Reproduction in Bondage
chapter 1 reading notes and questions
When we talk about reproductive justice, it is important to note that Black women coined that term. This is of note because as you will see in this chapter, Black women have had a severe lack of autonomy since slavery. Reproductive Justice, as a term, was established to address reproductive abuses against Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities—and enslaved Black women endured severe reproductive abuse. They were forced to reproduce against their own will all for the gain of the slave owners.
"Slave women’s childbearing replenished the enslaved labor force: Black women bore children who belonged to the slaveowner from the moment of their conception”
If enslaved women’s childbearing was to replenish the labor force then this childbearing was a product of oppression and not an act expression of self-definition and personhood.
What type of effect do you feel this had on Black women’s reproductive rights in the present day?
When we think about social order that was established by rich white men we must realize it is based in two inseparable ingredients:
The dehumanization of Africans on the basis of race
The control of women’s sexuality and reproduction
One of America’s first laws concerned the status of the children born to an enslaved mother and a white man: it automatically deemed them a slave.
Partus sequitur ventrem: a legal statute made in 1662 in Virginia.
Meaning: the doctrine mandated that children of enslaved mothers would inherit the legal status of their mothers
Reproducing the Labor Force
The Vitality of Slavery
Because the offspring of enslaved Black women automatically were deemed property, the cost to purchase an enslaved women was higher if they were able to breed.
(Dr. Berry talks more about the cost of Black bodies during slavery in her book The Price for Their Pound of Flesh).
The “importing” of slaves stopped in 1808 but slavery did not end until 1865, meaning: it was crucial for plantations to own multiple “breeding women” in order to maintain their labor force.
According to Roberts, the most odious features of slavery is: it forced its victims to perpetuate the very institution that subjugated them by bearing children who were born the property of their masters.
Is this something that you ever thought about? Reading this line of thinking, what does that make you feel?
The Carrot and the Stick
yes, slaveholders devised multiple tactics to induce their enslaved women to produce more children.
the carrot
rewarded pregnancy with relief from field work
more food
more clothing
specifically things that highlighted their femininity
small livestock animals
possibility of staying with their families and not being sold
the stick
being sold to another plantation and familial separation
flogging/whipping nearly to death
withholding certain necessities
Slave-Breeding
yes, it is exactly as it sounds.
Slave-breeding: compelling slaves they considered “prime stock” to mate in hopes that the children produced would be explicitly suited for labor or sale.
Slave narratives have uncovered first-hand accounts of the horrors. One man talked of how his master mated him with fifteen different women. And if a male was believed to not be of “good stuck,” he would be castrated so they didn’t produce “runts.”
Victims of “The Grossest Passion”
“‘slavery is terrible for men,’ wrote Harriet Jacobs, ‘but it is far more terrible for women’” Enslaved women experienced a very specific terror that their male counterparts. Enslaved women were commonly victims of vile sexual exploitation at the hands of the slave owners.
The law reinforced the sexual exploitation of enslaved women through two things:
any child who was a result from rape automatically was deemed a slave
failure to recognize the rape of an enslaved woman
This meant that whenever white slave owner impregnated one of his slaves, that child (his child) officially became his property.
What was your gut reaction to reading that? If white slave owners were impregnating the enslaved women on their plantations they were intentionally choosing to create more property for themselves. Another source of potential income.
(with this in mind, I want you to think about that story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson. Is it romantic now?)
Also, pushing you to think about something deeper:
There has been a narrative & myth pushed that Black men have a propensity to rape white women; however, we know that has been debunked but also I want you to think about: how come white men, who were actually raping Black enslaved women, do not have the same narrative around them?
White Women’s Fury
The law did not deem the rape of enslaved Black women a crime; however—shockingly—it was deemed grounds enough for a divorce. This meant that white women could divorce their husbands because they had sexual intercourse with an enslaved woman.
We have all heard the stories of white women abolitionist, but I would like to throw a wrench in that train of thought and tell you:
Many white women opposed slavery, not because it was morally wrong, but because their husbands’ liaisons with enslaved Black women caused them humiliation.
we are seeing that theme of the controlling images we talked about earlier of the jezebel beginning to be used. That Black women’s bodies were interfering in their marriages—not their husbands’ were raping them.
Shattering The Bonds of Motherhood
Even after their children were born, the domination of enslaved women’s reproduction continued. The bondage of slavery denied the rights of motherhood to enslaved Black women—slavery disrupted their relationships with their children. Slave owners most likely did not even consider these women as mothers.
Prenatal Property
Enslaved mothers had no legal claim to their children. Remember, they didn’t have much of any legal claim or protection as a whole.
Immediately, enslaved women’s children became property of the slave owners.
in futuro: the law that granted whites any future interest in the potential of children of their slaves. Furthermore, slave owners often timed bequeathed (yes, that means they put it in their wills—a legally binding document) their slaves to family members.
Basically, the law made sure that the relationship between the master and the enslaved existed prior to the bond between mother and a child—that is assuming these enslaved women were able to have any type of bond.
Because they were able to own an enslaved woman’s future children, the control of Black women’s reproduction was further cemented.
The Auction Block
You guessed it: Not only were enslaved Black women separated from their children while living on the same plantation, they were forcibly torn away from their children because they could be sold away.
South Carolina deemed that a child could be sold away from their mothers no matter their age.
While most whites owned slaves in order to have a labor force on their plantations, there were large numbers who were in the business of solely purchasing and breeding enslaved peoples for profit.
What you’re about to read next is probably something that shocked me the most in this chapter:
The [slave] action was often a government-sponsored event, talking place on the courthouse steps.
States’ courthouses were often the the largest auctioneering firms
The Working Mother & Stealing Authority Over Children
Even though these enslaved women became mothers, it did not matter to the slave owners because their main purpose is to labor on the plantations. This meant that these mothers were unable to not only bond but nurture their own children—meaning they had to leave their nursing children at home. Death from malnutrition and disease was more likely to happen than the slave owner selling them in order to separate them.
Some enslaved mothers brought their babies with them while they labored in the fields, exposing them to even more elements but this still allowed access for them to nurse as they worked.
reading things like this always makes me thinking of how historically Black women have constantly be forced to multitask. How does this show up today?
Slaver could only exist by nullifying Black parents’ moral claim to their children
Slave Women’s Conflicting Roles
Enslaved women being both producer and reproducer created tensions that perplexed their owners and injured their children.
the conundrum: how to maximize the immediate profits by extracting as much work as possible from their female slaves while at the same time protecting the long-term investment in the birth of a heathly child.
The First Maternal-Fetal Conflict
The conflict between mother and child was expressed in how they were whipped while pregnant. Often times, they were made to lie down in a depression in the ground—keeping their bellies safe—while they endured being whipped.
maternal-fetal conflict: the ways in which law, social policies, and medical practice sometimes treat a pregnant woman’s interests in opposition to those of the fetus she is carrying.
To Roberts, the relationship between Black women and their unborn children created by slaver is the first example of this type of conflict in American history.
Black mother’s act of bearing a child profited the system that subjugated her.
The Cycles of Work & Childbirth
Historian Cheryll Ann Cody discovered that many enslaved women bore children in seasonal patterns that tracked plantation work and planting calendars. (She spoke about it in this book).
This seasonality of conceptions and births had devastating impacts on the survival of enslaved infants. The types of labor done each plantation also played a role in the survival of the infant.
think back to my comment about Black women always having to multitask. Having to work in the fields laboring while simultaneously laboring.
Child Hostages
Owners would use children as hostages to prevent slave women from running away or to lure escaped women back to the plantation. (why we read more stories about men escaping than women, because their children tied them to the owners)
I urge you to read this section closely in the book because it talks about the heavy ways enslaved women fought for their freedom.
Yes, the inhumanity of slavery was in the horrendous labor conditions but we must include in that conversation: white people’s control of the enslaved women’s wombs.
The Tigress Fights Back
Playing the Lady
Enslaved women knew the value of their baby, so while pregnant they would play the lady—complaining of some ailment in order to get a reprieve from work. (this didn’t always work, but it was a form of resistance)
enslaved women’s rebellion against their role of reproducer
Infanticide was the most extreme form of slave mothers’ resistance. (Beloved by Toni Morrison is such a beautiful novel that covers this topic. my copy is completely marked up).
Reading this word is alarming to some; however, ask yourself—truly sit with it—what you would do in these situations. I am not saying I agree or disagree; however, I am saying that I am thankful that I am not in a position where I have to make these types of decisions.
the moral question: when is taking a life justified by a noble social end?
Keeping the Family Together
although the previous options were common, the most common was enslaved women’s resistance in ensuring their children’s survival and manage to have some form of family.
those who had the means: bought their daughters’ freedom
some found ways to use the courts to win a child’s freedom
family was not just blood, it was a broad notion that incorporated extended family and non-kin relationships.
these communal bonds left a legacy that continues to shape the meaning of family in the Black community today.
It is commendable and awe-inspiring to learn about enslaved women’s fight to retain even just a little reproductive autonomy despite the conditions of bondage indicates the importance of reproduction to our overall humanity.
Slaveholders knew that controlling those who were childbearing was paramount to the perpetuation of slavery .