The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South by Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South by Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh Rachael L. Pasierowska The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South. By Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. xii, 307. Paper, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-6360-9; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-6359-3.) The Souls of Womenfolk: The Religious Cultures of Enslaved Women in the Lower South by Alexis Wells-Oghoghomeh explores the spiritual lives of enslaved women in Georgia (and at times, in South Carolina) by adopting a gendered and embodied approach. Enslaved women are central actors in this study, which hinges on Wells-Oghoghomeh’s definitions of “double” and “triple consciousness” (p. 2). She argues that “most bondpeople experienced ‘double consciousness,’” which represented “the dialectic between the animate-object status,” which slaveholders assigned to an enslaved person’s identity, “and the subjectivity, or ‘inner life,’ the enslaved asserted over and against their objectification” (p. 2). What made enslaved women different is that they experienced a “triple consciousness.” In facing an “animate-object status,” enslaved women asserted not only their own personal subjectivity but also the subjectivity of their children. The Souls of Womenfolk employs a large array of sources, including Works Progress Administration interviews. Wells-Oghoghomeh outlines the primary strengths and weaknesses of this source base for readers unfamiliar with these narratives. But these sources enable her to research the role of religion among enslaved women more deeply. Wells-Oghoghomeh structures the book in six chapters that look at numerous aspects of enslaved women’s lives where religion was present and helped shape their communities’ beliefs and spiritual practices. The book opens with a very strong chapter that covers experiences of West Africans and their respective slaveries. The chapter argues that—prior to European enslavement—women had already been shaped by the sociopolitical world of West Africa. Subsequent chapters often reference enslaved women’s histories across West Africa before the Middle Passage, which helps readers unfamiliar with African studies to better contextualize enslaved persons’ experiences in Georgia. Yet the book fails to wholly recognize the large influx of enslaved persons from Central Africa and West Central Africa. Doing so would have allowed Wells-Oghoghomeh to provide a more rounded study of enslaved women’s experiences under bondage. Chapter 2 examines in greater detail the moral dimensions of women’s enslavement and focuses on topics such as birth, pregnancy, and infanticide/abortion. [End Page 143] An expanded assessment of perceptions regarding the birth of twins and how these views changed across African nations would have been appreciated here (indeed, the author could have contributed greatly to preexisting studies of this nature). The third chapter strays from the theme of spirituality to focus on “sexual ethics and social values” (p. 93). This reviewer would have been interested in even more about the role of baptism and about what women taught their children about such ethics and values. The final three chapters are strongest in presentation and structure. In these chapters, Wells-Oghoghomeh is more deeply focused on spirituality and how women broadened religious authority. The book does not fully address the great number of enslaved Africans who were Muslim. Indeed, large parts of West Africa had converted to Islam due to Arab missionaries and tradesmen traveling through the various regions. Wells-Oghoghomeh only briefly refers to enslaved Muslims—her title suggests “religious cultures” in the plural, yet in sum it focuses on Christianity. A more rounded book would have explored the lives of enslaved Muslims in detail, most notably on the Gullah/Geechee islands of Sapelo, Saint Helena, and Saint Simon’s. This inclusion would have made space for an analysis of different spiritual beliefs, for example, regarding death culture, seen in the number of burial trinkets, such as glass and broken pottery, found in graveyards there. The Souls of Womenfolk offers a deeper look at Christianity among enslaved persons in Georgia. The focus on womenfolk is the book’s greatest strength and makes it particularly appealing to gender historians of African American studies. Rachael L. Pasierowska University of Iowa Copyright © 2023 The...