Tera W. Hunter provides an important contribution to the scholarly body of work that explores the African American slave experience with the publication of her new book, Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century. Although the title suggests a review of slave relationships during the 1800s, this book provides a much broader examination of the variety of informal and formal intimate relationships between intra-racial and inter-racial couples during the colonial, antebellum, and postbellum periods. Hunter begins with an exploration of her own family tree. Using a mixture of narrative descriptions and graphic illustrations, the introduction serves as a road map for the cultural, legislative, and judicial topics that Hunter discusses.

There is a clear demarcation in the slave marriage paradigm between relationships between African slaves that were established during the forced migration and coercive sexual exploitation associated with slavery, and the formal recognition of marriages between African Americans that were legalized as a result of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment. The chapters of Bound in Wedlock are organized to reflect the impact that emancipation had upon the evolution of slave relationships from informal arrangements into legally recognized marriages. Colonial and antebellum laws reinforced the notion that African slaves and their descendants were chattel, devoid of any civil rights, including the right to join together as a legally sanctioned family unit. As items of personal property, slaves lacked the legal capacity to enter into any form of marital union that warranted recognition by plantation owners, federal or state governmental entities, or the judiciary. In Chapters One through Three, Hunter explores slaves’ efforts to establish intimate relationships and family units under the fear that at any time, slave owners could destroy those relationships with a sudden outburst of anger or the desire for financial gain.

Hunter uses a variety of definitions to express the nature of slave relationships. The use of the term “marriage” did not accurately describe these relationships because they lacked legal recognition. However, the use of any other term to describe these antebellum arrangements would devalue the social arrangements that closely resembled traditional Christian marriages between white couples. Hunter effectively addressed this tension by describing slave marriages as “ultimately a mutual exchange of affections and services, a chosen emotional and social bond” (8).

In Bound in Wedlock, the author demonstrates that the absence of legal recognition did not diminish the legitimacy of the intimate marital relationships between African American slaves. Hunter's use of narrative accounts from the slave couples paints a vivid picture of their struggle to preserve the structural integrity of their relationships in the face of a system designed to dehumanize them. Her use of accounts from notable historical figures such as Sojourner Truth and Dred Scott transformed what could have been an esoteric scholarly piece into a libretto that draws the reader into the lives of antebellum slave couples whose stories are rarely told.

Chapter Four marks a turning point. Hunter shifts her examination away from the forced sexual migration that slavery imposed on African American couples and introduces relationships that were created as a result of emancipation, independence, and choice. The decision making bolstered by the end of the Civil War and emancipation resonate in factual narratives that Hunter uses in Chapters Four through Seven. Here, Hunter explores the convergence of three factors: military efforts to end the Civil War, the rise of a unified federal government that offered protection and legal recognition of slave marriages, and the role of religion to facilitate the transition from the informal marriages between slaves to the legally recognized Christian marriages between freed African Americans. Hunter continues to use the term “slave marriage,” but she clearly describes the emerging dynamics between the African American married couples as spouses and parents, not as slaves.

It is most notable that Hunter recognizes the growing empowerment of African American women during the postbellum era. As the legal system recognized African American women as wives and mothers, Bound in Wedlock explores the plight these women endured as they fought not only to solidify the structural integrity of their relationships with their husbands, but also to solidify their legal rights as wives and mothers in society. This is an often-overlooked but welcome examination of the role of African American women in postbellum society. Hunter's examination of the tension between the newly established gender roles evidenced by normative expectations of Christian marriages and the realities of the African American post-emancipation experience is groundbreaking. As she notes, “Though black women were expected to live up to the virtues of ‘true’ women, they were still expected to do double duty as homemakers and wage workers, expectations that did not apply to white women” (236).

Hunter concludes by acknowledging the pernicious impact of slavery which continued to resonate within the African American family decades after emancipation. Hunter deconstructs the concerns raised by the African American scholar W. E. B. DuBois, who noted that the families of freed slaves were “furthest behind modern civilization [in their] sexual mores” (261). The final two chapters of the book capture the tension between African American family life as it evolved following the end of the Civil War and the harsh socioeconomic realities those families faced.

The importance of teaching readers about the authentic African American slave experience cannot be overemphasized. In February 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a report entitled “Teaching Hard History: American Slavery” in which it argues that “our schools are failing to teach the hard history of African enslavement.”Footnote ¹ Although the SPLC's report focuses on secondary education, its conclusion that teachers and students cannot “develop a meaningful understanding of the rest of American history if they do not understand the scope and lasting impact of enslavement” rings true across the academic spectrum. The publication of Bound in Wedlock directly addresses the concerns raised in the SPLC's report and adds a heightened sense of purpose and urgency to Hunter's work. Hunter's work is an ambitious, thoughtful, and well-researched analysis that elevates the discussion about the continued viability of the African American family to new levels.