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

by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Whether they recognized it or not, white southern mothers were ultimately responsible for the ordeals that many enslaved wet nurses endured in and out of the slave market. These women decided when enslaved wet nurses would best serve them and their children, and only they knew the motives underlying these decisions. White mothers determined whether they could withstand the physical toll breastfeeding imposed upon them and whether they would be able to produce an adequate supply of milk to feed their newborns. Consequently, they were the ones who decided whether to borrow, hire, or buy an enslaved wet nurse, even if a man might finalize the transactions in the slave market. Some men did influence their wives’ decisions to charge other women with nursing their children.81 But the politics of respectability that shaped white southern culture and domestic relations ensured that few men would dare violate