Kelly Lehtola’s Reviews > They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South > Status Update

The abolition of slavery placed southern women back into a place of economic dependency.

“But like the Confederate soldiers who lay slain on the battle-fields, slave-owning women lost their war-and most of their wealth along with it.”

“Women often saw the Civil War as a personal battle, one they deemed worth fighting not just as southerners resisting the Union advance onto their land, or as "soldiers' wives" whom the government of the CSA promised to care for in exchange for their menfolk's military service. It was also a fight they vigilantly took on to ensure their own financial au-tonomy, economic stability, and survival.”

“They had an immense economic stake in the continued enslavement of African Americans, and they struggled to find ways to preserve the system when the Civil War threatened to the institution of slavery and their wealth along with it”

I didn’t know wet nurses were a thing so that’s crazy

Medical schools purchased dead enslaved people’s bodies for research purposes, allowing owners to profit even more after their deaths of their property.

White women’s status as slave owners was wildly respected by southern society, and when it wasn’t, state and federal courts upheld it.

Things I’ve learned so far:
- Southern women were gifted enslaved people, and trained into being owners.
- Marriage settlements in the south acted as modern day prenups for families/women that owned many enslaved people/property, because if they didn’t they immediately became the husbands property after marriage and could be sold to pay off his debt.