slave breeding

Examples of slave breeding in the following topics:

• Women and Slavery

  • The sexual abuse of slaves was a common occurrence in the antebellum South.
  • "Slave breeding" refers to those practices of slave ownership that aimed to influence the reproduction of slaves in order to increase the profit and wealth of slaveholders.
  • Such breeding was in part motivated by the 1808 federal ban on the importation of slaves, which was enacted during an intense period of competition in cotton production between the South and the West.
  • Slave breeding involved coerced sexual relations between male and female slaves, as well as sexual relations between a master and his female slaves, with the intention of producing slave children.
  • Concubine slaves were the only class of female slaves who sold for higher prices than skilled male slaves.

• Slave Culture

  • In many respects, American slave culture was a culture of survival and defiance against the American slave system.
  • In the absence of a successful slave revolution, as in Haiti (although there were some abortive attempts by black slaves to violently claim their freedom), American slaves practiced other forms of resistance.
  • Slaves who ran away were often fed and sheltered by slaves on neighboring plantations, which enabled them to evade their masters.
  • Literate slaves taught illiterates how to read and write, despite state laws that forbid slaves from literacy.
  • Slaves commonly suffered horrid abuses from their masters, as depicted by the scars on the back of this former slave named Peter.

• Slave Codes

  • Slave codes were laws that were established in each state to define the status of slaves and the rights of their owners.
  • In practice, these codes placed harsh restrictions on slaves' already limited freedoms and gave slave owners absolute power over their slaves.
  • Occasionally slave codes provided slaves with legal protection in the event of a legal dispute, but only at the discretion of the slave’s owner.
  • Owners refusing to abide by the slave code were fined and forfeited ownership of their slaves.
  • Slaves were kept tightly in control through the establishment of slave codes, or laws dictating their status and rights.

• Treatment of Slaves in the United States

  • For instance, there were slaves who employed white workers, slave doctors who treated upper-class white patients, and slaves who rented out their labor. 
  • In 1850, a publication provided guidance to slave owners on how to produce the "ideal slave":
  • Following the prohibition placed on the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the early nineteenth century, some slave owners attempted to improve the living conditions of their existing slaves in order to deter them from running away.
  • In the mid-nineteenth century, slaving states passed laws making education of slaves illegal.
  • In Missouri, some slaveholders educated their slaves or permitted the slaves to educate themselves.

• Slave Families

  • Slave codes and slaveholder practices often denied slaves autonomy over their familial relationships.
  • Slave marriages were illegal in Southern states, and slave couples were frequently separated by slave owners through sale.
  • In The Slave Community (1979), historian John W.
  • Blassingame grants that slave owners did have control over slave marriages.
  • Blassingame in his book The Slave Community

• African-American Culture

  • In most states, slaves were forbidden to read or write.
  • To regulate the relationship between slave and owner, including legal support for keeping slaves as property, state legislatures adopted various slave codes to reinforce white legal sanctions over the enslaved black population.
  • While each state had its own slave code, they shared many similarities.
  • Because slaves were proscribed from reading or writing, American slaves adopted a strong oral tradition--passing down songs, prayers, laments, and stories through music and storytelling.
  • Slaves on a South Carolina plantation (The Old Plantation, c. 1790)

• Anti-Slavery Resistance Movements

  • Turner's 1831 rebellion was considered by some to be the largest slave revolt in the history of the southern United States, involving up to 75 slaves.
  • Turner and the other slaves were eventually stopped as their ammunition ran out, resulting in the hanging of about 18 slaves, including Nat Turner himself.
  • This raid was a joint attack by former slaves, freed blacks, and white men who had corresponded with slaves on plantations in order to form a general uprising among slaves.
  • The historian Steven Hahn proposes that the self-organized involvement of slaves in the Union Army during the American Civil War composed a slave rebellion that dwarfed all others.
  • Nat Turner was captured on October 30, 1831 after attempting to lead a slave revolt in Virginia.

• Gabriel's Rebellion

  • It also had a massive impact on the treatment of slaves in the American South.
  • From 1780 to 1810, the number of slaves freed in the Upper South had grown markedly.
  • This prompted an influx of both zealous slave owners and free African Americans, and the very existence of free African Americans in Richmond challenged the condition of Virginia as a slave state.
  • After plans for the rebellion were quelled, many slave holders greatly restricted the slaves' rights of travel.
  • For many southern white slave owners, Gabriel's Rebellion proved that slaves would tend toward rebellion and resistance if not kept forcibly contained and controlled.

• Forming a Slave Community

  • The importance of The Slave Community as one of the first studies of slavery from the perspective of the slave was recognized by historians.
  • Culture developed within the slave community independent of the slaveowners' influence.
  • The family unit was also an important means of survival and hope for slaves.
  • Slave marriages were illegal in southern states, and slave couples were frequently separated by slaveowners through sale.
  • African-American slaves dancing to banjo and percussion.

• The Fugitive Slave Act

  • The Fugitive Slave Act, passed in 1850, caused controversy and contributed to Northern fears of a "slave power conspiracy."
  • The Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave interests and the Northern Free Soil movement.
  • The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 required the return of runaway slaves by requiring authorities in free states to return fugitive slaves to their masters.
  • In response to the weakening of the original fugitive slave law, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made any federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000.
  • Slave owners only needed to supply an affidavit to a federal marshal to claim that a slave had run away.