Of particular interest in this book is the whole talk of "creolization" -- a term not often heard. Essentially, Morgan discusses creolization and how this event is directly associated with reproduction. The entire Creole history, she claims, required black women's giving birth to these children. This is an area of history that perhaps isn't written about or talked about enough.
Perhaps one of the most original and interesting parts of Morgan's book is that she begins with the women in Africa and she follows them through the Middle Passage and then into America and thus the reader is able to get a real sense of the journal and the cultural differences that the women endured. Often in history books we fail to consider exactly where slaves came from, their journey and what they endured on the journey. It is easy to suddenly imagine these slaves plunked down somewhere without considering where they came from. Morgan does something different in this book by following them from their homes and it offers so much insight for the reader and really adds to the whole impact and experience of her book in a profound way.
One other point to discuss, which was quite a fascinating realization,...
From the beginning, it seems that by describing them as savage or naked sexualized their bodies. White women were not described in these terms. White women were civilized, which seems to be linked to some kind of purity (which includes a sexual purity). The black women were thus described in sexual terms that would no doubt play a part in their exploitation. Morgan also touches on the idea that the white masters would perhaps find this kind of curiosity concerning the black women and their sexuality desirable. It is quite difficult to imagine this today as it is such blatant exploitation and it's hard to not see its legacy today in the way that African-American women are sometimes exploited. For example, just looking at the media and how certain body parts on women are often stereotyped. One example would be how black women are thought to have big bottoms -- and the bigger, oftentimes, the better. This has been said over and over in popular music and in rap songs. In reading Morgan's book, it is not difficult to imagine that these beginnings in early America laid the framework for the way our society would view black women and their bodies for hundreds of years.
