Beyond narratives about concubinage

gender, slavery and freedom in the French Caribbean (18th and 19th centuries)

Abstract

In different contact zones in the slave societies of America and the Caribbean, stories about relations between enslaved black women and men of European origin, usually their masters, have been mentioned in reports by travelers and missionaries, in literature and in official documents since the century XVII, generally written by white men. The images constructed about women are often stereotyped and their experiences and actions made invisible by these narratives, which fostered the construction of a racialized and derogatory image about black women in the French Caribbean, especially from the frequent discourse that linked manumission and miscegenation. In this article, aiming to demonstrate the limitations and stereotypes present in the sources written by white men, I present the results of my research on the achievement of manumission in Martinique, in a social history approach, seeking to demonstrate some evidence of the experiences of enslaved black women in the Antilles French women and their struggles for their freedom and that of their families. In this way, I seek to highlight the fragility of the argument which states that enslaved black women had access to their freedom and that of their children predominantly through their affective (and unequal) relationships with white men.