Action, Reaction and Interaction: Slave Women in Resistance in the South of Saint Domingue, 1793–94

TitleAction, Reaction and Interaction: Slave Women in Resistance in the South of Saint Domingue, 1793–94
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2008
AuthorsKafka, Judith
JournalSlavery & Abolition
Volume18
Issue2
Pagination48-72
Date Published06/2008
Abstract

On 28 February 1794 a landowner in the French colony of Saint Domingue assembled his workers and read them a decree that outlined the rules and regulations concerning the workers' obligations and rights as freed persons, specifying the various pay rates these recently emancipated slaves were to receive. The workers openly questioned this decree's legitimacy, saying that it sounded like a plot against them orchestrated by "whites." The women who protested against the decree that day reacted to and interacted with the forced labor system in various ways. Documents such as court records, police reports and official correspondence reveal that women labourers refused to work, challenged their former owners' authority over them, verbally threatened overseers and appropriated material goods for their own use. These acts of protest, noted by the highest governing body in the province, provide examples of women chipping away at the entire colonial system by voicing their opposition to it. Yet at the same time the women were challenging more than the concept of forced labour; they were also rejecting the authority of specific individuals, and often articulating their objection to particular rules and requirements.

URLhttps://doi.org/10.1080/01440399708575210
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