The Negative Impact Of Polygamy On Female Slaves

The “Public Sale of Negroes, by Richard Clagett, depicts a typical auction in 1883. Although, it is important to note that “typical” in the 1800’s is very far from the typical of today. What is interesting or peculiar about this auction and many others in this time is that they were auctioning and selling people. The “Institution of Slavery” or chattel slavery, or even simply slavery, was the mistreatment of people as personal property and objects, where they were bought and sold and forced to perform work and labor. This “institution” was entirely legal, recognized at the writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and ended by legal abolishment December 1865,

Although the household size was relatively small during the colonial era that does not necessarily mean that a married couple had a small number of kids. It simply means that they only had a certain amount of children living with them at a given time. Women usually had their first child shortly after

The document, “Harriet Jacobs Deplores Her Risks in Being a Female Slave, 1861,” describes how female slaves during her time period felt towards slavery and how it was like to grow up as a slave. According to Harriet Jacobs’ document, she started off as an innocent child, unaware of what happens around her and how harsh slavery actually can be. This changes as she grows up and her life becomes more and more miserable due to her status as a slave. By the time Jacobs reaches fifteen and starts to enter adulthood, her master would continuously harass her in numerous ways treating her as property. Being a slave, she had no way of defending herself from how she was treated and no means of running away from her master. Even when she feels hatred

Once women were brought to Virginia, the average wife was pregnant every two years and if they lived long enough, they had an average of 8 children. Many of the children died when they were young. Many of the women died during childbirth, and if they did live, their husband

If we think of Slavery we think of it as an event in our history that degrading blacks, and only blacks. We, at least I don’t think of it as effecting whites, but if we look at the two authors Baldwin and Coats we see slavery and racism can be viewed on a whole different level. Blocking out stereotypes Coates and Baldwin give us an inside look on what it was actually like like to own or to be a slave. Baldwin, talks about the effects of slavery on a micro level, and talks about how it affects people individually, and how even if someone doesn’t believe in it, they can be taken over by the idea of racism without realizing it; how racism can even affect the white man, saying that you can become the monster that you hate. . Coates, on

These widows were frequently left alone with several children to care for and the difficult job of taking charge of a farm or plantation. Many widows, who were without sons, remarried to seek out male assistance for the grueling and laborious work that was involved in the upkeep of the land. Extended families were often formed from these second marriages and caused for women to take control, which was unlike the usual patterns of family life. While women were granted much more freedoms within the Southern colonies, they were still expected to bear children. The standard wife would become pregnant every two years and throughout her life would have given birth to eight children. Even within the New England colonies, women’s lives had been focused on producing babies and raising them to maturity. Women were always looked down upon at some point and time during their experience of living in the three colonial

Slavery of the "Peculiar Institution" was a way of how life was in the South. African Americans were treated poorly in slavery, and they were brutally beaten. In slavery, their lives involved resistance and survival.

Slavery greatly affected families during the Civil War. The decisions were beyond the control of those who it affected. Some families were affected greatly while others not so much. The families were separated by auctioning or being sold to a different owner. It was a horrible time for the slave families, they didn't know what would happen next.

During the period of the Civil War, chattel slavery was very prominent in the United States in the 19th century. Being treated more as personal property as opposed to an actual human being, some slaves managed to rebel and write down their account of white slave owners’ dehumanization of black slaves. In social reformer and writer Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave he writes of rebelling against his physically abusive owners and triumphantly gaining freedom. In writer Harriet Ann Jacobs narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs writes of rebelling against her sexually abusive

Slavery had an immense impact on African American families, as the familial dynamic of the African American family was in many ways responsible for the stereotypes surrounding black families in the present moment. Not only were families the sole property of their slave owner, but there were laws restricting their rights and privileges. However, despite the fact that the African American slave family existed in a perpetually tumultuous state, there were cohesive slave families, but they faced many struggles and challenges. In particular, black women were faced with incredible hardships with regard to sustaining the familial structure. This paper explores aspects of the African American family structure during slavery, considering the effect that slavery had on black women. The legacy of slavery in the present moment is also considered, in addition to whether slavery continues to exist.

On the other hand, slavery in Colonial America in 18th century grew for three reasons: 1) high European demands for tobacco, sugar and rice laborer, 2) difficulty enslaving natives because they are pretty familiar with the land and managed to escape becoming a slave and 3) lack of indentured servants because most of the plantation owners were indentured servants before. Slaves were captured in native Africa, “unjustly dragged, by the cruel hand of power from their dearest friends or families” (ZINN, 57) and they were shipped to colonies and sold into slavery. They were considered as “Owned” and as property for life with no rights. Masters could not change the status of slaves often born into slavery. Based on the Petition on the Great number of Negroes (ZINN, 57) the life of slavery deprived of every social privilege is far worse than Non-Existence. Childbearing woman, however, are more valuable to their master.

After a while, the male to female ratio of which the plantation owners bought evened out, and this actually did better for the plantation owners than they probably would have expected. As they bought more females and males, they would procreate, making more slave children for the prosperous growth of their plantation.

As it was common for large amounts of African slaves to live on one plantation, families began to become prevalent among slave communities. Slave owners actually encouraged marraige because it generally meant better moral among the slaves and thus less opposition, as well as, because slave marraiges meant children which would become the slave owner’s next generation of laborers. Therefore, slave families grew quickly and became a key aspect of slave culture. Instead of relying on friends on the plantation, slaves had their families to go back to. Black mothers found great joy and happiness in their newborns, even though childbirth deaths were common, but

“He told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should surrender to his…” The treatment of slaves varied in their personal experiences as well as in the experiences of others they knew, but Harriet Jacobs phenomenally described the dynamics of the relationship between many female slaves and their superiors with these words from her personal narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). Before slavery was outlawed it was not uncommon for young female slaves to be sexually abused and exploited by their masters. Although many people know about the cruelty of the sexual assaults that made too many young girls victims of rape in the Antebellum South, most people are unaware of the complexity of the issue and how many different ways these women were abused.

The simple fact is that everybody has heard of the Underground Railroad, but not everyone knows just what it was. First of all, it wasn=t underground, and it wasn=t even a railroad. The term AUnderground Railroad,@ actually refers to a path along which escaping slaves were passed from farmhouse to storage sheds, from cellars to barns, until they reached safety in the North. One of the most widely known abolitionists in history is a slave by the name of Harriet Tubman. She is best known as the conductor of the Underground Railroad and risked her life to help free nearly 300 slaves. The primary importance of the Underground Railroad was the ongoing fight to abolish slavery, the start of the Civil War,