Customer Reviews

Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South (Gender and American Culture)

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Stephanie Camp recasts the history of antebellum slavery by paying close attention to the ways in which gender shaped ideas of resistance and defiance among enslaved women of the Old South. Paying particular attention to the daily lives of enslaved women, Camp unearths fascinating evidence about the ways in which bondwomen defied slavery by the way they dressed, organized their living spaces, and, in some cases, fled from chattel slavery. While historians, over the past few decades, have written about resistance among enslaved people, Camp smartly intervenes in this debate by investigating the ways in which geography and place shaped the possibilities available to enslaved women to resist the commodification of their bodies. And while this historiographical move positions Camp's study as a transformative study on the scholarly subject of resistance, her attention to detail, to place, and to the everyday experiences of enslaved people makes her book one of the most valuable narratives to engage the human and lived experience of enslavement; and its for this reason that I continue to assign Closer to Freedom to my undergraduates--who continually walk away from a discussion of the book, knowing more about slavery and thinking more intelligently about the meaning of resistance.

Closer to Freedom is a breakthrough work that changed the way historians of slavery think about gender, resistance, space, and bodies. Camp sketches out the way that women responded to and at times resisted the demands of slavery, breaking from the image of the runaway man and the left-behind woman. In well-drawn sections on women who go truant or absent themselves from the plantation to hide in swamps and forests for a time, Camp explores the way enslaved women tried to create space for themselves. A book that builds upon and extends the pathbreaking Ar'n't I A Woman, Too? by Deborah Gray White, and one of the key works that changed the discussions of gender and slavery.

This tome pulls back the curtain on apart of US history that has not been revealed. Stephanie spent lots of time combing archives to compile this volume. She has peeled back the cover on unexplored stories about slavery from the women's point of view. As she continues to explore this area of history, she is contributing to our knowledge of US history during slavery as well as providing a place for the voices of our female ancestors. Thanks for this work, Stephanie! Keep them coming!!

This is an excellent read about an important topic to often ignored in our nation. its content is made even more important now, when the history of the nation is being corrupted by fantasy and not facts. The author is a talented storyteller who brings a poignant message rfom which we can all learn to be more aware and engaged in standing tall.

While the book is interesting, it has some real editing problems with free standing quotes that leave the book as an exercise in patience. I don't disagree that the book does some great things in terms of how we understand space and geography in terms of slavery but my contention is that Camp utilizes rules for quotations that at best are terribly confusing. She also tends, at times, to oversimplify or assume more than her documentation allows her to.

For a good book on female slaves, go with Deborah Gray White's Ar'n't I a Woman?