Harriet Martineau, White Women, and Slavery in the Antebellum South

Abstract

This essay brings together two threads in the critical discussion of Harriet Martineau to examine a previously unrecognized element of her representation of slavery. A striking anomaly, given the context of her dedication to the abolitionist cause, is her erasure of the normative role of white women in the South’s slave-based economy. While her American books embody her profound commitment to abolitionism, her concomitant advocacy for the freedom of the press, and her lifelong dedication to women’s agency, they also reveal a largely invisible tension between her wide ranging accounts of a slave-based economy and her almost complete erasure of white women’s engagement in actively managing both it and the cultural episteme it created. Exploring her representation or the lack illuminates not only Martineau’s own complexities but also those of the wider culture in which she lived and worked.