Courtship and Love Among the Enslaved in North Carolina
Series: Margaret Walker Alexander Series in African American Studies
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: November 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 137
ISBN-13: 9781934110072
Subjects: Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General; Gender Studies; United States - 19th Century; History; History - U.S; 19th century; Courtship; Love; North Carolina; Slaves; Social life and customs; History: American
Description: "Through an examination of various couples who were forced to live in slavery, Rebecca J. Fraser argues that slaves found ways to conduct successful courting relationships. In its focus on the processes of courtship among the enslaved, this study offers further insight into the meanings that structured intimate lives." "Establishing their courtships, often across plantations, the enslaved men and women of antebellum North Carolina worked within and around the slave system to create and maintain meaningful personal relationships that were both of and apart from the world of the plantation. They claimed the right to participate in the social events of courtship and, in the process, challenged and disrupted the southern social order in discreet and covert acts of defiance." "Informed by feminist conceptions of gender, sexuality, power, and resistance, the study argues that the courting relationship afforded the enslaved a significant social space through which they could cultivate alternative identities to those which were imposed upon them in the. context of their daily working lives."--BOOK JACKET.