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Carolina, that colony had a comprehensive
“Negro Act” in place that made it illegal for
enslaved people to assemble in groups, raise
their own food, earn money or learn to read
English. These measures ensured that
enslaved persons would not become selfsufficient
or be able to purchase their
freedom.
The plantation owners who gained
enormous wealth from agriculture in the
American South drew captive labour from
two sources: Africa and the breeding of
enslaved women and men. One formerly
enslaved man, John Smith, recounts how his
owner, a preacher, “raised” 300 slaves from
two women, giving one her freedom as
promised after she delivered her 25th child
to him. On the same plantation, the white
overseer is reported by Smith to have
produced 160 enslaved children through
non-consensual acts of sexual violence
(Smithers).
Willie McCollough recounts, “A slave
occupied the same place on the plantation as
a mule or horse did, that is a male slave.
Some of the slave women were looked upon
by the slave owners as a stock raiser looks
upon his brood sows that is from the
standpoint of production. If a slave woman
had children fast she was considered very
valuable because slaves were valuable
property” (Work Projects Administration
177). Hillard Yellerday remembers that, “A
slave girl was expected to have children as
soon as she became a woman. Some of them
had children at the age of twelve and
thirteen years old. Negro men six feet tall
went to some of these children” (Work
Projects Administration 434).
explores the aftermath of slavery, the main
character, Sethe, speaks of her reluctance to
give her full love to her children while
enslaved because she knows they could be
sold from her at any time (Morrison). The
social and cultural foundations that are
typically laid by the family unit were
methodically disrupted over the long
duration of American enslavement,
damaging generations beyond the end of
slavery.
Literacy was recognized within this slaving
system as a dangerous skill for enslaved
persons to hold. Many states enacted laws
forbidding teaching enslaved people to read
or possess any written material (PBS). Much
of this was in response to pockets of
organized resistance that resulted in
enslaved men and women violently
overthrowing their enslavers. Such laws
helped maintain the illusion that African
Americans were less intelligent than their
European-descended enslavers. The
difference lay not in ability or potential, but
in access to opportunities to learn and think.
Despite having no legal access to written
knowledge, many enslaved people carried
with them from Africa knowledge of
medicine, architecture and other arts and
sciences that they then passed on to
subsequent generations.
The absence of control over their bodies,
marriages, and the bearing and raising of
children were at the core of the destruction
of the family units of enslaved persons. In
Toni Morrison’s, Beloved, a novel that
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