Scholars of Iranian history have recently given some attention to the presence of enslaved Africans in wealthy household and in the royal court in the nineteenth century. This research is developing as a new field in Iranian studies. Yet unlike the literature on American slavery, little attention has been given to the theme or resistance and rebellion within these households. Most studies have assumed that enslaved domestic workers and concubines, overwhelmingly women, were adopted into Iranian families and lived as as resigned or satisfied, possibly even content, servants. For example, there is Haleh Afshar’s important portrait of a woman who became a domestic servant in her family’s household after leaving the shah’s palace. This paper will attempt to recover what can be known of the life of one African woman, Gulchihrih Khanum, who was enslaved in the court of Nasir al-Din Shah. She was appointed as the nannie of Aziz al-Sultan (Malijak), the delinquent boy favorite of the king. She encouraged and participated in the boy’s antics and was known as the “clown-slave” (kaniz-e dalghak). Her life at court provides an example of coerced emotional labor expected of slaves, especially women. The memoirs of Taj al-Sultana and other court figures also provide us with a picture of subtle, and in at least one case, spectacular, resistance undertaken by Gulchihrih. These discoveries demand we apply new sensitivities to ongoing research on enslaved women in Iran.