Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Education, Counseling

Date of Defense

8-22-2025

Graduate Advisor

Dr. Emily Brown

Committee

Dr. Mary Edwin

Dr. Philip Waalkes

Dr. Susan Kashubeck-West

Abstract

Thompson-Miller & Picca (2016) and Feimster (2023) argued that enslaved African American women, and even free African Americans after the Civil War were victims of non-consensual sexual activity and rape. The NISVS report revealed that before the age of 18 years old, 35.5% of African American women experienced contact sexual violence, 29.5% experienced non-contact unwanted sexual encounters, and 20.7% experienced rape (Basile et al., 2022). Researchers of slave scholarship have made the case for the importance of including discourse on slavery and enslaved Black females’ experiences when discussing present day sexual violence among Black women in the US today (Balfour, 2005; Broussard, 2013; Hine, 1989; Jones, 2000; King, 2014; McGuire, 2010; Oduwobi, 2017; Slatton & Richard, 2019; Tanis et al., 2018; White, 1999). There exists a need to hear in their own words and voices enslaved Black females’ personal accounts of their experiences of sexual violence and how they defined and made meaning of the events that transpired. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis study was to bring to the forefront the language and voice of Black female slaves and examine their experiences of sexual violence as depicted by their personal accounts in slave narratives and early slave literature. Black Feminist Theory and Thought (BFTT) and Trauma Theory (TT) provided a convincing argument and foundation for the necessity of this study. Four themes were discovered and discussed through the lens of BFTT and TT: a) Indirect expression of prevalent sexual violence, b) Fate of female slaves, c) Resistance meant survival and strengthened resilience, and d) The legacy of traumatic experiences and generational trauma. This study has implications for the legal, educational, medical, and mental health professions and faith-based communities.

Keywords: slavery, Black female voice, sexual violence, trauma, content analysis

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