Motherhood, Childlessness and the Care of Children in Atlantic Slave Societies - Paperback

by Camillia Cowling (Editor), Maria Helena Pereira Toledo Machado (Editor), Diana Paton (Editor)

This book provides critical perspectives on the multiple forms of 'mothering' that took place in Atlantic slave societies. Facing repeated child death, mothering was a site of trauma and grief for many, even as slaveholders romanticized enslaved women's work in caring for slaveholders' children.

Examining a wide range of societies including medieval Spain, Brazil, and New England, and including the work of historians based in Brazil, Cuba, the United States, and Britain, this collection breaks new ground in demonstrating the importance of mothering for the perpetuation of slavery, and the complexity of the experience of motherhood in such circumstances.

This pathbreaking collection, on all aspects of the experience, politics, and representations of motherhood under Atlantic slavery, analyses societies across the Atlantic world, and will be of interest to those studying the history of slavery as well as those studying mothering throughout history. This book comprises two special issues, originally published in Slavery & Abolition and Women's History Review.

Author Biography

Camillia Cowling is Associate Professor of Latin American History at the University of Warwick, UK.

Maria Helena Pereira Toledo Machado is Full Professor in the Department of History at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Diana Paton is William Robertson Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Emily West is Professor of History at the University of Reading, UK.