Surviving in the Streets
Enslaved African women and their female descendants continued and expanded their activities and roles in West Central African and West African markets in the Americas. Preparing and selling food allowed bondswomen to maintain and re-create their connections with the African continent.
Enslaved women street vendors were tireless workers, and they had to be continuously vigilant because there was a constant risk of physical violence. Attempts to control and restrict the work of enslaved women marketeers and peddlers emerged as early as the seventeenth century in various cities of the Americas where slavery existed. Still, none of these repressive efforts were ever successful. Slaveholding cities needed the work of bondswomen street vendors to survive. For enslaved women peddlers and marketeers, the city was a site of resistance that they quickly learned to navigate. Despite constant threats of violence and periods of strict surveillance by public authorities and slave owners, the city environment with its dark corners, streets, and markets allowed bondswomen and freedwomen to circulate, develop networks, exchange goods, and make money with the hope of obtaining the bondswomen’s freedom. As we will see in chapter 10, selling food and other goods in markets and streets also made it possible for enslaved people to create blood and spiritual families, sometimes even offering them hope of emancipation.