ABSTRACT
This chapter initiates our analysis by analyzing several slave narratives by women. We explore and lay the groundwork for the relationship between environmentalisms and feminism by looking at the work of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet E. Wilson, who each were able to reveal and deconstruct the logic of America’s eco-exceptionalist empire through their respective experiences under the institution of slavery. These women are referred to as African American Ecofeminists throughout the chapter because each woman was able to cultivate her own form of resistance through her relationship with the land—and in so doing, revealed how the heart of America’s hegemonic reign was predicated on a ruthless logic of domination that simultaneously sought to produce a useful population and landscape.
