WRL’s Emerging Scholars: Motherhood & Self-Emancipation among Enslaved & Servant Women in Colonial Pennsylvania

In the eighteenth century, enslaved and servant women fled from coercive labor arrangements for a variety of reasons: to circumvent laws that punished women for illegitimate children, to be near their young and adult children in other areas, and to give birth as free women. In this talk, Tamia Haygood, history doctoral student at William & Mary, will describe the tactics used by women fleeing bondage in colonial Pennsylvania as well as the ways their motivations related often to motherhood and familial obligations.

The Emerging Scholars Series is a partnership between the Arts & Sciences Graduate Center at William & Mary and the Williamsburg Regional Library. The series features W&M graduate students in talks hosted by the WRL intended to bring cutting-edge research to the local community. View the complete 24-25 Series schedule on the William & Mary website.

Emerging Scholars is an exciting ongoing series highlighting the latest research on a variety of topics coming out of William & Mary’s graduate programs in Arts & Sciences.