This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.

1. 1. They Were Her Property

   White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

   

   Using extensive archival evidence, the book demonstrates that white Southern women were active agents in the system of slavery: they bought, sold, managed, and exploited enslaved people, deploying maternal rhetoric and legal authority to justify and profit from bondage. By tracing probate records, bills of sale, correspondence, and runaway notices, the author overturns the myth of the passive, benevolent mistress and shows how women’s property rights and economic ambitions made them central to the violence, sexual exploitation, and commercialization of enslaved labor. The study reframes how gender and capitalism operated together to sustain slavery and highlights women’s direct responsibility for and benefit from the institution.

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