Examining how labor and economy shaped the family life of bondwomen and bondmen in the antebellum South "Swing the Sickle for the Harvest Is Ripe" compares the work, family, and economic experiences of enslaved women and men in upcountry and lowland Georgia during the nineteenth century. Mining planters' daybooks, plantation records, and a wealth of other sources, Daina Ramey Berry shows how slaves' experiences on large plantations, which were essentially self-contained, closed communities, contrasted with those on small plantations, where planters' interests in sharing their workforce allowed slaves more open, fluid communications. By inviting readers into slaves' internal lives through her detailed examination of domestic violence, separation and sale, and forced breeding, Berry also reveals important new ways of understanding what it meant to be a female or male slave, as well as how public and private aspects of slave life influenced each other on the plantation. A volume in the series Women in American History, edited by Anne Firor Scott, Susan Armitage, Susan K. Cahn, and Deborah Gray White
| ISBN: | 9780252077586 |
| Publication date: | 28th June 2010 |
| Author: | Daina Ramey Berry |
| Publisher: | University of Illinois Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 256 pages |
| Series: | Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History |
| Genres: |
Gender studies, gender groups History of the Americas Social and cultural history Ethnic studies |