Bosses and Broomsticks: Ritual and Authority in Antebellum Slave Weddings.

MARRIAGE of African Americans; RITES & ceremonies; POWER (Social sciences); DIGNITY; ENSLAVED African Americans; WEDDINGS; HISTORY; ANTEBELLUM Period (U.S.); MANNERS & customs

The article discusses slave weddings in the pre-Civil War U.S. and their rituals, noting how elements of white mastery were included in the practices by slave-owners to further assert social authority. Further accounts are given how African Americans withdrew to their own spaces when they could and crafted new rituals in order to maintain their identity and dignity against those of their masters. The article also discusses the attitudes of whites toward slave weddings and presents several writings from eyewitnesses to these weddings.