Enslaved women organized coordinated work stoppages and direct physical resistance

Evidence

Monk Lewis also had cause to complain about a ‘Petticoat Rebellion’, when the women labourers on his estate downed tools and ‘one and all refused to carry away the trash … without the slightest pretence’. The mill was shut down for several days, yet the women stubbornly refused to go back to work. When the driver attempted to persuade them, ‘a fierce young devil of a Miss Whaunica flew at his throat and endeavoured to strangle him’. — Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly- Women, Slavery and…, 288

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly- Women, Slavery and…, 288
• XREF: connects to: Enslaved women staged small daily acts of resistance against plantation owners — Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly- Women, Slavery and…, 287; Enslaved women limited their fertility to strike at the plantation system — Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly- Women, Slavery and…, 336; Enslaved workers won removal of brutal overseers through collective strikes (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Slave strikes and labor disruption forced planter concessions and overseer removal #expands (0.80)
• Enslaved women limited their fertility to strike at the plantation system #expands (0.75) — Stella Dadzie, A Kick in the Belly- Women, Slavery and…, 336
• United slave resistance disabled whites’ power to discipline plantations #expands (0.65)