"Heartfelt and bold, "Colored Amazons" stands confidently at the intersection of several kinds of history. Kali N. Gross has used statistics, scandal rags, and sophisticated modern studies to produce a genuinely innovative study of race and power, crime and sex, stereotypes and gender roles."--Roger Lane, author of "Roots of Violence in Black Philadelphia, 1860-1900"

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Notes from the Author: Crime and Black Women’s History 1
1. Of Law and Virtue: Black Women in Slavery, Freedom, and Early Criminal Justice 13
2. Service Savors of Slavery: Labor, Autonomy, and Turn-of-the-Century Urban Crime 39
3. Tricking the Tricks: Violence and Vice among Black Female Criminals 72
4. Roughneck Women, Pale Representations, and Dark Crimes: Black Female Criminals and Popular Culture 101
5. Deviant by Design: Race, Degeneracy, and the Science of Penology 127
Conclusion: “She was Born in this Prison”: Black Female Crime, Past and Present 150
Appendix 157
Abbreviations and Notes on Sources 167
Notes 171
Bibliography 231
Index 251