2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This session explores enslavement and coercion in Atlantic markets for domestic labor during the era most often identified with revolution and abolition. The papers interrogate age, location, and sexuality—along with gender and race—as key aspects of unfree household work.  Sarah Gronningsater’s analysis of slavery in mid-Atlantic British America illuminates the lives of women and children enslaved in urban small-scale households, where reproductive labor had vastly different meanings than on large southern plantations. Enslaved children of all genders made up a significant proportion of the northern market in domestic laborers. Surprisingly, having young children did not necessarily reduce northern enslaved women's ability or willingness to run. April Haynes’ paper addresses coerced labor migrations in the nineteenth century, comparing emigration schemes organized by antislavery women who aimed to create markets for waged domestic labor in Boston, London, Cape Town, and St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica.  She reads against the grain of sources generated by managers to amplify the voices of the workers they transported. Commentator Pamela Scully has written extensively about the tensions between nominal freedom and coerced domestic labor in South Africa after the formal abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. Chair Michelle McKinley specializes in enslaved women’s uses of the courts to resist exploitation by masters claiming patria potestad in colonial Latin America. We all think deeply about sex, reproduction, and family formation in the lives of household workers. The conversation will surpass the geographical constraints that can hinder analysis and contribute fresh interpretations of intimate labors to the history of women, genders, and sexualities.