Sexuality and Slavery

Editors Harris and Berry first conceived of this discussion -- one of the history and relationship between slavery and sexuality -- at a conference at the University of Texas at Austin in October 2011. The meeting encouraged a series of healthy dialogues with the general public, seasoned scholars, and those just beginning to learn about and research these topics of slavery and sexual intimacy. A select group of scholars met again in the fall of 2012 in New York to continue the conversation. This volume is a result of these ongoing conversations, with additional scholarly voices added as the project evolved. The volume places sexuality at the center of slavery studies in the Americas (the United States, Carribbean, and South America). In many mainstream histories of slavery, the editors argue that scholars have marginalized or simply overlooked the importance of sexual practices. But sexual intimacy comprised a core terrain of struggle between slaveholders and the enslaved. The essays explore consensual sexual intimacy and expression within slave communities, as well as sexual relationships across lines of race, status, and power. Contributors explore sexuality as a tool of control, exploitation and repression, and also as an expression of autonomy, resistance, and defiance. Essayists include Jim Downs, Sowande' Mustakeem, Bianca Premo, Marisa J. Guentes, Trevor Burnard, Jessica Millward, Leslie Harris, Thomas Foster, David Doddington, and Stephanie Jones-Rogers. All essays except those by Foster and Camp are new and were expressly written for this volume--