They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

FEATURING STEPHANIE E. JONES-ROGERS – When we think about the institution of slavery in America we think of slave-owning whites as almost always men. White men were the perpetrators, the one who spearheaded the slave trade and who pressed for the continued enslavement of African Americans.

But what about white women? Were they passive bystanders, or were they active participants in enslavement?

Now a new book draws on detailed historical research to make the case that white women saw themselves as slave owners and directly participated in and benefitted from the institution.

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, Assistant Professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the winner of the 2013 Lerner-Scott prize for best doctoral dissertation in US women’s history. Hew new book is called ‘They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South’.