BOOKMARK

Exploring Enslaved Women’s History through Literature

BY JANE LAMM CARROLL, PhD

Since childhood, I have been both an avid reader and deeply fascinated by the past, so literature and history have always been inexorably intertwined in my life. Literature has acted as a window into history and as a source of historical knowledge, providing an avenue into past events, while also spurring and answering my historical questions.

As a professor of history, I incorporate literature into almost all of my courses — especially those focusing on women’s and feminist history — but also in U.S. history courses examining the experiences of historically marginalized people due to their race, class, gender, religion, or nationality. The literature I employ includes novels written in the past, historical fiction, autobiographies, biographies, and plays.

As an educator, I have found that literature acts as a very successful empathetic “hook.” These stories effectively draw students into learning about diverse people’s experiences from previous eras and, importantly, spark their curiosity and questions about the past.

While I was still in graduate school in the 1980s, I read Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. It compelled me to dive more deeply into the history of slavery in the United States — especially the experiences of enslaved women — as I strove to understand why a mother would kill her own child rather than allow her to be dragged back into slavery. Once I began reading the narratives of formerly enslaved women, I began to understand.

The system of slavery in the United States was a profoundly evil institution, and its morally corrosive, dehumanizing, and violent effects are nowhere more evident than in the stories and experiences of enslaved women. But they are also inspirational accounts of survival, resistance, and resilience in the face of unrelenting oppression.

If you want to learn more about the history of slavery from the perspectives of enslaved women, here is a selective sample of the literature I recommended and use in my history courses on this topic.

Autobiographical Accounts

Written in the form of novels by formerly enslaved women:

1. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs

2. The Bondwoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts

Biographical Accounts

Written in the form of a novel (historical fiction) by the great-granddaughter of the main character:

3. Jubilee by Margaret Walker

Scholarly Biographies

Stories of enslaved women:

4. Harriet Tubman, The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton

5. Harriet Jacobs, A Life by Jean Yellin

6. Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter

Historical Monograph

The true story of an enslaved woman who successfully won her freedom via the Louisiana court system:

7. The Lost German Slave Girl by John Bailey

Examines the historiographical fallacies of historians related to Thomas Jefferson, the enslaved woman Sally Hemings and their children:

8. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy by Annette Gordon-Reed

Jane Lamm Carroll ’80, PhD, professor of history and women’s studies at St. Catherine University

Jane Lamm Carroll ’80, PhD, is a professor of history and women’s studies at St. Catherine University. She was the Sister Mona Riley Endowed Chair in the Humanities for 2017–2020. She is the author of Daybreak Woman: An Anglo-Dakota Life (November 2020) published with the Minnesota Historical Society Press.