How did White Men Justify Exploitation of Black Women during Slavery?

Question

I'm talking about Sexual Slavery. Please Give me sources if Any

It's for a project at school...
One of the justification of exploitation was that white men said that Exploitation of black women promoted purity among white women..

Answer 1

THEY DIDNT JUSTIFY IT ...... They actually believed it was their right ........ they thought there was no differance between a black and a horse .... they didnt justify the ride to either of them. This is sad but true

Answer 2

White men were able to justify the exploitation of just about everyone during slavery. Some convinced themselves that God advocated, or even blessed, slavery, because some parts of the Old Testament give rules for the treatment of slaves. Many believed that by enslaving the Africans and exposing them to Christianity, they were given the chance for salvation (go figure that one!).

White women at the time were discouraged from being sexual beings, which I'm sure caused lots of problems for many who actually wanted to have a decent sex life. While some white women were happy to have the "burden" of sex taken care of by someone else, some were jealous of their husband's interest in slave women and thus did what they could to make these slave women suffer even more.

While some black women were "mistresses" of white men, many were exploited sexually without the privileges the word "mistress" implies. And certainly there were slave women who used the master's interest in them to their advantage.

When the importation of slaves was outlawed, slavery was still legal, and the only way to get more slaves was for children to be born into slavery. Masters would encourage, or even order, black slaves to mate with one another, and, often would impregnate slave women themselves. In some cases the children of these unions would simply be a byproduct of the master's lust, but some were intentionally conceived to increase the master;s property.

By setting up a dualism with white women as "pure" and nonsexual, and black woman as lustful and promiscuous, it was easier to justify. Of all the horrors of black chattel slavery in the US--of which there are many-- this seems to me the most cold-blooded, to rape a woman and then sell off or use as a slave one;s own flesh and blood.

Answer 3

The bottom line is the more children, the more profit in the long run. Yes, babies were a liability because they couldn't work until they were four or five, but they were replacements.

The birth of babies in the slave quarters were celebrated affairs both in the slave quarters and in the big house. White men justified playing with black slaves using that issue. Unfortunately, children who looked white, but weren't were a financial liability because they couldn't be worked as hard as pure blacks.

The truth is not as many white men as you think visited the slave quarters. Yes, Thomas Jefferson took a slave as his mistress, but he'd promised his dying wife to never remarry. What a lot of folks don't realize is only one child from that slave was his. He let her marry and sent her away from him after that and took the financial loss.

Answer 4

When one people conquers another and needs to keep them subdued, one of the ways that they do that is through sexual slavery. That is why rape is so common in places like Darfur, Sudan, where janjaweed Arab militias are seeking to assert their dominance over black African citizens.

Of course, mulatto children born to slave women became slaves, enriching the slaveowner with yet more human property to sell or work for him.

White Americans justified exploitation of blacks by claiming that black people were less than human. They were considered chattel, property, like animals. However, ideas about slavery changed over time. In the years just after the revolution, a lot of Americans felt embarassed about slavery and knew that it was morally wrong but were not willing to seek its end. Even Jefferson understood that slavery was incompatible with the ideals of freedom, liberty, and equality that he so cherished and enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. In 1784, he even introduced a bill that would ban slavery throughout the United States after 1800, but it was defeated by one vote, that of a man who had not come to the vote because he was ill. However, like many of his contemporaries, he also considered slavery a "necessary evil" that could only be done away with over a period of time. He and his contemporaries were undoubtedly racist, and felt uncomfortable about immediately allowing black people to enter into society and mingle with whites.

It was not until the years leading up to the civil war (late 1840s-1850s) that southern slaveowners began to claim that slavery was a great virtue and that it preserved the sanctity of the racial hierarchy by keeping lesser races "where they belonged." This happened largely as a result of their getting tired of having to defend their economic system and their desire to make sure slavery spread to the territories. Many southerners and southern politicians started to suspect that northerners wanted to end slavery immediately, which actually was not true, but which led them to become more defensive - hence their nickname, "fire-eaters." This was the time when there is so much tension that there were even physical fights on the floor of Congress (well- there was one, at least. It was not so much of a fight as it was just Preston Brooks - proslavery South Carolina cousin of a senator - beating Charles Sumner - antislavery Massachussets senator - repeatedly with a cane on the floor of the Senate over the fate of slavery in Kansas).

What I wrote above has more to do with the public arena, and the ways in which politicians discussed the issue in public. I do not know if exploitation of slave women occured at a higher rate at any one time. Certainly, as the debate over slavery intensified and slaveowners became defensive, they became more convinced of the virtue of "that peculiar institution" that was slavery. And, if raping their female slaves helped to keep them 'in line" and reminded of their low status, then doing so certainly would have helped southern slaveowners to feel that they were helping to preserve the virtue of their race hierarchy.

Answer 5

During this period white women were not as liberal and independent as now or it was not lady like to express their sexuality.
Sexually speaking white men were not sexually satisfied and saw the black woman as a sexually desire or fantasy and exploited them.

Just my two cents worth..

Answer 6

I don't know how old you are but I think you people should give this slavery thing a rest.Sexual slavery still exists today, just look at all the Koreans and Chinese being brought into this country and made to pay for their passage.This slavery crap is just that,CRAP and I am sick of hearing of it from a bunch of blacks trying to stir up more problems. Try going to school and get an education and learn all this stuff on your own from history books or would you rather hear if from the likes of Sharpton and Jackson who in my opinion don't know diddly crap.

Answer 7

There has been times of ignorance within a cultures/races time... One of the things white people were bad for is the idea that they OWNED these people. That is basically the just of it.
CyberNara

Answer 8

I don't think there are too many people who try to justify slavery...

Answer 9

Slaves during that period were considered chattels, property if you will, to be used as the owner's pleased.

Answer 10

Let's talk about the Romans while we're at it.