Representations of Slave Women in Discourses on Slavery and Abolition, 1780-1838

Taking Jamaica as its focus of study, this book analyzes three debates about slave women in the period 1780-1838 that were central to the competing discourses of slavery and abolition: motherhood, marriage, and flogging. This title also examines how British abolitionists and pro-slavery activists represented the slave women to their audiences.
This book analyzes textual representations of Jamaican slave women in three contexts--motherhood, intimate relationships, and work--in both pro- and antislavery writings. Altink examines how British abolitionists and pro-slavery activists represented the slave women to their audiences and explains not only the purposes that these representations served, but also their effects on slave women's lives.