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

by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Some women adapted poorly to postbellum free labor systems, and they complained that freed people were unwilling to work for them under the same conditions that had existed before the war. But others proved to be well prepared for their new role as employers, particularly in regard to negotiating terms of labor with freed people. Before the war, slave-owning women had routinely negotiated with enslaved people who hoped to hire themselves out so they might purchase their freedom.36 They had also contracted with other whites who sought to hire their slaves. These were complex transactions that educated both white slave-owning women and the people they owned in the intricacies of labor negotiations. But now that the conditions under which these negotiations were conducted had changed so drastically, white women had to adapt their tactics accordingly.