Book Review

In this important and meticulously researched book, Martha Hodes recounts the history of nineteenth-century sexual relationships between white women and black men. The story is both engrossing and disturbing, as the often horrific intertwining of violence and interracial sex, particularly in the years after emancipation, speaks to a deeply troubling history of race relations. But Hodes also goes beyond an examination of the specific liaisons referred to in her book's title: these sexual encounters, and the white response to them, provide a powerful vehicle for understanding the culture and politics of race in the nineteenth-century South.

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Hodes has done a remarkable job in reconstructing numerous accounts of illicit relationships for which, she acknowledges, the evidence is often thin. She delves deeply into court documents, following through on legal cases that, because they raised issues of bastardy, adultery, and inheritance, brought certain interracial liaisons to light. Out of necessity Hodes must hypothesize the actual nature of many of these sexual relationships, but her speculations are almost always thoughtful and carefully reasoned. Likewise, Hodes's evidence allows her to make more definitive assessments about white, and especially white male, reactions to these sexual encounters, but she also attempts to find some meaning in the few black and female voices that can be heard.

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