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

Written by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Narrated by Allyson Johnson

A bold and searing investigation into the role of white women in the American slave economy.



Bridging women's history, the history of the South, and African American history, this book makes a bold argument about the role of white women in American slavery. Historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers draws on a variety of sources to show that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who directly engaged in and benefited from the South's slave market. Because women typically inherited more slaves than land, enslaved people were often their primary source of wealth. Not only did white women often refuse to cede ownership of their slaves to their husbands, they employed management techniques that were as effective and brutal as those used by slave-owning men. White women actively participated in the slave market, profited from it, and used it for economic and social empowerment. By examining the economically entangled lives of enslaved people and slave-owning women, Jones-Rogers presents a narrative that forces us to rethink the economics and social conventions of slaveholding America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc
• Release date: Feb 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781977345776

Reviews for They Were Her Property

[Joey G. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is the type of book that everyone in the United states should listen too. It was a great wealth of information. I always thought that women played a minor role in slavery. This book prove my my assumptions were false. Women slave mistresses were more often more cruel in there treatment of slaves. This information should be put out there. I think we have to show this history in film.

[Adrian Bradford · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great book, the only gripe that I have is the narrator’s fake southern accent when she was verbalizing the enslaved peoples accounts.

[Audra Jones · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book that sheds some light on the myth of the delicacy of antebellum, white women.

[Fernanda Meneses · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A tremendous effort on compilation off sometimes-gut-renching testimonials. Definitely shining a light on the importance of truthfulness in our historical narratives: denial of the cruelty inherent to slavery and of the intricate way in which it permeated and influenced all the actors at the time- the erasure of white women as slave owners and their agency in that institution should be an example of how history can be subtly changed in order to shift blame and exonerate unethical behavior.

that being said: they should have skipped the poorly executed and teeth grinding “southern accent”..... completely.

[glenda morris · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I learned a lot this book interesting and informative. I had know idea that this happened among white women. I was under the impression that only white men owned slaves and the women attend to the affairs of the house

[NoelReneCisnerosPeña · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Jones-Rogers demuestra en esta obra que las mujeres blancas en el sistema esclavista norteamericano no eran ajenas a él y que eran agentes activos de ese mismo sistema, aunque muchos historiadores hayan tratado de negar dicha participación. Las mujeres poseyeron personas esclavizadas, aprendían desde muy jóvenes a ejercer control sobre ellas y a verlas como un objeto al que se puede sacar un beneficio, así, cuando se casaban como parte de su ajuar recibían personas esclavizadas, así mismo heredaban como parte de su capital personal que, no pocas veces, controlaban sin intermediación de sus maridos. Y, aunque el sistema esclavista terminó tras la guerra de sesión, sus consecuencias se siguieron viviendo, y muchas de las personas que lo sufrieron y sus hijos, pudieron contar sus experiencias ante las primeras grabaciones al iniciar el siglo XX, de cuyos testimonios Jones-Rogers extrajo mucha de la información para construir esta historia, así como de archivos judiciales y de todo tipo.

[Jose · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well researched with interesting points on the role of women slave holders in the American South

[Elysia · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heart and gut-wrenching in turns, this book is well-researched and contains first-hand accounts of slavery from the people who suffered it.

From the slave market to the plantation, White women were instrumental in extending the reach of slavery. It's chilling to see and hear the rhetoric used to justify slavery still in use today to deny systemic racism.

I am pleased that this is my first major deep-dive into slavery for the fact that it illustrated how it worked, in truth, without the erasure that the male-dominated slaver narrative provides. This book dismantles and proves the deeply gendered ways slavers exploited people.

For the immediate future of White supremacy by White women after this book, please read: "Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy" by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae

[Sam Rhodes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent narrative about a part of slavery that I knew very little about.

[Tess Brooks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a white woman myself this book was very helpful in my journey of understanding my own privilege and how popular narratives, especially ones taught in the public schools I attended, have largely given white women a pass when it comes to slavery.

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Author Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers powerfully challenges the often-held belief that white women willingly gave their husbands charge of their property, including slaves. Drawing from slave narratives, court records, plantation records, and other sources, she demonstrates white women actively participated in slave management, often usurping their husband's authority when it came to slaves she owned prior to the marriage or their descendants. She shows the women's desire to keep their property at a high value by preventing cruelty, but also the desire of some to actively participate in disciplinary actions. She finally moves past the rather dense topic of slave discipline to areas such as using slaves as wet nurses, actively participating in slave markets, and their concern for a livelihood when slaves were emanicipated. The academic writing style creates a very dense narrative in many places. The author spent too much time describing the brutality of slave punishments in the book's first half. It is, however, an important work in African-American studies.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With this book, historian Jones-Rogers challenges the accepted narrative that slavery in the antebellum South was a patriarchal system ruled by white men. To the contrary, Jones-Rogers offers example after example of white women who controlled slaves, bought and sold slaves in their own right, and physically abused slaves in the name of “discipline.” Jones-Rogers work will shape the future narrative of white women’s active participation in slavery. However, the dryly academic writing may limit the book’s audience to mainly scholarly circles.

[zoes_human · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Southern mythology has long held that white women were mere bystanders to slavery, virtually helpless themselves in the face of sexism which relegated them to subservient roles. History professor and Lerner Scott prize winner Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers outlines and documents a far different and more accurate picture of their role and economic investment in the institution. Dense with information, They Were Her Property offers a more genuine Southern perspective on the role of white women in slavery in the American South than any other work, fiction or non, produced to date.

[rocketjk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This interesting and extremely valuable history, recently published, explores the role of women in the slave system and economy of the southern U.S. during the centuries before the Civil War. Jones-Rogers uses extensive research in contemporary newspaper accounts, WPA History Project testimony of formerly enslaved people and court records as well to show that many women in the South owned slaves of their own and were simply subservient to their husbands when it came to slave owning and economic considerations of all sorts. Women were often "left" slaves in their parents' wills and were also given slaves as "gifts" by their parents when they married. Furthermore, many couples signed what we'd now called pre-nuptual agreements stipulating that wives would retain complete control of their own slaves and all other financial interests. Jones-Rogers tours the multi-faceted world of slave owning and shows that women were often mens' equals when it came to wheeling and dealing for profit, and also for savagery in their treatment of their enslaved workers. The work is important particularly, I think, in that it is an detailed treatment of the pervasive nature of the slave system in the American south: all whites took part, not just men, in all facets of the system.

I found it interesting and enlightening that Jones-Rogers refers most often to "enslaved persons" rather than to "slaves." I've never seen this before, but I found it an effective way of making an important point. "Enslaved person" clearly expresses the point that we are referring to people who have been enslaved by someone else. There is action, violent, horrible action, involved. Perhaps this locution is more widespread than I realize, but it seems like it's the first time I've come across it.

There are times in the book where the examples Jones-Rogers uses become more than a little repetitive to read. It's not something I would fault her for at all. It crucial that she establish that the research behind her thesis is extensive, to ensure that we are convinced. So there were times when I was ready for the narrative to move along, but I understood the reasons for the structure Jones-Rogers employed. I think this history all in all is a crucial building block for a serious modern-day understanding of American slavery.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This would make a fantastic article, especially as contrasted to narratives excusing white women from their implication in the slave economy. Jones-Rogers decisively shows, from a variety of sources including the accounts of formerly enslaved people, that white women were regularly treated by other whites as owners of human property; demanded the deference owed to them as owners both from enslaved people and from other whites; inflicted violence on enslaved people, including physical and family separation; and did every other thing that male enslavers did (other than directly sexually abuse enslaved people, though some white women owned brothels and otherwise facilitated the rape of enslaved women, including by encouraging it in order to produce more human capital). When one is challenging a dominant narrative, it can make sense to over-prove the thesis, but since I was perfectly ready to believe it all, it seemed over-long as a book; a lot of the examples were horribly similar.