- Collection:
- Atlanta University and Clark Atlanta University Theses and Dissertations
- Title:
- Call and response: the lives and labor of black women in the slave societies of British Canada and Jamaica 1655-1834, 1997
- Creator:
- Elgersman, Maureen G.
- Date of Original:
- 1997-07-01
- Subject:
- Degrees, Academic
Dissertations, Academic - Location:
- United States, Georgia, Fulton County, Atlanta, 33.749, -84.38798
- Medium:
- theses
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- This study compared the place of Black women in slavery in British Jamaica and Canada. Emphasis was placed on the exploitation of productive and reproductive labor, material conditions, and the forms of resistance used to refute slave status. This study was based on the premise that factors like climate and topography have not fully explained how slavery in Canada was different from slavery in other regions of the Americas, especially the Caribbean, and why it did not occupy a more prominent place in the colonial economy. Black feminist theory, which considers the intersection of race, gender, and class in the pursuit of historical truth, informs this study. The researcher found that Black slave women in Canada were primarily domestics whose reproductive capabilities were exploited significantly less than Black women in Jamaica, who were primarily field laborers. Despite differences in slaverys application, Black women in Canada and Jamaica shared a fundamental rejection of their status, and often employed similar means of resisting their enslavement. The conclusions of the study confirm that slavery was not uniform and that the variables of gender and labor are critical in enhancing the understanding of the past.
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/cau.td:1997_elgersman_maureen_g
- Rights Holder:
- Clark Atlanta University
- Holding Institution:
- Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
- Rights:
-
