Online-Jour fixe des Instituts für die Erforschung der Frühen Neuzeit (IEFN) (Web)
Zeit: 11.11.2020, 18:30 Uhr
Ort: virtueller Raum, via Wien
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This presentation explores how racializing imperial structures considered Romani women in colonial English, French and Spanish North America from the late 17th through late 18th centuries. The position colonial officials afforded Romani women in local hierarchies remained colored with assumptions imported from Europe. However, altered social conditions in the colonies positioned enslaved Africans and autonomous tribes as the greatest threats to a stable social order. This dulled, though did not instantly erase, the perceived danger of Romani social deviancy. These women’s sexual choices, particularly those involving Native American and African-descended men, brought them under the scrutiny of colonial administrators tasked with defining and policing racial boundaries.
In policing Romani women’s sexuality representatives of empire confirmed their racial liminality. Those women considered Gypsy, Bohemian, and Gitana by colonial English, French and Spanish administrators held racial potential rather than securely embodied race – their actions, especially their sexual choices, determined where they, and their descendants, might racially situate. Through their sexual choices, these women confronted and contributed to developing colonial racial orders. The perception of Romani racial liminality in North America only gradually disappeared.

• Moderation: Stephan Steiner

Ann Ostendorf is Professor of History at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. She researches and teaches in diverse areas of early American history and has a special interest in race, culture and Louisiana. Her recent work investigates the lives of colonial North American Gypsies.