Liberating the family? : gender and British slave emancipation in the rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823-1853

Author(s)

• Scully, Pamela

Bibliographic Information

Liberating the family? : gender and British slave emancipation in the rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823-1853

Pamela Scully

（Social history of Africa）

Heinemann , James Currey , David Philip, c1997

• : Heinemann : cloth
• : Heinemann : pbk
• : James Currey : cloth
• : James Curry : pbk

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 180-199) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: Heinemann : pbk ISBN 9780435074272

Description

"Liberating the Family?" is a pioneering attempt to unite recent understanding of race and gender as historical and cultural constructs with extensive archival research. In so doing, Scully has produced a sensitive and intelligent study which bridges social and intellectual history and suggests new ways of understanding key categories of colonial history. The ending of slavery in the Cape Colony marked the beginning of an era of exceptional struggle over culture and consciousness. Far from simply abolishing bonded labor, slave emancipation reshaped the relations between men and women, and the individual and society. "Liberating the Family?" examines how the ideas held by slaves, missionaries, abolitionists, and colonial officials about the capacities and roles of men and women crucially influenced slaves' experiences of freedom. Gender is a key category in the author's analysis. Scully argues that the very concepts of freedom and wage labor that guided the abolition movement were fundamentally shaped by ideas about men's natural right to dominate women. Slave emancipation liberated slave women into legal inequality. Postemancipation labor and social legislation reinforced freed women's subordinate status in the era of freedom. Throughout the book, the author analyzes Cape slavery and emancipation primarily through the views and actions of the former slaves themselves. Slaves brought to emancipation ideas about masculinity and femininity developed both under the regime of slavery and through discussions with peers about the meanings of freedom and family. Historicizing the archival sources and reading them "against the grain," Scully brings to life ex-slaves' lived experience of emancipation. The book pays particular attention to the ways in which freedwomen struggled in different social and economic settings with ascriptions of what it meant to be a black woman. It details too how freedwomen negotiated and sometimes sought to transform beliefs about masculinity and femininity, about meanings of work, family, and sexuality.

Volume

: Heinemann : cloth ISBN 9780435074319

Description

Liberating the Family? is a pioneering attempt to unite recent understanding of race and gender as historical and cultural constructs with extensive archival research. In so doing, Scully has produced a sensitive and intelligent study which bridges social and intellectual history and suggests new ways of understanding key categories of colonial history.

Volume

: James Curry : pbk ISBN 9780852556283

Description

Examines the complex impact of the end of slavery in the Cape on other social relations. The author of this study argues that the ending of slavery in South Africa's Cape Colony initiated an era of exceptional struggle about cultural categories and sensibilities. Far more than simply abolishing bonded labour, Britishslave emancipation reconfigured the relations between men and women, and individual and society. It was precisely because emancipation implied that slaves would be free to live as they pleased that claims regarding the legitimacyof specific family, labour, gender and sexual relations became central to the struggle by various colonial groups to shape post-emancipation society. The author postulates that for government officials the linkage between political economy to questions of cultural reproduction became a crucial component of the construction of colonial society.

Table of Contents

• Part 1 Introduction: gender, family and British slave emancipation. Part 2 Gender, family, and the ending of Cape slavery 1823-1838: familial boundaries and Cape slavery
• gender, sexuality and amelioration
• apprenticeship and the battle for the child. Part 3 Liberating the family? - 1838-1848: landscapes of emancipation
• labouring families. Part 4 Sexuality, race and colonial identities 1838-1853: marriage and family in the post-emancipation era
• rituals of rule - infanticide and the humanitarian sentiment
• rape, race and the sexual politics of colonial identity
• conclusion - family histories, slave emancipation and gender history.

Volume

: James Currey : cloth ISBN 9780852556788

Description

The author of this study argues that the ending of slavery in South Africa's Cape Colony initiated an era of exceptional struggle about cultural categories and sensibilities. Far more than simply abolishing bonded labour, Britishslave emancipation reconfigured the relations between men and women, and individual and society. It was precisely because emancipation implied that slaves would be free to live as they pleased that claims regarding the legitimacyof specific family, labour, gender and sexual relations became central to the struggle by various colonial groups to shape post-emancipation society. The author postulates that for government officials the linkage between political economy to questions of cultural reproduction became a crucial componentof the construction of colonial society.

Table of Contents

• Part 1 Introduction: gender, family and British slave emancipation. Part 2 Gender, family, and the ending of Cape slavery 1823-1838: familial boundaries and Cape slavery
• gender, sexuality and amelioration
• apprenticeship and the battle for the child. Part 3 Liberating the family? - 1838-1848: landscapes of emancipation
• labouring families. Part 4 Sexuality, race and colonial identities 1838-1853: marriage and family in the post-emancipation era
• rituals of rule - infanticide and the humanitarian sentiment
• rape, race and the sexual politics of colonial identity
• conclusion - family histories, slave emancipation and gender history.

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA45265613
• ISBN:
  • 0435074318
  • 043507427X
  • 0852556780
  • 0852556284
• LCCN: 97037305
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Portsmouth, NH,Oxford,Cape Town
• Pages/Volumes: xiii, 210 p.
• Size: 23 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : HT1394.C3
  • DC21 : 306.3/62/096873
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Slavery -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- History -- 19th century
  • LCSH : Slaves -- Emancipation -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- History -- 19th century
  • LCSH : Slaves -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- Social conditions
  • LCSH : Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Social conditions
  • LCSH : Social change -- South Africa -- Cape of Good Hope -- History -- 19th century
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA19151730