New research exposes the role of women in America’s slave trade
In the bondage of others they saw their freedom
They didn’t know how bad it was. That was how James Redpath, a northern journalist who toured the South in the 1850s, explained white southern women’s support for slavery to his readers. He reckoned that women were shielded from the “most obnoxious features” of the trade—rarely witnessing the auctions and the lashes doled out as punishments on plantations—and were oblivious to the “gigantic commerce” that it had become. Over time historians came to agree that slavery was the business of men.
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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “The second sex”
United States June 22nd 2024
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