Sexual relationships between female slaves and their masters.

             African Americans resisted the practice of slavery and the trade of slavery from its inception in the United Stated in the early 1600s to its end in the middle 1800s. They resisted it in the fields and in the big house; they resisted by organized rebellions; and they resisted by direct, spontaneous acts of courage. For their freedom slaves killed and were killed. They ran away, and their masters ran after them. They fought and died, but they also survived. The conditions of slaves that survived varied. How well were they treated depended on their owner and the type of work they did. However, in my paper I will discuss the life of slave women and their relationships with their white masters. Since the beginning of slavery gender and social relations shaped the lives of slave in such a way that slave women experiences were different from slave men. .

             Did gender make a difference in how slave women were treated by their masters? Yes. Gender was like a major force in shaping slave society. Slave men experiences were different from slave women, who were exploited both for reproductive and productive reasons. Throughout the long years of slavery women were abused by their master, physically, sexually, and mentally, while men were abused physically and mentally. Not only did women suffer much harsher physical abuse, they were also sexually abused. Although, not suggesting that black men suffered less than black women under the oppression of slavery, only that gender considerations played a major part in shaping the task assignments given to blacks by their owners and in shaping the way in which blacks build relationships among themselves" (Jones 20). .

             The lives of female slaves were a little more trying than that of a male slave. This is partly due to the sexual harassment, which slave women must endure. Sexual relationships between masters and female slaves were very common on the plantation during the eighteenth century.