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

Jones-Rogers looks into the marriage and arrangements of Sarah Davis and her husband John Bethea. Under the legal doctrine of coverture, the enslaved people owned by Sarah Davis fell under the control and ownership of her husband. As a “feme covert,” Sarah technically lost legal ownership of her enslaved people upon her marriage to John. In reality, however, according to the firsthand accounts of enslaved people owned by her, Sarah Davis maintained control of her enslaved people throughout her marriage. Jones-Rogers remarks that, despite this departure from clear legal doctrine, Sarah Davis’s circumstances were normal and unexceptional for the times in which she lived. Using her research on firsthand accounts documented by the Federal Writers’ Project, the author claims that “these women challenged their male kinfolks’ alleged power to control their property, human and otherwise” (27).

While some women struggled under the doctrine of coverture, Jones-Rogers documents others who circumvented these legal constraints. She recounts examples of how married women’s legal ownership of enslaved people was often acknowledged by those outside their household. The author points out the flaws in coverture as a legal doctrine that relied upon perfect conditions that were rarely met. She also describes how legislators were aware that it was problematic for women to cede total control of their property to husbands and often offered women protections under the doctrine of coverture (29).