ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a materialist history of American sexuality from the colonial period. Jennifer Morgan’s work asks us to distinguish between scholarship on the sexual exploitation of black and indigenous women vis-à-vis the history of early capitalism. Sexual exploitation of indigenous women served as a metaphor for territorial conquest and/or forced Christian conversion. The Louisiana Purchase, the closing of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the advent of Western expansion laid the groundwork for modern industrial capitalism. Readers are likely familiar with John D’Emilio’s work, but just as foundational is Roderick Ferguson’s Aberrations in Black, which takes up the explosion of sexuality necessitated by the rise of industrial capitalism. It is tempting, especially when comparing the postwar period to other eras, to suggest that capitalism played a less significant role in the history of American sexuality in the second half of the twentieth century.
