Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive

Early American Studies

By: Marisa J. Fuentes

Narrated by: Carrie Burgess

Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the 18th century, Bridgetown, Barbados, was heavily populated by both enslaved and free women. Marisa J. Fuentes creates a portrait of urban Caribbean slavery in this colonial town from the perspective of these women whose stories appear only briefly in historical records. Fuentes takes us through the streets of Bridgetown with an enslaved runaway; inside a brothel run by a freed woman of color; in the midst of a white urban household in sexual chaos; to the gallows where enslaved people were executed; and within violent scenes of enslaved women's punishments. In the process, Fuentes interrogates the archive and its historical production to expose the ongoing effects of white colonial power that constrain what can be known about these women.

Combining fragmentary sources with interdisciplinary methodologies that include black feminist theory and critical studies of history and slavery, Dispossessed Lives demonstrates how the construction of the archive marked enslaved women's bodies, in life and in death. By vividly recounting enslaved life through the experiences of individual women and illuminating their conditions of confinement through the legal, sexual, and representational power wielded by slave owners, colonial authorities, and the archive, Fuentes challenges the way we write histories of vulnerable and often invisible subjects.

The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks. 

"Exemplifies the best new historical scholarship on slavery and gender." (Jennifer L. Morgan, Porfessor at New York University)

"Marisa J. Fuentes is masterful...." (Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Professor at University of Delaware)

"An important and complex work that demonstrates how historians can employ a range of interdisciplinary methodologies." (Melanie J. Newton, Associate Professor at University of Toronto)

©2016 University of Pennsylvania Press (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks

Embarrassing

I should not have liked this but I did. The reading or writing (syntax) was poor, but the subject matter demanded my attention. The effect on me is embarrassing. I felt at times like I was part of the story and that is bad to the extreme.

The most shocking info to me was the participation of white women and the powerlessness of the victims.

Excellent work of serious history

This is an excellent work of scholarly history.
Dealing primarily with enslaved women in 18th century Bridgetown, Barbados, it employs innovative historical techniques to glean meaning from the relevant archives, which were systematically deprived of the voices of black women by the cruelty and marginalization of British imperialism.
It’s a superb book. It is, however, a scholarly book. If you are looking for historical stories of adventure and drama, look elsewhere. This is serious history for serious people. It deals with some of the worst behavior by human beings to human beings. There aren’t happy endings. One simply finishes the work with a better, more nuanced understanding of the past and, to some degree, the present.
The performance is solid. There are some mispronunciations here and there but otherwise, the reader does a good job in keeping the text fresh in the reader’s ear and mind.

An amazing read

The content is well laid out and easy to follow which is important when dealing with such a devastating subject matter.

What I also enjoyed was the pace and clarity of narration. Even though 1x was a little slow for me, it was perfect for my father, and as I sped it up to 1.4x-2x the clarity and cadence was maintained making it very comfortable to listen to.