University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-2002 "What's love got to do with it?["] : the dynamics of desire, race and murder in the slave South/ Carolyn. Powell University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Powell, Carolyn., ""What's love got to do with it?["] : the dynamics of desire, race and murder in the slave South/" (2002). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 913. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/913 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. \ UMASS. DATE DUE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? : THE DYNAMICS OF DESIRE, RACE AND MURDER IN THE SLAVE SOUTH A Dissertation Presented by CAROLYN J. POWELL Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2002 Department of Afro American Studies © Copyright by Carolyn J. Powell 2002 All Rights Reserved : "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? THE DYNAMICS OF DESIRE, RACE AND MURDER IN THE SLAVE SOUTH A Dissertation Presented by CAROLYN J. POWELL Approved as to style and content by: Manisha Sinha, Johjji H. Bracey, Membw William L. Strickland, Member Susan J. Tracy, Member Esther M.A. Terry, Chair Department of Afro American Studies DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Mr. Clarence Powell and Mrs. Sylvestra Powell, my sister Cheryl P. Powell, and brother Gregory A. Powell. I thank them collectively and individually for their love, encouragement, and support. I will always be indebted to my friends for their friendship and encouragement, and with special thanks to Wanda A. Hendricks and Angelo D. Robinson. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my chair, Manisha Sinha for her invaluable time and support of this project. I am also indebted to the other members of my Committee, John H. Bracey, William L. Strickland, and Susan J. Tracy for their advice and guidance. I would also like to thank the librarians and staffs at the University of Massachusetts- Amherst, William and Mary College, and The Huntington Library. ABSTRACT "WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? : THE DYNAMICS OF DESIRE, RACE AND MURDER IN THE SLAVE SOUTH FEBRUARY 2002 CAROLYN J. POWELL, B.A., HUNTER COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK M.A., NEW YORK UNIVERSITY M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST PH.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Manisha Sinha This dissertation examines the sexual dimensions of miscegenation and the effect that it had on the lives of three slave women, their children, and their white slave masters. Chapter 1 explores the historical dynamic concerning the issue of cross-racial relationships in the slave South. Chapter 2 will examine the black female experience under slavery and the dynamics that helped to shape their lives including the issues of race, class and gender. Although these we are well aware of the exploitation of slave women, we will also examine how women used "agency" to resist and to control their day-to-day lives. which continue Chapter 3 revisits the lives of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, revelation of the study to ignite questions concerning their relationship, despite the DNA not as a politician, but as a man published in 1998. We will explore Jefferson's behavior, vi confronted with issues and choices, as most men are, particularly when the choices concern affairs of the heart. Chapter 4 concerns the dynamics of love, miscegenation, and murder in the lives of George Wythe, Lydia Broadnax, his freed slave woman, and Michael Brown, Lydia's his closest mulatto son. Equally as important is the relationship between Wythe and question how much Wythe friend and confidant, Thomas Jefferson, which causes us to with Sally Hemings. really knew about Jefferson's personal life, particularly President under Martin Chapter 5 explores the lives of Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice Imogene and Adalaine. By all Van Buren, his slave Julia Chinn and their two daughters, openly with Julia, his slave, and standards, their relationship was unusual. Richard lived customs and laws. their children in defiance of the Souths social significance of resistance in the lives Chapter 6 will conclude with a look back at the private helped to shape relationships that of slave women and how the issue of public vs. will show how America historically looked at crossed the color line in the slave South. It to be a line and cross-racial relationships continue race and sexuality, and why the color problem in the twenty-first century. CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V ABSTRACT VI CHAPTER RELATIONSHIPS I. THE HISTORICAL DYNAMICS OF CROSS RACIAL IN THE SLAVE SOUTH 1 11 II. A VIEW FROM THE FEMALE SLAVE SOUTH 41 III. JEFFERSON AND HEMINGS: AN INTIMATE STORY 89 IV. AND JUSTICE FOR ALL...? HIS V. "LOVE AKIN TO FREEDOM". ?: A VICE PRESIDENT AND SLAVE WOMEN 143 196 VI. CONCLUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY 200 viii CHAPTER I THE HISTORICAL DYNAMICS OF CROSS RACIAL RELATIONSHIPS IN THE SLAVE SOUTH Over the past twenty years, historians have explored the sexual dimensions of miscegenation and the effect that it had on slave women in the American South.' These scholars have examined the colonial as well as the antebellum periods covering the sexual abuse of slave women, sexual stereotyping, relationships between black men and white women, and mulatto children. Although historians of Southern history have enhanced our understanding of the sexual dynamics of slavery, a significant role for new research can explore the psychosexual dynamic across the color line from an historical perspective, as well as how it impacts issues of race, class, and gender today. Cross-racial relationships under slavery exposed a humanity that was deeply embedded in the institution of slavery. The Declaration of Independence, as written by its chief architect, Thomas Jefferson, was the foundation of the new republic. This document promised a new nation in which all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, that was not to be. Men like Washington, Jefferson, Monroe and a host of other men this country has held in high esteem were slaveholders. Each denied black men and women their right to their inalienable rights that were guaranteed to whites. Despite the fact that some of our See the following books by these historians, Catherine Clinton, The Plantation Books, 1 Martha Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South (New York: Pantheon 982); Illicit Sex in the Nineteenth-Century South (New Hndes . White Women. Black Men: Haven: Yale University Press, 1997); and Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Company, 1985). Slaves in the Plantation South (New York: W.W. Norton & 1 Founding Fathers were uncomfortable with the reality of slavery, they were active participants in helping to sustain its existence for nearly three hundred years. This kind of hypocrisy was not unique to the colony of Virginia but was pervasive throughout the slave 2 South. Historians have made considerable headway in advancing the issue of race in America but not always the issue of sex. We as men and women, black and white are still topic is even more hesitant about sexuality and its rightful place in our history. This affection between the races. forbidding when sex is coupled with love, intimacy and "Academics rarely flock According to historians Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillispie, into the most intimate and to taboo topics. Explorations of sexuality require delving locate and evidence tricky to exploitable personal relationships, with sources difficult to complex dynamics at play are required. interpret. Subtle and substantial recastings of the 3 overdue." This research. .is long occurred between white Some of the studies on miscegenous relationships that question that any relationship existed between slave masters and slave women call into scientific community and their work in the area these men and women. But thanks to the high degree of accuracy, the paternity of DNA, we can now answer and isolate, with a 2 slavery, see Edmund S. look at this dilemma concerning For an insightful (New Morgan, AinericmSlayery AmericanJ^ree^^ 4-6. York- W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975), in 3 eds., The_Dgyjrs T ane: Sex and Race Catherine Clinton and Michele Gillespie For a University Press, 1 997), xiu.-xiv. the Farlv South (New York: Oxford John *££2?£S on the history of sexuality see (New^^^^York: Harper & Row, JntiniteJVd^^ Publishers, 1988). 2 seems like an eternity, as in questions that have loomed over America's history for what The headway that has been made in the the case of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. we as men and women, black and area of DNA research will forever revolutionize how only within the color line but across the white, seek to deal with race and sexuality, not relationship has laid the foundation for this color line as well. The Jefferson and Hemings perspective of how to deal with race project, which, in turn, has opened up a whole new beyond. and sex in the twenty-first century and historians have avoided looking beyond the With this in mind, I will argue that with issues of race and sex forces us to question obvious in our history, because dealing into what becomes history. Many historians our own beliefs, which can then translate miscegenous behavior of white slave masters; have delineated, evaluated, and analyzed the dynamics of paid to the economic, social, and political less attention, however, has been they were to survive-in spite of the fact that these relationships and how they managed but also the political masters possessed not only the money both illegal and taboo.