Recent scholarship on slavery has explored the lives of enslaved people beyond the watchful eye of their masters. Building on this work and the study of space, social relations, gender, and power in the Old South, Stephanie Camp examines the everyday containment and movement of enslaved men and, especially, enslaved women. In her investigation of the movement of bodies, objects, and information, Camp extends our recognition of slave resistance into new arenas and reveals an important and hidden culture of opposition. Camp discusses the multiple dimensions to acts of resistance that might otherwise appear to be little more than fits of temper. She brings new depth to our understanding of the lives of enslaved women, whose bodies and homes were inevitably political arenas. Through Camp's insight, truancy becomes an act of pursuing personal privacy. Illegal parties (""frolics"") become an expression of bodily freedom. And bondwomen who acquired printed abolitionist materials and posted them on the walls of their slave cabins (even if they could not read them) become the subtle agitators who inspire more overt acts. The culture of opposition created by enslaved women's acts of everyday resistance helped foment and sustain the more visible resistance of men in their individual acts of running away and in the collective action of slave revolts. Ultimately, Camp argues, the Civil War years saw revolutionary change that had been in the making for decades.

About the Author
Stephanie M. H. Camp is associate professor of history at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Reviews
This is one of my all-time favourite books. It's a history of enslaved women's efforts to escape some of the harsher and more violent moments of their enslavement. It traces enslaved women's lives in the deep South from the antebellum period through the Civil War. Stephanie Camp looks at the different ways they resisted violence and dehumanization. They resisted physically by escaping." - Five Books



Book Information
ISBN 9780807855348
Author Stephanie M. H. Camp
Format Paperback
Page Count 224
Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
Publisher The University of North Carolina Press
Weight(grams) 339g