They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South

by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

The objective in requiring such deference was simple. Slave owners wanted enslaved people to recognize the power that white children possessed over them, even at the time of their birth. George Womble asserted that his owner wanted the slaves he owned to hold “him and his family in awe”; he compelled them to “go and pay their respects to the newly born white children on the day after their birth. They were required to get in line, and one by one, they went through the room and bowed their heads as they passed the bed and uttered ‘Young Marster,’ or if the baby was a girl they said: ‘Young Mistress.’”21 Enslaved people paid a high cost if they failed to use these salutations. Rebecca Jane Grant would not call her mistress’s young son “Marster.” One day, her mistress wrote a note and asked her to deliver it to a local store clerk. The clerk prepared a package in accordance with the note’s instructions and gave it to Grant to deliver to her mistress. When she returned, she quickly learned what was inside: “a cowhide strap about two feet long.” Her mistress immediately pulled the whip out of the package and began to beat Grant with it. She did not know why her mistress was beating her until she exclaimed, “You can’t say ‘Marster Henry,’ Miss?” Grant quickly responded, “Yes’m. Yes’m. I can say ‘Marster Henry!’” She bitterly remarked to her interviewer: “Marster Henry was just a little boy about three or four years old. . . . Wanted me to say ‘Marster’ to him—a baby!”22 When ano...