“She Is a Fine Seamstress and Tailoress”: Enslaved Women’s Labor and Resistance in Antebellum Charleston

Based on an analysis of over 2400 runaway slave advertisements from Charleston newspapers between 1820 and 1865, this paper examines enslaved women’s attempts to assert control over their labor and enjoy autonomous lives in the city. While working for free women of color, Charleston’s skilled bondwomen studied the ways in which their free counterparts used language, dress, employment skills and property ownership to negotiate their precarious freedom in the city. Empowered by their artisanal training in high demand professions dominated by free women in Charleston, enslaved women used their employment skills to run away and seek similar freedoms themselves. Rather than head for distant points, these women took advantage of the unique opportunities for autonomous employment available in the city. Asserting ownership over their bodies and labor, women secured employment and refuge that enabled them to remain near loved ones and maintain their fragile freedom, sometimes for years at a time.