Women of Violence: Challenging Perceptions of Enslaved Women's Resistance in the Antebellum United States, 1815-1861

这篇论文将调查1815-1861年战前南方被奴役的妇女使用暴力作为抵抗的一种形式。南方种植园成为白人种植园主与他们被奴役的财产之间发生重大冲突的地点，因为被奴役的社区以各种方式反对和抵制他们的奴役。大多数历史学家分析了黑人证词，以揭示对妇女施加的暴力的广度，然而，很少有人研究奴役妇女自己利用暴力来反对奴隶制的性质和范围。此外，威廉·杜辛伯雷和黛博拉·格雷·怀特等著名学者通常认为，抵抗策略将暴力作为一种性别形式的抵抗几乎完全由男性实施。相比之下，女性奴隶被认为是非暴力抵抗的实施者，她们顺应了间接、微妙的持不同政见者的形式。因此，女性遭受暴力的案例被认为是零星和罕见的，尽管有证据表明，被奴役的妇女经常通过暴力拒绝奴隶主的统治。

This thesis will investigate the utilisation of violence by enslaved women in the Antebellum South as a form of resistance between 1815-1861. Southern plantations became sites of significant conflict between white planters and their enslaved property, as enslaved communities opposed and resisted their enslavement in a variety of ways. The majority of historians have analysed black testimonies to uncover the breadth of violence inflicted upon women, however few have examined the nature and scope of violence utilised by bondswomen themselves against slavery. Furthermore, leading scholars such as William Dusinberre and Deborah Gray White have typically identified resistance tactics which incorporated violence as a gendered form of resistance almost exclusively undertaken by men. In contrast, female slaves have been perceived to be perpetrators of non-violent resistance who conformed to the utilisation of indirect, subtle forms of dissidence. Cases of female inflicted violence have thus been viewed to be sporadic and uncommon despite evidence that enslaved women frequently rejected slaveholder dominion through violence.