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North America

How Should We Look at Rape in Early America?

By Sharon Block, Department of History, University of California, Irvine (April 2006)


Sections: North America

Subjects: Imperial, Colonial, and Postcolonial History, History, Women's History, Colonial History.

Places: Americas, Northern America.

Periods: 1000 - 1999, 1600-1699, 1700-1799, 1800-1899.

Key Topics: gender, sexuality.

Abstract

While rape may not have affected events associated with traditional linear histories, sexual assaults were regular features of early American life that affected individuals and society at large. But how should historians determine the influence of rape on early America? Based on nearly one thousand incidents of possible sexual coercion and hundreds of extra-legal commentaries on rape, this article explore how early Americans discussed rape and what impact it may have had on their lives. Attending to the micro and the macro influences of rape can help historians understand early Americans’ worlds and relationships to one another.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2006.00323.x

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