Gender family and sexual relations defined human slavery from its classical origins in Europe
to the rise and fall of race-based slavery in the Americas. Gender Mastery and Slavery is one
of the first books to explore the importance of men and women to slaveholding across these
eras.Foster argues that at the heart of the successive European institutions of slavery at home
and in the New World was the volatile question of women's ability to exert mastery. Facing the
challenge to play the 'good mother' in public and private free women from Rome to Muslim North
Africa to the indigenous tribes of North America to the antebellum plantations of the
southern United States found themselves having to economically manage slaves servants and
captives. At the same time they had to protect their reputations from various forms of attack
and themselves from vilification on a number of fronts.With the recurrent cultural wars over
the maternal role within slavery touching the worlds ofpolitics warfare religion and
colonial and imperial rivalries this lively comparative survey is essential reading for anyone
studying or simply interested in this key topic in global and gender history.
