Marginalization of women and African Americans in antebellum America

Antebellum America

The Plight of women and African-Americans as Marginalized Groups in Antebellum America

Women and African-Americans represented two groups with limited rights in antebellum America. Socially, both were considered to have a role and a place. Yet neither had complete rights when compared with white men in the same society. As the North and the South became increasingly sectionalized, the expectations of and placed on both groups began to change. Despite this, both women and African-Americans were marginalized by both Northern and Southern society for the entirety of the antebellum period. The marginalization of blacks and women allowed for a social hierarchy wherein every member of society had a clear place.

In the antebellum era, American society was based upon a number of social constructs (Dorsey, 77). These constructs -- religion, ideology, and culture -- formed the laws and social norms relevant to and individual's rights. Because the laws were a reflection of culture and ideology, those laws and norms developed differently in the North and the South.

Culturally, the South was an agricultural society, based on the growth of cotton and other crops. Though the large plantation was the exception rather than the norm, the basis of the overall society stood on the "free" labor of slaves. Not only did slave ownership allow for agriculture to progress but it allowed for an easily understood hierarchy wherein white individuals had the power and African-Americans were beneath them (Dorsey 77).

This hierarchy allowed even poor white men who did not have any slaves or servants to feel socially elevated in the marginalized society (Dorsey, 77). This same idea was likely part of the relationships between white women and African-Americans, and African-American men and women. For example, white women who had little power compared to their husbands likely felt powerful in relation to their slaves or to other African-Americans. This is evident in the actions of the minister's wife in the story of James Mars: "The Minister's wife told my father if she could only had him South, where she could have at her call a half dozen men, she would have him stripped and flogged until he was cut in strings, and see if he would do as she bid him" (Mars, 5). The Minster's wife is seeking control in a situation where she has little or none. White women were somewhere in the middle of the social construction, as they did not hold as many rights as men and yet were not on par with free or slave African-Americans; white women could be socially active, especially in religious and sometimes political functions, whereas most African-Americans could not (Dorsey, 77).

The availability of social function to white women was not unlike the availability of religion to African-Americans. Even on slave plantations slave owners considered it important to impress Christian values on their slaves. In James Mars' exploit, he explains how the minister who had owner his parents had arranged and carried out their marriage so that they could live a Christian life (3-5). That the slave-owners felt any importance in this is particularly interesting, in that Mars' mother already had a child by a previous white owner (Mars, 4). Previous sexual relationships or children would have been unacceptable in a white women looking to marry; however, the sexualization of African-American women allowed white individuals to look the other way.

African-American women were on the lowest rung of the social ladder. They held no power, being both socially and sexually at the whim of their husbands and owners. African-American women served their husbands or masters in a similar fashion as white women. Overall, "the work performed by slaves for their families... conformed to traditional white norms about conventional gender roles" (West, 4). Though some African-American women were recognized as important in their important domestic roles in the home, they were less able than even white women to step outside of those roles (West, 1-5).

African-American women were in a particularly difficult position socially. Unlike white women they were not expected to openly rally for their men and families, as this activity would have been too openly social. Instead, they were expected to be submissive to everyone: white men, white women, African-American men, and even white children to some extent (West, 3-4). Additionally, women were at great risk if they supported men who were stepping outside of the boundaries of their role as slave or freedman; even African-American men had a clear role, including things that they could not or should not do (West, 2-5).

The social hierarchy additionally explains the reason why African-American women -- slaves in particular -- were subject to "persistent sexualization" in slave culture (77). Men of both races maintained social power over African-American women, who had little recourse if they were abused physically or sexually (West, 3). African-American men did not have the same sexualization and the very idea of a sexual relationship between a free or slave African-American man and a white women invoked violence (West, 77).

Changes in the role of African-Americans did occur in the period leading up to the Civil War. African-Americans sought out more rights during this period. Conversely small groups of women may have been seeking out rights but most were called to support their husbands and families -- and their entire society -- as the political scene turned towards the possibility of war (Dorsey, 77). This was particularly true in the South where states rights and slavery had become a threat to an entire way of life.

Freed African-Americans even pursued the possibility of returning to Africa in the early 1800s (Dorsey, 77). This idea met with great support from those who supported an end to slavery but recognized the difficulty in incorporating African-Americans into a racially segregated society. Dorsey explains that the "movement's underlying ideological premise... was that white prejudice against black people was so debasing and immutable that African-Americans could never be accorded equality unless they were removed from white society" (77). Though the move to Africa never occurred, its support by white in the North made is clear that they, too, did not see a society where African-Americans would be free and not marginalized, despite efforts to provide them with rights and freedoms.

In the North, after all, it was possible for African-Americans to have some freedoms, particularly as the antebellum era moved closer to the war. Despite these changes, both groups continued to be marginalized. One key example of such marginalization appears in Frederick Douglass' "Independence Day Speech." Douglass was asked to speak, implying some measure of acceptance, respect, and freedom from those around him. Yet, Rochester, New York in 1852 continued to celebrate the social constructs that prevented Douglass from being truly free or independent. Douglass lived in Rochester among white men and had gained enough support to be openly invited to speak and to them as a leader. However, there continued to be a rift between what was expected and what actually was. In other words, the ideology of independence and freedom for men like Douglass was treated as if it had occurred when really it was in its infancy.