Fancy girls

Bill of sale for a girl named Clary purchased by Robert Jardine for 50 pounds

A Fancy Girl, sometimes called a Fancy Maid, was a young woman of African descent with a lighter complexion sold with the intent of forced prostitution and concubinage.[1] This sale was often referred to as the Fancy Trade within the larger history of slavery in the United States.

History

Fancy girls were purchased and sold within the southern United States by slave traders such as Rice C. Ballard and Robert Jardine. The young women were often sold at auctions with other enslaved people, though they were kept in separate quarters from other enslaved individuals. It was common for the Fancy girl to be sold in New Orleans [2] markets at prices much higher than the average enslaved person was sold for. One bill of sale for the purchase of a young woman named Clary declared she was purchased for fifty pounds,[3] or nearly five-thousand dollars in modern currency.

Fancy girls were characterized as "smart," "honest," or "temperate," in public advertisements, and often decorated in nice clothing and accessories before being sent to sale.[4] Preconceived notions of black women as being promiscuous[5] contributed to slaveowners' motivations for purchase and their wive's disdain for the enslaved women. Afterwards, the young women were kept either in their own quarters of the home or in a special building on the slave owner's property, as to not draw attention.[5] Information about the Fancy girl's time enslaved is limited, as most information is only available about their lives before the sale and after their freedom.

Notable Fancy girls

Avenia White and Susan Johnson were two women purchased by Rice C. Ballard in 1832 and kept on his plantation for many years. Their importance to Ballard is highlighted by continuous time spent living on his property, often traveling with him during repeated moves.[5] The two women both had children and their births were logged in Ballard's personal records, signifying their importance to him.

Eventually, the pair were freed by Ballard and moved to Cincinnati in 1838, where they spent the remainder of their lives.[5] Ballard moved the women and their children to the city himself, traveling in the same train car and sleeping in the same lodging room with the women. At the time, Cincinnati held a large population with previously enslaved women and their mixed children, and functioned as somewhat of a safe-haven for those in situations similar to White and Johnson.[5] White continued to write Ballard after her empancipation, updating him on her life or requesting assistance from him. Ballard continued to visit the women semi-often on "business."[5]

Louisa Piquet was 14 years old when she was separated from her mother and purchased by John Williams in 1841. Sold at a slave market in Mobile, Piquet was auctioned for $1,500. By her own account, she was instructed to undress immediately after her purchase so that Williams would be assured that his purchase was worth it.[6]

Piquet was born into slavery, and was not originally sold as a Fancy girl, but claims she and her mother endured sexual abuse at the hands of their previous owners.[6] She lived with Williams for six years, bearing four of his children and taking care of him up until his death. Afterwards, he left Piquet all of the furniture in his house and gave her and her children freedom. Williams encouraged her to move to New York, but she decided instead to move to Cincinnati since she had friends or relatives there.[5]

See also

• Female slavery in the United States
• History of sexual slavery in the United States
• Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean
• Suicide, infanticide, and self-mutilation by slaves in the United States

References

1. White Gray, Deborah (1985). Ar'n't I A Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (Revised ed.). W.W. Norton & Company (published February 17, 1999). ISBN 978-0393314816.
2. Gordon, Tiye (2015). "The Fancy Trade and the Commodification of Rape in the Sexual Economy of 19th Century U.S. Slavery". University of South Carolina Scholar Commons.
3. "Bill of Sale for a Girl Named Clary Purchased by Robert Jardine for 50 Pounds". Museum of African American History and Culture. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
4. Johnson, Walter (1 January 1999). Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674005396.
5. Green, Sharony (2015). Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Hidden Black-White Intimacies in Antebellum America. DeKalb, Illinois 60115: Northern Illinois University Press. ISBN 9780875807232.
6. Fulton Minor, Doveanna (20 November 2009). Speaking Lives, Authoring Texts: Three African American Women's Oral Slave Narratives. State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-1438429656.

Further reading

• Baptist, Edward E. (2005). ""Cuffy," "Fancy Maids," and "One-Eyed Men": Rape, Commodification, and the Domestic Slave Trade in the United States". In Johnson, Walter (ed.). The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas. Yale University Press. pp. 165–191. doi:10.12987/yale/9780300103557.003.0008. ISBN 978-0-300-10355-7.
• Clinton, Catherine (2010). "Breaking the Silence: Sexual Hypocrisies from Thomas Jefferson to Strom Thurmond". In Brooten, Bernadette J.; Hazelton, Jacqueline (eds.). Beyond Slavery: Overcoming Its Religious and Sexual Legacies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 213–228. doi:10.1057/9780230113893. ISBN 978-0-230-10017-6. OCLC 696332790.
• Finley, Alexandra (September 2017). "'Cash to Corinna': Domestic Labor and Sexual Economy in the 'Fancy Trade'". The Journal of American History. 104 (2): 410–430. doi:10.1093/jahist/jax174.
• Finley, Alexandra J. (2020). An Intimate Economy. University of North Carolina Press. doi:10.5149/northcarolina/9781469661353.001.0001. ISBN 978-1-4696-6135-3.
• Green, Sharony (2011). ""Mr Ballard, I am compelled to write again": Beyond Bedrooms and Brothels, a Fancy Girl Speaks". Black Women, Gender + Families. 5 (1). University of Illinois Press: 17–40. doi:10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.1.0017. JSTOR 10.5406/blacwomegendfami.5.1.0017. S2CID 143768520.
• Gordon, Tiye (2015-01-01). "The Fancy Trade and the Commodification of Rape in the Sexual Economy of 19th Century U.S. Slavery". Theses and Dissertations.