first, consider the following: what did slave agency look like? was it only violent? no! examples...

First, consider the following:

• What did slave agency look like?• Was it only violent?• NO!• Examples include…the more visible & physical – e.g. riots,

trying to escape, refusing to work – to the more quiet and hidden – e.g. practicing Voodoo, drinking wine (& saying the bottles had leaked), etc.

• Slave Agency = when slaves fought back; when they committed various acts to empower themselves against their masters – even in a quiet way.

Reading #23: “Plantation Society in the Antebellum South”• Thesis? • Slaves survived by asserting themselves & negotiating with their masters to create their own distinctive culture within the oppressive system of slavery.

• Methods of slave masters?

• Examples of slave agency?

Reading #24: “Preface & Part I: Of the Willing and the Obedient”• Thesis? • Slaves worked through accommodation and resistance – within the constraints of the white paternalistic system – to create a unique culture that was livable for themselves & their children.



Reading #25: “The Nature of Female Slavery”

• Thesis?• “Slavery is terrible for men, but it is far more terrible for women…they (females) had wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.”

• OR…?

• “Female slave bondage was not better or worse, or more or less severe than male bondage, but it was different.”



Reading #26: “A Hell For Blacks: Slavery in Rural Brazil”• Thesis? Slaves suffered terribly at the hands of Brazilian slave owners, who were only concerned with short-term concerns and profit.



first, consider the following: what did slave agency look like? was it only violent? no! examples...

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