Marriage of enslaved people (United States)

Enslaved men and women entered into relationships with one another based on the knowledge that meaningful relationships were important to their survival. Initially, enslaved people formed relationships according to the customs of West Africa.[4] There was an expectation of love, affection, and loyalty.[5] "Marriage" between enslaved people reflected a chosen emotional bond and a committed marital relationship. Being in a quasi-marital relationship affected one's status in the community and helped define the nature of the relationship among those in black and white communities.[5] One of the strongest arguments against slavery is that it made managing marital and family relationships challenging.[4]

Unions involving an enslaved person or people were not legally binding.[6] Couples who were emancipated might have their marriage solemnized, which made their children legitimate.[7] Clerks were prohibited from issuing marriage licenses or recording marriages. In some places, ministers were prohibited from performing marriage ceremonies.[8] A long-term relationship with an enslaved person was often called a marriage, but it was a contubernium or quasi-marital relationship.[8]

Unlike white couples, enslaved people did not have the protection of the law, the sanctity of the church, or the greater community's support to foment successful marriages. Because they were considered to be chattel, they had no legal standing. Their enslavers made decisions about their lives, which meant they did not have a sense of permanence when entering a committed, intimate relationship.[9] The church did not sanction quasi-marriages and thus was at odds with the teachings of the Christian church regarding the roles of wives, husbands, and children.[10] The longer an enslaved couple and their children were together, the more likely enslavers would separate them. This was particularly the case after the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect on January 1, 1808, coupled with the cotton economy that drove the acquisition of enslaved people in the Deep South (at about the same time that tobacco farms in the Upper South transitioned to an economy based upon crops like wheat and corn that required fewer enslaved workers).[11] Interstate slave trade increased to meet the varying needs of planter's crops. For instance, sugar plantations primarily operated with enslaved males because the work was so strenuous. The domestic slave trade disrupted one-third of first marriages by separating partners. Relationships also suffered when family members were hired-out to other enslavers for the long term.[12]

An 1899 illustration of a broomstick wedding ceremony. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library

Within African American communities, couples who entered into unions were considered married.[13] Marriages could be established as simply getting enslavers' permission and sharing a cabin.[14] If they shared vows, the wording had to be modified. The vow, "To have and to hold, in sickness and in health... til death do you part", was revised to reflect enslavers' legal right to separate them. For instance, "til death do us part" was revised to "til death or buckra part you", the term "buckra" meaning "the white man", or "til death or distance do you part".[15]

Rarely, domestic servants might have formal marriage ceremonies performed by a black plantation preacher or a white minister. After honoring the couple, a feast and dance might follow. Such events were rare in general, and when they occurred were more likely held for house servants.[14]

Jumping the broom was a ceremony ritual conducted for an enslaved couple. The practices varied. In some cases, the broom was held about a foot off the ground, and each partner jumped backward over the broom. Another practice was to have two brooms; each partner jumped over a broom while holding hands. The ritual helped couples feel "more married".[14]

Enslavers controlled quasi-marital unions and could decide the fate of husbands, wives, and children at any moment.[4] Enslavers decided whether families lived together, if they were sold away from one another, or if or when they could see one another.[13][14] If the couples lived on different plantations, they were said to have a "broad" or an "abroad" marriage.[14][16] Even though they committed to one another, they were not necessarily allowed to live together.[17] Depending upon the distance, they might visit one another on the weekend or stay with each other nightly. For enslavers, broad marriages could make the management of productivity and the control of resistance more challenging if they became increasingly independent.[14]

Enslavers might encourage marriages between black men and women on their plantations. A wealthy owner might buy the spouse of a broad marriage so that they would live together on their estate.[14] Enslavers learned that it was in their best interest for their enslaved workers to be married and have families. It meant that enslaved people would be mollified and less likely to run away.[4]

Husbands, Wives, and Families sold indiscriminately to different purchasers, are violently separated-probably never to meet again, 1843, New York Public Library

An enslaver could permit a couple to have a relationship, essentially providing approval to breed, which would increase the number of people they enslaved and make more money for the enslaver.[18] Enslaved women, whether married or not, were subject to rape by their owner, who benefited financially by fathering several children with greater control as the biological father.[19]

Historian Eugene Genovese argues that enslavers understood the strength of enslaved peoples' marital and family ties: "Evidence of the slaveholders' awareness of the importance of family to the slaves may be found in almost any well-kept set of plantation records. Masters and overseers normally listed their slaves by households and shaped disciplinary procedures to take full account of family relationships. The sale of a recalcitrant slave might be delayed or avoided because it would cause resentment among his family of normally good workers. Conversely, a slave might be sold as the only way to break his influence over valuable relatives."[20]

Some men and women lived with their children in nuclear families. In most cases, enslaved fathers did not live with their families. In many ways, enslaved couples assumed typically female and male roles within the relationships, except that since their children and wife were subject to enslavers' whims, men had less control in the care of their family than free men with free family members.[21]

In the 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville found there was a "profound and natural antipathy between the institution of marriage and that of slavery" because a man could not be an authority figure to his wife and children. He could not control their fate, what work they performed, or their privileges.[22]

Enslaved men hunted, fished, and raised crops, poultry, and livestock to feed their families. They might also perform "overwork" tasks that provided their families with a better standard of living.[23]

Illustration of Uncle Tom and his baby from Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

According to the law (partus sequitur ventrem), children born to an enslaved woman were the property of her enslaver.[14] In many jurisdictions, once enslaved people in long-term relationships were emancipated or manumitted, their marriages were recorded, and their children were deemed legitimate.[24]

She would take me upon her knee and, pointing to the forest trees which were then being stripped of their foliage by the winds of autumn, would say to me, my son, as yonder leaves are stripped from off the trees of the forest, so are the children of the slaves swept away from them by the hands of cruel tyrants; and her voice would tremble with deep emotion, while the tears would find their way down her saddened cheeks. On those occasions she fondly pressed me to her heaving bosom, as if to save me from so dreaded a calamity, or to feast on the enjoyments of maternal feeling while se yet retained possession of her child.

— Henry Box Brown[25]

When he was 15 years of age, Henry Box Brown was separated from his mother, father, brothers, and sisters upon his enslaver's death. He was sent to work at a tobacco factory in Richmond, Virginia owned by the son of his former owner. Brown had believed that he was to be freed upon his enslaver's death.[26]

Ellen and William Craft, fugitive slaves and abolitionists

Ellen and William Craft were both born into slavery and were separated from their parents at a young age. They cared for one another, but they would not enter into a marriage that would mean that she would bear a child who would be born into slavery. They hatched a plan to seek freedom. Ellen had a fair complexion, like her father, so she dressed up as a male enslaver who traveled with William, who played the role of her slave. They successfully fled slavery and lived as man and wife.[31]

Courtyard and interior structures at Bent's Fort

Charlotte and Dick Green were integral to the successful operation of Bent's Fort on the Santa Fe Trail. Still, they remained enslaved until Dick was rewarded for his participation in the military party sent out to avenge the death of Governor Charles Bent of the territory of New Mexico. The Greens were freed by William Bent, brother of Charles, in 1847. They then headed east back to Missouri.[32]

Sarah Ann and Benjamin Manson's marriage certificate from the Freedmen's Bureau

Emeline and Samuel Hawkins, an enslaved woman and a freed man and sharecropper, considered themselves a married couple. They lived together with their children. Their two eldest children were sold away from the family in 1839. Samuel had tried unsuccessfully to purchase the freedom of his wife. Four more children were threatened with being sold away from the family. With Samuel Burris, Samuel Hawkins planned his family's escape. The family made it to Byberry Township, Pennsylvania, where they changed their last name to Hackett. They reunited with their eldest sons, Chester and Samuel, who were apprentices in the area.[33]

Sarah Ann and Benjamin Manson were an enslaved couple from Wilson County, Tennessee. They lived as man and wife since 1843 and had sixteen children. They were legally married on April 19, 1866, and received a marriage certificate from the Freedmen's Bureau. The certificate symbolized their right to live together as a family.[14][34]