Abstract
Historically, victims of sexual violence have rarely left written accounts of their abuse, so while sexual violence has long been associated with slavery in the United States, historians have few accounts from formerly enslaved people who experienced it first-hand. Through a close reading of the narrative of Louisa Picquet, a survivor of sexual violence in Georgia and Louisiana, this article reflects on the recovery of evidence of sexual violence under slavery through amanuensis-recorded testimony, the unintended evidence of survival within the violent archive of female slavery, and the expression of “race” as an authorial device through which to demonstrate the multigenerational nature of sexual victimhood.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 267-288 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | American Nineteenth Century History |
Volume | 19 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 16 Nov 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2018 |
Keywords
- Slavery
- sexual violence
- Violence
- Race
- Gender