Enslaved women roles rarely appear in History books; mainly because men have written them. Women have always been a major part in history especially since they lived longer than men.
But put aside the gender bias and it will be seen how women worked just as hard as men and at times even harder. Women were not only Labourers, but they were also Companions, Combatants, and Mothers. For them, as women, they endured a lot during their enslavement. They should not be judged as how white people used to view them. Some white people thought that it was their right to abuse of enslaved African women since they had bought them. They, enslaved women, might have endured even more than men but nothing is written down in history books.
All of this made women fight a difficult battle against their masters towards their emancipation.What role did women play on the plantation during slavery ? that is the real question behind slavery and on the sugar plantation. Women were confined to field work, though some worked as house slaves. Even though males were more physical workers, many farmers preferred women to be the harder workers. There was a group of slaves called the ‘Great gang’ or ‘First gang’ made up of the strongest slaves many times the women had overpopulated the males.
Women did most of the hard work on the plantation then like digging and cutting cane. Slave women were routinely raped by the white plantation owners or the white employees.Many slave women were forced to do sexual favours in order for them to survive on the plantation or gain freedom for their children and themselves. In attempting to gain an understanding of the Caribbean slave woman’s role on the plantation, there was a need for substantial research, but I found that there was a lack of relevant primary sources. This lack of information only reaffirms our belief that society during slavery days regarded the black enslaved woman as inferior and of little importance.
Not only did it become important to shed light on the past, but also to recover the stories hidden by centuries of misunderstanding and undervaluing of the independence and strength of Caribbean women.A secondary focus will be on Caribbean women’s culture, relationships with other slaves and her "superiors," and the punishments to which she was subjected due to her resistance. Before we attempt to discuss these different aspects, we first have to define the forms of resistance. Here we group resistance into two categories: active and passive. Passive resistance involves the following: Slow working, pretending ignorance and deliberate carelessness.
Active resistance is more vigorous and has immediate results. Such actions were rarer because of the penalties involved. Some of these were: refusing to engage in copulation with the master, damaging and destroying owners’ property, (whatever machinery, livestock, burning of mills); stealing and the most active of all, murder and revolt.During my research I found that women had to peel away many layers before reaching the core of active resistance. Many of these layers were laid down by enslaved women themselves, who worked resistance into all the aspects of their culture and tradition. One example of this phenomenon might be the practice of religion, a major part of life for Africans who were brought into the Caribbean.
When forbidden to continue the practice of this aspect of their culture on the plantation, traditional religious practices then took on a deeper meaning for Caribbean slaves.Through religion and dance, they were able to release themselves to their gods and at the same time engage in a form of passive resistance. At the forefront of all this was enslaved women, who passed down and kept alive a disproportionate amount of the cultural heritage of Africa that survived in slavery. They did so through their roles as mothers and healers, daughters and workers. They were, in short, strong women who felt it is their duty to uphold traditional values.In many African cultures, women were honoured and this attitude towards them did not change within the Caribbean.
Many of the religious rites and rituals took on an altered form in the Caribbean, but the role of women was constant. The proof is in the legacy that has been left behind. The same customs that enslaved Africans brought with them are still present today. For instance, women have handed down lessons through the art of storytelling, an art which they have maintained.
Their stories tell of ancient people in ancient times but the morals are relevant even today, as are told in the Haitian folktale "Ti Malice" or the Jamaican folktales of "Anansi." Another part of life still present today is the art of hair braiding, an ancient African tradition, which has always created a bond between mothers and their children. As with cooking, it had to be taught and cultivated in order for them to have substance, and it often provided the occasion for other kinds of instruction.Slave women's reactions to and experience within slavery were different than that of the African male slave.
Like her Caribbean male slave counterpart, "Quashee," "Quasheba" actively resisted the repressive and dehumanizing stranglehold of slavery. But enslaved women devised ingenious ways of rebelling that were distinctively their own. These forms of resistance were often actions that related to them particularly as women: resistance against sexual assault; resistance through the passing on of traditions to daughters and other young women; resistance through the distinctively female (in the Caribbean) activity of marketing. Within the restrictions imposed upon the slave woman in Caribbean slave plantation society, her actions in resistance are such that they could be considered an active form of resisting.In other cases, enslaved women broke the bonds of not only slavery, but the stereotypes of black womanhood as well.
The enslaved black woman’s slave narrative, such as that written by former slave Mary Prince, is an example of this active form of resistance. Here, in her own words, the enslaved black woman tries to dispel the mythic stereotypes of the scheming, lazy "Quasheba." In Quasheba’s place, she presents herself, industrious, resourceful, and productive. Here, in her very own words, given the domestic, social, and economical restriction inherent in slave plantation society, the slave woman proclaims herself as the sole authority over her status, her life, and what her legacy to future generations will be.Prince’s narrative could not by itself defeat things like the sexual exploitation of African women in the Caribbean, the misery and theft of labor in the cane fields, or the harsh punishments and tortures dreamed up by white slave owners and overseers. Nor could it by itself alleviate the misery of the countless women who watched malnourished children die before they ever got to listen to a story or have their mothers braid their hair.
We could easily conclude that the female slave’s misery was endless. We could conclude that the distinctively female forms of passive and active forms of resistance mentioned here were not very effective, or did not do much to eliminate the real economic and physical constraints of slavery.In thinking of resistance, perhaps religion and dance are not the first examples that would come to mind. But we also have to remind ourselves that cultural imperialism was a significant way in which Europeans tried to strip slaves of their dignity. Therefore, in discussing slave resistance, it is important to recognize one of the things that made slaves feel they could no longer live as slaves, that being tradition. Since women upheld tradition, it is also important to acknowledge their contribution to the struggle.
Once you have an understanding of your roots, you have the ability to grow stronger, stand firm in your beliefs and are now capable to help others in their quest for self-empowerment. The ability of the black Caribbean slave woman to withstand punishments, maintain cultural identity, resist the master, and to take on various authoritative roles is the essence of true resistance.And the black Caribbean slave woman passed on her power, beauty and strength to her descendants in the form of a legacy of dignity and struggle, one still much needed in the world today. On the plantation and even in today’s day and age cultural identity is a fundamental part of personal identity because as human beings we are a sum total of our histories. History has taught us that we cannot advance without learning it; therefore it is an essential part of everyday life. When slaves were brought to the Caribbean, they were forced to leave everything they knew behind, their homes, their dignity and their culture, in other words, they were forced to leave behind themselves.
Therefore, it became important to maintain traditions because tradition was the only way of keeping their cultural identity and helping slaves continue everyday life.Within the system of plantation slavery, outward expressions of culture were not accepted. Therefore oral tradition keeping became a vital way of keeping the past alive, focusing on the spirit and forging deeper bonds amongst slaves. In particular, religion and dance became a pivotal part of culture amongst slaves; ways for them to release emotions and offer up prayers to their gods. Slaves would gather whenever they had free time to engage in these ceremonies because, as Moreau de St.-Méry put it, "for them (slaves) the dance offers relaxation and, when they are not involved in the atrocities of fighting, they express themselves in a manner totally different from their warlike customs.
"This expression fascinated Moreau De St.-Méry. He was only vaguely aware of the origins of most dances, but in fact, most rituals within the slave Caribbean community originated in Africa. They took on modified forms in the Caribbean according to the secrecy of the event. One of the most successful of these modified or "Creolized" forms is Vodou.
Vodou is described as a spiritual experience because it is a ceremony primarily concerned with spiritual conversations with ancestors and the gods of Voodoo.Practicing such a religion on the plantation became necessary for any slave to believe in a divine plan for their existence, and dance was a vital part of its ceremonies. "Through the medium of the dance, in pleasurable anticipation, the warrior could nourish his soul with feelings carrying him toward a glorious reward" . For slaves, religion and dance nourished their spirits as they headed towards freedom.
When speaking of religion and dance, one must discuss the specific roles of women. Women were at the forefront of keeping traditions alive on the slave plantations. In many African traditions, women were guarded as an important part of society, mainly because it was believed that their ability to give birth gave them a special connection to the spirits. After slaves were brought to the Caribbean, it was important to raise children with traditional values because it was important for them to know where they came from, in order to know their history, in order to fill in the blanks about who they were.
This is where women played an essential role. Since they were primary caretakers of children, they would be the first to instil values in them and therefore the ones who kept the traditions alive. In religious ceremonies, women would often be high priestesses and perform certain rites within a ceremony.One of the many dances within the Vodou culture is the "Pétro". The Pétro was supposedly named in honor of Don Pedro, a rebellious slave in the French colony of St.
Domingue. The Pétro thus was symbolic of the need to fight back against slave masters. Within Vodou traditions, the Pétro are the gods of aggression and anger. These gods were just what slaves need to raise up against their masters "because it caused great trouble and awakened ideas of violence contrary to public interest," as Moreau De St.-Méry described Don Pedro. According to him, in the Pétro dance, "the spectators, forming a kind of chorus, participate in the intoxication, and instead of becoming silent when the frenzy develops, they would redouble the volume of their songs, increase tempo, and aggravate the crisis in which they participate".
Moreau goes on to describe the dancing associated with this rite as being "based on extremely vigorous movements of the head and shoulders, but to increase their violence the performers drink eau-de-vie which is mixed with finely pulverized gun powder. The effect of this drink combined with the vigorous movements has a great influence on the dancers, who enter into a kind of madness, with real convulsions."The beat of the music was also crucial to the way that dances developed. The rhythm guided the dancers with the beats of various instruments. Moreau De St.-Méry described these instruments and added that even if slaves were weary from a hard days work, they would not pass up the opportunity to participate in the ceremony.
He illustrates the drums, which were made out of materials such as bamboo and lamb skin; the Calebasses, which had gravel within them and a long handle; the Banzas, a form of the banjo, a "primitive guitar with four strings"; and finally hand-clapping of the crowd. A chorus, sometimes of women, who chant and reply to each other, accompanied all of these.
