Women - Transition to Another World

The Matrix of Domination: The Policy of Sexual Exploitation from the Middle Passage Onward

The Middle Passage - the transatlantic transition of Africans from their native land into slavery - was one of the most decisive and formative phases in the history of the New World. The onset of a reidentification process predicated on the European construction of race segued into the collectivization of Africans from a previously defined, ethnically-based identity. The sexual exploitation of African women aboard the slave ships, and later, on the plantation, functioned similarly, as it cohesively oppressed all passengers of the Middle Passage.

Having embarked upon one of the most difficult experiences in recent human history, the Africans who endured the Middle Passage transition formed a unique bond based on the shared experience of suffering. The memory of anguish and violence inflicted on survivors was seared permanently into the conscious of the African and her American-born offspring. The high incidence of rape and sexual coercion of African women by European men became one of the major contributing factors in the process of reidentification and collectivization that began aboard the slaver or slave ship itself. In fact, Angela Davis points out in her pioneering work on female slavery, it was common practice among many vessels to permit their crews access to such sexual exploits as a matter of policy.

The assertion that rape was simply expression of white men's sexual desire is an oversimplification. Nonetheless, Robert Hayden's 1962 poem entitled "The Middle Passage," appropriates lust as a means to reflect rape as a tool of oppression and dominance. The following excerpt is taken from the poem:

That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest / of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins; / that there was one they called The Guinea Rose /
and they cast lots and fought to lie with her.

Thus the institutionalized pattern of rape of African women by European men was a well-established before the Africans who survived the Middle Passage transition ever arrived in the New World.

Regardless of the extent of violation or the total number of women abused, all aboard the vessel faced the same predicament: first, that African women (or young girls in some cases) became completely vulnerable and incapable of protecting themselves; second, the African men who attempted intervention endured tremendous hardship. Davis' reflections on sexual coercion during slavery and the way it fostered political aims are equally as applicable to the slave ship itself, where a system of repression and violence was also crucial to the successful suppression of revolts and other forms of resistance. At the core of this argument lies the contention that the sexual coercion of women also functioned by targeting African men, who unavoidably suffered from their inability to protect the women and children, who were their own wives, daughters, sisters, and friends. As Michael Gomez puts it in Exchanging My Country Marks, "Those who reacted to the rape of women moved into the continuum" (167).

Thus, the institutionalized pattern of rape, as it entered the framework of the slaver, provided the means to destroy the women's will to resist and, by corollary, to demoralize their men. A curious irony of this tactic, Davis points out, is that despite slaveowners' attempt to render women unequal to their male counterparts by increasing the intensity of their brutality - for they were not only raped but whipped and mutilated as well - the oppression was still equally distributed over both males and females. This indeed rendered black women's positions equal within the slave community and formed the groundwork upon which their resistance to slavery occurred with a passion equal to their men's.

It is the bond caused by the shared experience of affliction that prompted these Africans to conceive the foundation of a community, separate and distinct from that of slaveholders and other whites. Following the correlation between the grounds on which African men and women suffered aboard the slaver and what they and their offspring would suffer on the plantation, the transition demanded the inception of a reorientation of identity, a reassessment of who and what formed the community. Gomez reminds us that "For in order to suffer at all, an identification with those so violated had to take place. In order for there to be any anguish, there would have necessarily been some reflection on the loss of power, on the inability to defend" (167). In turn, the feeling of subjection and the indignation over the incapacity to protect was grounded in the need for power and the obligation to safeguard. The formation of a new black community, took place on the grounds of joint humiliation and reflecting a movement away from a previously defined, ethnically based identity, therefore becomes apparent even prior to arrival in the New World.


The Matrix of Domination: The Policy of Sexual Exploitation from the Middle Passage Onward
The Middle Passage - the transatlantic transition of Africans from their native land into slavery - was one of the most decisive and formative phases in the history of the New World. The onset of a reidentification process predicated on the European construction of race segued into the collectivization of Africans from a previously defined, ethnically-based identity. The sexual exploitation of African women aboard the slave ships, and later, on the plantation, functioned similarly, as it cohesively oppressed all passengers of the Middle Passage.
Having embarked upon one of the most difficult experiences in recent human history, the Africans who endured the Middle Passage transition formed a unique bond based on the shared experience of suffering. The memory of anguish and violence inflicted on survivors was seared permanently into the conscious of the African and her American-born offspring. The high incidence of rape and sexual coercion of African women by European men became one of the major contributing factors in the process of reidentification and collectivization that began aboard the slaver or slave ship itself. In fact, Angela Davis points out in her pioneering work on female slavery, it was common practice among many vessels to permit their crews access to such sexual exploits as a matter of policy.		The assertion that rape was simply expression of white men's sexual desire is an oversimplification. Nonetheless, Robert Hayden's 1962 poem entitled "The Middle Passage," appropriates lust as a means to reflect rape as a tool of oppression and dominance. The following excerpt is taken from the poem: That Crew and Captain lusted with the comeliest / of the savage girls kept naked in the cabins; / that there was one they called The Guinea Rose / and they cast lots and fought to lie with her. Thus the institutionalized pattern of rape of African women by European men was a well-established before the Africans who survived the Middle Passage transition ever arrived in the New World.

	Regardless of the extent of violation or the total number of women abused, all aboard the vessel faced the same predicament: first, that African women (or young girls in some cases) became completely vulnerable and incapable of protecting themselves; second, the African men who attempted intervention endured tremendous hardship. Davis' reflections on sexual coercion during slavery and the way it fostered political aims are equally as applicable to the slave ship itself, where a system of repression and violence was also crucial to the successful suppression of revolts and other forms of resistance. At the core of this argument lies the contention that the sexual coercion of women also functioned by targeting African men, who unavoidably suffered from their inability to protect the women and children, who were their own wives, daughters, sisters, and friends. As Michael Gomez puts it in Exchanging My Country Marks, "Those who reacted to the rape of women moved into the continuum" (167).
Thus, the institutionalized pattern of rape, as it entered the framework of the slaver, provided the means to destroy the women's will to resist and, by corollary, to demoralize their men. A curious irony of this tactic, Davis points out, is that despite slaveowners' attempt to render women unequal to their male counterparts by increasing the intensity of their brutality - for they were not only raped but whipped and mutilated as well - the oppression was still equally distributed over both males and females. This indeed rendered black women's positions equal within the slave community and formed the groundwork upon which their resistance to slavery occurred with a passion equal to their men's. It is the bond caused by the shared experience of affliction that prompted these Africans to conceive the foundation of a community, separate and distinct from that of slaveholders and other whites. Following the correlation between the grounds on which African men and women suffered aboard the slaver and what they and their offspring would suffer on the plantation, the transition demanded the inception of a reorientation of identity, a reassessment of who and what formed the community. Gomez reminds us that "For in order to suffer at all, an identification with those so violated had to take place. In order for there to be any anguish, there would have necessarily been some reflection on the loss of power, on the inability to defend" (167). In turn, the feeling of subjection and the indignation over the incapacity to protect was grounded in the need for power and the obligation to safeguard. The formation of a new black community, took place on the grounds of joint humiliation and reflecting a movement away from a previously defined, ethnically based identity, therefore becomes apparent even prior to arrival in the New World.