ABSTRACT
Studs, Stallions, and Breeder Women: Collective Rape On the Blackshear place, they took all the fine looking boys and girls that was [sic] thirteen years or older [sic] and put them in a big barn. They used to strip them naked and put them in a big barn every Sunday and leave them there until Monday morning. Out of that came sixty babies. (Sterling, 1984, p. 32)
My sister was given away when she was a girl. She told me and ma that they’d make her go out and lay and two or three white men would have sex with her before they’d let her up. She was just a small girl. She died when she was still in her young days, still a girl. (Sterling, 1984, p. 25)
The only incident I can remember, which occurred while my mother continued on N.’s farm, was the appearance of my father one day, with his head bloody and his back lacerated. He was … suffering the cruel penalty of the Maryland law for beating a white man. His right ear had been cut off close to his head, and he had received a hundred lashes on his back. He had beaten the overseer for his brutal assault on my mother, and this was his punishment. Furious at such treatment, my father became a different man, and was so morose, disobedient, and intractable, that Mr. N. determined to sell him. He accordingly parted with him, not long after, [and sold him] to his son, who lived in Alabama; and neither mother nor I heard from him again. (Frazier, 1966, p. 48)
Thomas James, Jep’s second son, had cast his eyes on a handsome young negro girl, to whom he made dishonest overtures. She would not submit to him, and finding he could not overcome her, he swore he would be revenged. One night he called her out of the gin-house, and then made me and two or three more, strip her naked; which we did. He then made us throw her down on her face, in front of the door, and hold her whilst he flogged her-the brute-with the bullwhip, cutting great gashes of flesh out of her person, at every blow, from five to six inches long. The poor unfortunate girl screamed most awfully all the time and writhed under our strong arms, rendering it necessary for us to use our united strength to hold her down. He flogged her for half an hour, until he nearly killed her, and then left her to crawl away to her cabin. (Fraizier, 1966, p. 54)
During slavery, relationships between African American men and women assumed a variety of arrangements, due primarily to a system that was designed to use their bodies in whatever capacity slaveholders desired. The first account above shows how African American males and females were put together to breed like mere cattle. Because the slaveholder was all powerful, he could dictate who they had sexual relations with. The second account shows the horrendous barbarities that African American women suffered due to rape. Rape of African American women was not a crime, and therefore their bodies were privy to anyone. The third account illustrates what could happen to African American men if they came to the defense of African American women. They could be whipped, mutilated, and sold. They, however, could also be killed. The fourth account illustrates how African American men were not only unable to protect African American women, but were forced to participate in the barbarities that African American women experienced. From these accounts it is apparent that African Americans have experienced collective rape. For women it was both psychically and physically. For men, it was psychically, because they were unable to protect their own women. Thus, through collective memory some African Americans may still suffer from the pain of our ancestors. These historical experiences, along with contemporary stereotypes and myths, may inhibit African Americans from having healthy sexual relationships.
