Title: Masterful Women
Description: Many early-nineteenth-century slaveholders considered themselves "masters" not only over slaves, but also over the institutions of marriage and family. According to historians, the privilege of mastery was reserved for white males. But slaveholding widows enjoyed material, legal, and cultural resources to which most southerners could only aspire.
Subjects: Race relations, Widowhood, Slaveholders, Slavery, Plantation life, History, Sex role, Social conditions, Economic conditions, Widows, Women, history
Places: Southern States
Time periods: 1775-1865