In 1619 the first Africans were brought to Jamestown as slaves.
their homes, cultures, and languages. Africans were the perfect victims because they were .
transported thousands of miles away from home. Therefore, it was nearly impossible to escape .
slavery. In addition, most of these Africans, men and women, came from different tribes, which .
made communication between them very difficult. Despite their common bondage, men and .
women did not experience slavery the same way. .
Slavery of black men in America was one of the cruelest periods in American history. However, .
black women in slavery experienced sexual exploitation, childbearing, motherhood, and the .
slaveholder's sexism. Women slaves were exploited for their reproductive as well as productive .
capacities. Slaves were treated and traded like animals. Black men were not considered part of .
the human race and were taught that their enslavement was the way things were meant to be. Out .
of all the slaves, black women suffered the most. Women were considered to be inferior to men .
and Blacks were inferior to whites. I once read, black men were worth a dollar and women a .
quarter.
Black female slaves did not have the privileged of just staying home, they had to work the fields .
or in the slave masters home. Black women were denied gender and were treated just like men, .
sometimes even worse. Black women were denied most of the so-called "rewards" of .
womanhood while they suffered all of the restrictions and performed all the "woman's work." .
There is no question that slave women worked as hard as men. They worked as lumberjacks and .
turpentine producers in the forest of the Carolinas and Georgia. They hauled logs by leather .
straps attached to their shoulders. They plowed using mule and ox teams, and hoed, sometimes .
with the heaviest implements available. They dug ditches, spread manure fertilizer, and piled .
coarse fodder with their bare hands. They built southern roads and railroads, and they cultivated rice, cut cane and tobacco, and picked cotton.
