Dubois and women slaves

Dubois' Souls of Black Folk took a very different approach to discussing sexual relationships between slave women and their masters than the Hemingses of Monticello, which makes sense due to the genders of the writers and the time periods in which they wrote. There are two notable passages in which Dubois mentions the topic. The first is in the first chapter, a chapter in which Dubois often uses the pronoun "he" to refer to the universal slave. He writes of the "defilement of Negro women" that marked blacks as bastards. Dubois refers to lost "African chastity." Dubois is condemning slavery here, but in patriarchal language. Chastity is more of a prize for men than for women since it guarantees  blood relations between father and son, necessary for inheritance of property. "Bastard" typically refers to illegitimate males, and indicates that the bastard son does not inherit property. As for the word "defile" as a synonym for rape, it points more to the lessened value of the woman than to the abuse of the woman. Dubois here seems almost more concerned with the abuse of black men through the "defilement" of black women. The other passage that refers to rape in chapter two is figurative. Dubois states that two figures are emblematic of the Reconstruction period: the bitter old white gentleman, and freed slave woman who use to care for the master's family. In this passage Dubois lends the woman some agency and complexity. Despite being hateful during the Reconstruction, she formerly had some tender feelings for her master's family. Dubois writes that "at his  [master's] behest" she "laid herself low to his lust," which suggests a limited amount of agency (with the word behest), and accords some dignity (she lowered herself) to the woman, at least more so that the word "defile." Dubois uses the image of the woman here to point out that the perverted intimacy of slavery was replaced with hate. Dubois' ultimate conclusion is that blacks want and need to be properly incorporated into America, and that "intimacy" with whites must again be achieved on new terms that are difficult for whites to accept. In both passages I discussed, women are symbols - symbols for either the manhood of black men or for reconstruction. The latter symbol accords the woman image more complexity.