Amanda Berry Smith
She was a black woman and a missionary. She visited Africa in the nineteenth century. Smith reported on how patriarchal the society was by an observation that the status of poor women in Africa was hard. This was because it was expected of them do to all the hard work both in the fields and in the home. They would go into the fields,beat the rice and cut the wood. They would do all this without the help of their husbands.
Irish Bell
She was a white woman who was sold as a slave. She was sold to a southern planter who encouraged her to marry a black man. As such, her children would not be free. This case astonished many white people and, as result, cohabitation between black and white people was prohibited.
Mungo White
He was an ex slave from Alabama. White recalls the conditions in which his mother worked as a slave; he tells of how his mother would cook for the family she was serving and also spin and cut thread. If she failed to do this, she would be lashed fifty times on her back.
The Grimke Sisters
They were Angelina and Sarah Grimke. Their father had fraternized with black woman who had borne children for him. This was an unusual happening then and it angered them. They wrote a book on American slavery that shone light to the plight of black women who were slaves.
Lydia Marie Child
She is a character who sums up the status of black women in society. Child explains that a woman does not have free will and is owned by her master.
