They were her property White women as slave owners in the American South

Taking exception to previous historical accounts that claim slaveholding women were reluctant or "fictive" masters, Jones-Rogers (Univ. of California, Berkeley) demonstrates that the relationship between female owners and enslaved blacks was, at bottom, economic rather than social. Married women tended to bring slaves, rather than land, to their marriages, and the products of their investments--from the wages enslaved people earned when hiring out to the crops they picked--were crucial to southern economic growth. Jones-Rogers reveals ownership and control to be techniques taught to young white girls by fathers who regarded mastery as critical aspects of early training. Even in a region that held up paternalism as an ideal, married women routinely challenged their husbands' legal authority over human property, especially slaves they inherited as young women. An institution as widely supported as slavery, Jones-Rogers suggests, could not long have been sustained had its authority and violence been wielded by wealthy white men alone. Deeply researched and closely argued, this unflinching, elegantly written volume--and the stories it tells, especially regarding the sale and purchase of slaves--overturns much of what historians long believed about what one scholar dubbed "a man's business." Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Douglas R. Egerton, Le Moyne College

Jones-Rogers (history, Univ. of California, Berkeley) expands her award-winning dissertation to correct the historical record on white women's culpability in the perpetuation of the slave system. Using primary resources including newspapers and archives as well as many secondary sources, Jones-Rogers meticulously portrays how these women strived to maintain and control what they saw as their economic stability. Many white women were gifted or purchased slaves in their own right and as separate from their husbands, and there were complex laws available for women to use as a means to protect their investments. Jones-Rogers uses court cases and newspaper advertisements to show that Southern American women were not just victims of the patriarchy but that they were integral in making the slavery system work. The author uses strong evidence to convince readers to revisit what they think they know about white women and black slavery. Other works that can provide further context include Catherine M. Lewis and J. Richard Lewis's Women and Slavery in America and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's Within the Plantation Household. VERDICT Strongly recommended for readers interested in this period of U.S. history, or who wish to expand their understanding to include a more honest view of the Southern slave system.-Maria Bagshaw, Elgin Community Coll. Lib., IL © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.