'Concubines', 'Mistresses', 'Wives': Questions of Intimacy, Violence, and Power in the British Atlantic and U.S. South.

This article examines discourses that developed in relation to terms such as 'concubine', 'mistress', and 'wife' in contemporary sources of the 18th and nineteenth century and in subsequent scholarship on Atlantic slavery. Over the eighteenth century, long-term sexual enslavement, a practice called...

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Publicado en:Slavery & Abolition Vol. 46; no. 4; pp. 785 - 806
Autor principal: Morgan, J. E.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Dec2025
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        atl: 'Concubines', 'Mistresses', 'Wives': Questions of Intimacy, Violence, and Power in the British Atlantic and U.S. South.
      aug:
        au: Morgan, J. E.
      su:
        Slavery
        Rape
        Sexual assault
        Marriage
        Mistresses
      sug:
        subj:
          Slavery
          Rape
          Sexual assault
          Marriage
          Mistresses
      keyword:
        abolition
        Anglo-Atlantic
        British Atlantic
        consent
        discourse
        family
        law
        marriage
        rape
        sexual violence
        U.S. South
      ab: This article examines discourses that developed in relation to terms such as 'concubine', 'mistress', and 'wife' in contemporary sources of the 18th and nineteenth century and in subsequent scholarship on Atlantic slavery. Over the eighteenth century, long-term sexual enslavement, a practice called 'concubinage' in a range of sources on the Anglo-Atlantic, established sexual violence as a fundamental component of the development of culture and law in British Atlantic slave societies. As debates over slavery grew, opponents and supporters of slavery appropriated terms such as 'concubine' in arguments about the (im)morality of slavery. Both the sexual exploitation of enslaved women and discourses moralizing against interracial sex comprised the system through which law and custom subjugated enslaved women. This practice's significance extends beyond discussions of the sexual exploitation of enslaved women. This essay traces this term's uses and associations in sources ranging from early colonial documents to mid-nineteenth century U.S. abolitionists' writings. Varied uses of the term 'concubine' and its disassociation from sexual exploitation, violence, and resistance/refusal reveal how, in British and U.S. slave societies, enslavers' maintenance of power often pivoted on connections among sexual violence, coercion, and conceptions of family.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
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    language: English
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