggest, in this introductory chapter, that previous histories, including by feminist historians, focusing on this topic have gotten it wrong?