I was going to suggest John's book. He includes many examples of
arrangements for women in hiring contracts. Hiring contracts contain loads
of information about the conditions and terms of service and the many court
cases brought against hirers indicates the degree to which these provisions
and stipulations were not complied with.

Can't wait to read your work, Lois!
Sheri Huerta

On Thu, Oct 27, 2022 at 8:14 AM T. C. GRAY <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Hi there! I find your question very interesting. Do you have any evidence
> or reason to believe that such agreements existed? I am totally unaware of
> such.
>
> Shalom,
>
> T.C. Gray
>
>
>      On Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 04:26:23 PM EDT, Lois Leveen <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>  Howdy list,
> Does anyone happen to know whether hiring-out agreements made any
> provisions regarding pregnancy of enslaved girls and women? What happened
> when a hired-out girl or woman became pregnant/delivered a child? We know
> from various sources that there were some fairly standard provisions in
> hiring agreements regarding the provision of clothing allotments or medical
> care for hired-out laborers. But I have never seen any references, either
> in the hiring contracts/receipts themselves or in any scholarship on the
> topic, regarding pregnancy -- either in terms of the pregnant person or in
> terms of any infant born while a mother was hired-out. Given both the
> effects pregnancy might have on the labor performed by a hired-out person,
> and vice versa, as well as the interests or concerns an enslaver might have
> regarding infants resulting from such pregnancies, it seems strange to me
> that the sources I know of appear entirely silent on this topic.
>
> While the majority of hired-out slaves may have been male, there were
> certainly females who were hired out (at least in antebellum Richmond, my
> area of focus). And there certainly must have been sexual activity
> involving those enslaved people -- perhaps consensual liaisons that
> hired-out people were able to pursue for themselves while away from their
> enslavers, but also potential incidents of sexual abuse of those who had
> been hired out. Indeed, I suppose a related question is whether we have any
> sources -- hiring contracts, court documents, correspondence, etc. -- that
> address situations in which hired-out enslaved people were subject to
> sexual predation during the period of hire. Was sexual "use" of a hired-out
> worker assumed as part of the contract?
>
> The wording of this query emphasizes the perspectives of the enslavers and
> the hirers, because presumably those are the perspectives that the extant
> records would be most likely to reflect and preserve. I do not mean to
> ignore the perspective of the enslaved/hired-out themselves; quite the
> opposite. The larger questions I am thinking about involve the experiences
> of hired-out females. What might an enslaved girl or women experience as
> part of hiring out, and how might pregnancy figure into their experiences?
>
> As ever, I welcome any help list members can offer.
> Thanks,
> Lois
>
> Lois Leveen PhD
> she/her/hers
>
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