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A fact from Julia Chinn appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 25 February 2021 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
This article was created or improved during the Black women edit-a-thon hosted by the Women in Red project in February 2021. The editor(s) involved may be new; please assume good faith regarding their contributions before making changes.Women in RedWikipedia:WikiProject Women in RedTemplate:WikiProject Women in RedWomen in Red articles
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I started this page with a short translation from PT wiki, but then realised there was a redirect in place, so I think the history of how I dealt with the translation is lost. Apologies! Lajmmoore (talk) 21:51, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
Overall: I've made a minor correction to the hooks, should be good to go. Fascinating article, by the way. (I'm a new reviewer, so would be grateful for a second opinion.) —Granger (talk·contribs) 18:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nice article!! Odd that she was still a Women in Red. I havnt got the source but 'However, "as an enslaved woman, Chinn could not consent to a relationship"' seems a bit strong. Maybe "the Washington Posts says"? ........ It seems self evident that she could consent to a relationship with another slave, but the power disparity makes the consent in this relationship dubious... Victuallers (talk) 11:45, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we’d follow the sources rather than our own interpretations of course, but yes in the source it’s clear it’s talking about her “marriage” to Johnson, of which the entry currently says, “It is unknown how consensual their relationship was”. This and related points have drawn a number of corrections from IP editors (to the effect of, it was not consensual) and I was pointing out they are not without basis in available sources. I can email you the Post article as well if you are also interested in working on this entry, Victuallers. It is definitely very interesting! Innisfree987 (talk) 12:02, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Innisfree987, Victuallers Thanks for mentioning this, both. I've added an 'according to' making the quote a bit clearer. I did wonder whether to have a whole section about consent and the relationship, but I wasn't sure about that. Lajmmoore (talk) 12:52, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What would you both think of making the paragraph in question read, from the top:
Little is known about Chinn's life in the household, but by 1811 she and Johnson were in a sexual relationship.[3] Chinn's personal views of their interactions have not survived in the historical record but it was not uncommon for owners to coerce enslaved women into sexual relationships at the time, and in 2021, The Washington Post wrote, "as an enslaved woman, Chinn could not consent to a relationship".[4]
(I do suggest this for fidelity to sources; there’s no pleasing everyone and this too could draw objections of denying agency. So the best IMO is to stick close to sources. It could be interesting to have a section on consent if there’s enough material? Given the emphasis on her absence from the historical record, I was just assuming there wasn’t much more to add? Innisfree987 (talk) 13:23, 10 February 2021 (UTC))[reply]
The real problem is bring this up in the first place. The subject of this article isn't about slave owners coercing sexual relations from their slaves, but the actual person who had an actual relationship with another person. A genuinely neutral-but-informed presentation would be something like "It was not unusual for white male slaveowners to coerce female slaves into non-consensual sex, but not necessarily occurring either" but why would we say it? Just because that's something that happened in other women's lives doesn't make it relevant to the stated subject (i.e., Chinn herself, her life and her relationship with Johnson).
This is why there's no pleasing everyone: this article isn't about slavery, or what might have been common abuses in slave life, but about Julia Chinn. We're told the caricature probably exaggerates Chinn's African heritage, but there's no substantiation for this; for all anyone knows, she may have looked exactly as depicted. We're told she experienced lack of cooperation regarding her authority, but every manager experiences that to some degree -- regardless of ancestry, ethnicity or gender. And she still ran the plantation, paid wages, got lines of credit, etc -- all activities unusual for a woman of any color even fifty years ago, let alone in the early 19th century.
These aren't skills acquired under a life of subordination and abuse. This is, in fact, a story of someone born into slavery and rising to status in white slave-owning society, despite never losing their slave status. Throwing in unhappy details from other people's lives is colorful, but feels more about satisfying modern political narrative than explaining her story. Ocsirpeoj (talk) 17:18, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a source describing her as his “common law wife”? I ask because it’s not obvious to me that there would have been any legal standing in Kentucky at the time but maybe a source corrects me—I just don’t see it mentioned out of the lead? Innisfree987 (talk) 12:10, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ah ok, reviewing the Post article, it does, actually. Seems a little fast-and-loose since legally a common-law marriage acquires rights which Chinn did not have, but if sources use the term colloquially, so be it. Innisfree987 (talk) 12:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Innisfree987, You're quite right to point this out - its how she's referred to in all the sources I looked at - and there is a letter from Johnson where he describes her as his wife. I guess she wouldn't have had the legal status of common-law, but its a way of describing the relationship. I did use partner in an earlier revision, but an editor removed it since partner infers equality, which as his slave (regardless of how he treated her) she did not have. So complex! Lajmmoore (talk) 13:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It sure is thorny, and moreover WP:SYNTH ties our hands in bringing in the existing literature on agency and slavery unless it mentions Chinn’s case explicitly... If sources use “common-law wife” then that’s fine; I also saw “concubine” in the summary for the book cited at DYK and that struck me as fairly apt. Innisfree987 (talk) 13:10, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
“. It was not uncommon at the time for enslavers to coerce enslaved women into sexual relationships”
I've made a minor correction to the hooks, should be good to go. Fascinating article, by the way. (I'm a new reviewer, so would be grateful for a second opinion.) —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)