HUMAN 1C Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Racialization, Conscientious Objector, Mary Prince
Dr. Connell Spring Quarter 2018
HumCore Midterm
Study Guide
Key Terms:
- Social Death
- when Africans crossed the Atlantic during slave trade were never heard from again
- huge disruption to communities in Africa
- represents major difference between slavery + indentured servitude -> social death of the
unwilling laborer
- unlike indentured servitude slavery had no end -> no continuation of social ties
- degradation + dismantling of belief system + sense of kinship
- complete foreclosure on possibility of returning home
- will never see family members again
- spirituality + spiritual practices disrupted -> belief that the sprit returns upon death
- many communities had hope that once family member in slavery died -> spirit would
return home
- slaves from different African tribes -> different languages -> unable to communicate w/others
- law did not recognize slave genealogical relationships or practices -> deemed unworthy
- dismantling of families weaken individuals + possibility of revolt
- Gender Frontiers
- cultural encounters -> confrontation of different systems + ideologies
- challenges to European conceptions of gender
- gender plays role in colonization process
- Native Americans had different beliefs + sexual practices from Europeans
- Europeans had hard time distinguishing between nakedness + promiscuity
- saw being naked as asking for it
- Europeans valued virginity + its connection to marriage
- virginity not similarly valued in Native American control
- women able to have more control over their own bodies -> empowered through
own sexuality
- Native Americans inherently challenged European beliefs that gender norms were natural
- misunderstandings -> gender + sexuality became central to colonization
- differences in labor practices
- European men saw Native American men as idle because they do not farm
- hunting seen as an elite sport
- conflict over gender dynamics + where supposed to work
- Minstrelsy
- minstrel (def): a member of band of entertainers w/blacked faces, performing songs + music
associated w/the black communities of the South
- white people would darker their faces in order to put on shows throughout history
- many Jewish people participated -> wanted to be accepted by white culture
- middle class could afford to go to minstrel shows
- acts heavily racialized w/stereotypes (ex. picnics w/fried chicken)
- reinforced racial stereotypes w/white appropriation of black entertainment
- degrade African Americans in order to cope w/horrible history
- very popular form of American entertainment -> first series of famous pop songs + first
body of national humor
- facilitates false narrative that portrays African Americans in the way that whites wanted them to
appear
- after emancipation many blacks stayed working in some type of servitude -> not sure that they
could get job any other way
- implicit servitude -> had to participate in continuation of servant labor
- Marriage contracts/differences
- Euro-American Marital Ideals
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- man + wife become one -> religious idea becomes legal idea
- “Little Commonwealth” -> refers to the household
- individual households replicate hierarchies of larger societies w/man at top
- doctrine of coverture
- marriage considered fundamental building block of society -> replicate hierarchy
- unmarried women were supposed to be quiet until marriage when can enjoy privilege of
speech (were not supposed to show wit)
- unmarried women were supposed to abstain from sexual encounters -> maintain purity
- tense sexual relations were normalized
- marriage seen as foundation of civilization so women could reproduce + perform
domestic tasks that men did not want to do
- Native American marriage practices varied based on tribe
- different groups practiced serial monogamy, polygyny, etc.
- some groups used marriage w/Europeans in order to facilitate alliances + trade
- Marriage Under Enslavement
- no legal protections -> colonists wanted to be able to break families up
- no legitimate sexual relations
- few religious protections
- example tradition: “jumping the broom” (1800s) -> slaves responded by creating +
celebrating their own traditions
- whites + blacks were not allowed to get married -> multi-racial children threatened the
simplicity of colonial system
- were fined or imprisoned for breaking these laws
- Polygenism
- practice of some Native American groups (ex. California Native Americans)
- involves a man having multiple wives
- Transfiguration of black bodies (hypersexualized or materialized)
- captives became commodities
- value of African human being became based on their physical form
- reduced to the work that they could perform as slaves
- kept alive on slave ships in order to make as much money as possible but not kept healthy
- slave traders were afraid that healthy Africans would revolt
- “You cannot forget how much they took from us and transfigured our very bodies into sugar,
tobacco, cotton, and gold.” – Coates piece
- reference to exploitation of slaves in order to make profit
- reduction of individual to the labor that they can produce
- Coverture
- legal doctrine that rendered white women legally invisible
- essentially became civilly dead -> not an independent legal or economic body
- husband owns their labor therefore their labor was not taxed
- (enslaved or otherwise) African American women seen as taxable
- defined as economic units
- use of gender to create a racial divide
- if gets married -> doesn’t get treated under coverture -> husband has to pay taxes on
her as a laborer
- Virginity as purity v. virginity as something to get rid of
- Europeans valued the idea of female purity + abstaining from sex until marriage
- sex seen as a sign of non-civilization
- Native American women portrayed as animal-like because they did not value virginity
in the same way + had different marriage traditions
- insinuate that Africans have orgies -> no moral imperative to be monogamous
- contrasting values w/Europeans
- Earth as fertile/sexuality as natural
- Native Americans had very different view of sex + sexuality from Europeans
- erotic behavior came in many forms
- song, rituals, naming natural formations after sexual things, sexualized myths
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- Holy Sexuality -> Mother Earth portrayed as a womb in which seeds needed to be planted -> rain
would sink in + cause them to grow
- sex was not seem as shameful -> associated w/Cosmic harmony
- part of some healing rituals
- Europeans portrayed the land in American as virgin + in need of being turned into productive
land by European men
- sexualized the land
- land needed union w/ “real men” in order for it to become productive
- role of motherhood white/black/Native Americans
- Europeans believed that African women had easy, painless childbirth
- portrayed African women as other/savage through breastfeeding
- pictured as breastfeeding over their shoulder (not anatomically possible)
- given ugly, animal-like faces
*women’s bodies became vehicle of racecraft -> difference defined through sexualized female
bodies
- used to justify slavery because Africans seen as lesser than Europeans
- Sexual coercion v. consent, force
- violence + enslavement -> transforms economic power over someone’s body into consent
- enslaved women were forced into sexual activity
- did not have the power to consent
- norm: male aggression + female resistance
- force considered to be normal part of sexual encounter -> good women will pretend that
they do not want to have sex
- men would use coercion in courting
- established social relationship so unwanted sexual advances would not be seen as rape
- Differences in labor based on race (and economic standing)
- Wealthy Whites
- male slave owners did very little work
- lived lives of leisure -> games, dancing, investing
- ate fairly good diet + did not have to cook
- female wealthy whites expected to perform some domestic labor
- cooking meals
- motherhood
- Poor Whites
- poor white women had to perform non-stop labor
- lots of activity that needed to be done for household to function
- worked even when sick
- participated in women’s communities + women’s exchanges
- textiles, needlework, slaughtering, food prep, midwifery
*still maintained a lot of autonomy -> something that enslaved women never had
- African American slaves
- no leisurely activities
- perform enormous amounts of labor -> mostly what was considered unskilled
- forced to perform all of the back-breaking, dangerous labor that white people would not
- reading written by Mary Prince, a slave women about working as a salt raker
- describes working in the heat + physical ailments (boils)
- slave labor was more impersonal that white labor
- indentured servitude
- usually to pay something off with labor rather than money
- had termination point -> allowed for continuation of social ties
- Reproduction and the role of black women in continuation of slavery
- motherhood was very different for slave women
- Partus Sequitur Ventrem -> establishes that free or slave status of offspring follows status of
mother
- protects status + inheritance of slave owners that have illegitimate children w/slaves
- use of sexuality, reproduction, + women’s bodies to create racial division
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Unlike indentured servitude slavery had no end -> no continuation of social ties. When africans crossed the atlantic during slave trade were never heard from again. Represents major difference between slavery + indentured servitude -> social death of the unwilling laborer. Degradation + dismantling of belief system + sense of kinship. Spirituality + spiritual practices disrupted -> belief that the sprit returns upon death. Slaves from different african tribes -> different languages -> unable to communicate w/others. Law did not recognize slave genealogical relationships or practices -> deemed unworthy. Many communities had hope that once family member in slavery died -> spirit would return home. Complete foreclosure on possibility of returning home. Dismantling of families weaken individuals + possibility of revolt. Saw being naked as asking for it. Europeans had hard time distinguishing between nakedness + promiscuity. Europeans valued virginity + its connection to marriage. Cultural encounters -> confrontation of different systems + ideologies.