Knowledge (XXG)

Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean

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purchase enslaved people. This desire for profits and increases in land size led to forced enslaved breeding, either with other enslaved males or enslavers. While some enslaved women were able to select their male partners, others were denied the freedom of choice and had a male partner forced onto them. Whether or not the male partner had been selected by the enslaved women, it was still expected of her to birth as many children as possible in order to increase profits for the enslaver. Some enslavers also offered rewards for having additional children in order to encourage enslaved women to have children, enhancing the enslaver's profits. In consequence, rebellion by enslaved women sometimes took the form of acting against these expectations.
49: 118:. While fleeing north with her husband and their four children, the Garners were caught at one of the homes they were hiding in. Although Garner planned to kill her children and then herself, she managed to kill one of her daughters and injured the others when marshals stormed the house searching for the Garner family. Garner was put on trial and indicted for property damage. Her remaining children, husband, and herself were returned to her enslaver's brother in 114:, the principle that a child inherits the status of its mother, any child born to an enslaved woman would be born enslaved, part of the enslaver's property. Because of this notion, some enslaved women were caught between wanting their children both alive and dead. This led to some women committing infanticide to protect their children from a life of slavery. One of the more notable cases of infanticide is that of 98: 89:, both indigenous and enslaved women have used the peacock flower to abort pregnancies. By taking contraception and abortifacients, enslaved women were denying enslavers authority over their bodies; by not having children, enslaved women were limiting the profits enslavers could make off their bodies. 39:
were used to exploit African women throughout enslavement. While enslaved women were expected to perform manual labor equal to enslaved males, enslaved women were also expected to perform reproductive labor. For an enslaver, it was more profitable to produce his own enslaved population than it was to
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was an act of rebellion because it shifted the power and control from the enslaver to the enslaved. Since enslaved women were expected to maintain the enslaved populations, enslaved women used various methods to undermine this expectation. Abortions and contraceptives were also seen as a means for
144:, she mentions that one of the enslaved women viewed her child as the only untouched aspect of herself. The child within her was not touched by enslavement and was the only clean aspect of her, so by committing infanticide, she was keeping that part of herself clean and untainted by enslavement. 913: 540: 463: 1243: 1248: 1238: 1191: 1186: 1030: 973: 533: 1445: 883: 191: 868: 1035: 898: 1162: 1126: 961: 526: 951: 1278: 1268: 186: 1338: 918: 928: 903: 1383: 1106: 206: 1096: 824: 608: 1060: 226: 968: 888: 1465: 1450: 1378: 1430: 1328: 1141: 130: 1288: 1131: 758: 723: 134:, Jacobs described how her owner threatened to take her children away from her if she didn't comply with his sexual advances. In the late 1333: 1283: 1273: 978: 798: 703: 663: 236: 181: 77:. The use of cotton root was common, with other enslaved men worrying about their own population due to the high use of cotton root. In 1211: 763: 753: 748: 728: 348: 1425: 1323: 1040: 1003: 678: 593: 956: 983: 893: 713: 708: 583: 1470: 1343: 803: 768: 673: 648: 176: 793: 263:
Jennings, Thelma (1990). ""Us Colored Women Had to Go Though A Plenty": Sexual Exploitation of African-American Slave Women".
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enslaved women to exercise agency over their bodies by allowing the women to control their ability to be impregnated. The
1348: 1201: 946: 923: 908: 860: 843: 638: 568: 549: 1226: 773: 1393: 1013: 128:, a formerly enslaved woman who wrote about her experience, also had a traumatic motherhood experience. In her book, 1300: 1231: 1221: 1167: 1136: 1101: 1065: 808: 778: 733: 633: 156: 743: 698: 613: 27:
was also committed as a means to protect children from either becoming enslaved or from returning to enslavement.
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was an act of rebellion because it allowed enslaved women to prevent the enslavement of their children. Due to
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were expected to maintain the enslaved populations, which led women to rebel against this expectation via
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Li, Stephanie. 2006. "Motherhood as Resistance in Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl."
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Dukats, Mara L. 1993. "A Narrative of Violated Maternity: Moi, Tituba, Sorcière ... Noire De Salem."
78: 1368: 85:, she recorded that indigenous women used the plant to induce abortions. In the United States and 1363: 1315: 393: 288: 1388: 310:
Perrin, Liese M. "Resisting Reproduction: Reconsidering Slave Contraception in the Old South."
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Roth, Sarah N. "‘The Blade Was in My Own Breast’: Slave Infanticide in 1850s Fiction."
231: 223:, interracial common law marriages in French and Spanish America, including New Orleans 125: 70: 16: 1414: 1305: 1055: 998: 397: 292: 135: 74: 61: 36: 20: 1157: 1050: 1045: 105: 24: 518: 1358: 1294: 437: 219: 97: 475: 389: 381: 284: 119: 86: 276: 366:"Partus sequitur ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery" 57:, otherwise known as the "peacock flower", was used to induce abortion. 365: 96: 47: 35:
The ideologies surrounding the physical strength and fertility of
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Plants And Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting In The Atlantic World
522: 464:"Margaret Garner, a Runaway Slave Who Killed Her Own Daughter" 914:
Slave labor on United States military installations 1799–1863
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Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself
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Noble, Thomas. 1867. "The Story of Margaret Garner ".
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Margaret Garner as depicted in Harper's Weekly c.1867.
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Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
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Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
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(April 3, 2018). 131:Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl 7: 411: 409: 407: 306: 304: 302: 258: 256: 254: 1334:End of slavery in the United States 430:American Nineteenth Century History 237:Slave breeding in the United States 182:Female slavery in the United States 1212:John Quincy Adams and abolitionism 73:were plants that could be used as 14: 1379:Civil rights movement (1865–1896) 1324:Origins of the American Civil War 1031:African American founding fathers 974:Education during the slave period 1127:History of slavery by U.S. state 894:Slave trade in the United States 31:Physical and sexual exploitation 177:Colonial American bastardy laws 989:List of American slave traders 869:Slavery among Native Americans 1: 1466:Child murder in North America 1451:Abortion in the United States 1197:George Washington and slavery 1076:American Colonization Society 1071:African-American slave owners 1431:Slavery in the United States 1202:Thomas Jefferson and slavery 947:American proslavery movement 909:Slave states and free states 550:Slavery in the United States 343:. Harvard University Press. 1227:Abraham Lincoln and slavery 339:Schiebinger, Linda (2007). 312:Journal of American Studies 1492: 1301:Children of the plantation 1232:Andrew Johnson and slavery 1222:Zachary Taylor and slavery 1168:Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 1137:Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 1102:American slave court cases 1066:Amerindian slave ownership 265:Journal of Women's History 157:African American genealogy 1354:Emancipation Proclamation 1279:Sexual relations and rape 1207:James Madison and slavery 438:10.1080/14664650701387896 432:8, no. 2 (2007):169-185. 227:Sexual relations and rape 198:Marriage and procreation 1426:Slavery in the Caribbean 1339:Compensated emancipation 382:10.1215/07990537-4378888 314:35, no. 2 (2001):255–74. 1174:Partus sequitur ventrem 1117:Three-fifths Compromise 213:Partus sequitur ventrem 202:Legitimacy (family law) 111:partus sequitur ventrum 54:Caesalpinia pulcherrima 1471:Women in the Caribbean 1249:Supreme Court Justices 1217:John Tyler and slavery 1192:Presidents and slavery 1181:Dred Scott v. Sandford 417:World Literature Today 324:Merian, Maria (1705). 277:10.1353/jowh.2010.0050 102: 58: 1476:American women slaves 1456:American rebel slaves 1122:Slave and free states 1112:Fugitive Slave Clause 1026:List of abolitionists 879:Slavery in New France 100: 51: 1148:Gag rule (1836–1840) 1009:Underground Railroad 984:Domestic slave trade 969:Mandatory illiteracy 874:Slavery in New Spain 825:District of Columbia 1369:Radical Republicans 1316:Civil War and after 1244:Members of Congress 1061:List of plantations 844:U.S. Virgin Islands 508:Jacobs, Harriet A. 1364:Reconstruction era 468:The New York Times 103: 59: 1408: 1407: 1404: 1403: 1374:Freedmen's Bureau 167:Issue (genealogy) 1483: 1436:Women in society 1090:Law and politics 1014:Freedmen's towns 994:Runaway slave ad 857: 819:Federal district 543: 536: 529: 520: 513: 506: 500: 493: 487: 486: 484: 482: 459: 453: 446: 440: 426: 420: 413: 402: 401: 361: 355: 354: 336: 330: 329: 321: 315: 308: 297: 296: 260: 1491: 1490: 1486: 1485: 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Index

Enslaved women
contraception
Infanticide
African women

Caesalpinia pulcherrima
Contraception
peacock flower
cotton root
abortifacients
Maria Merian
Caribbean

Infanticide
partus sequitur ventrum
Margaret Garner
Louisiana
Harriet Jacobs
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
Toni Morrison
Beloved
African American genealogy
Atlantic Creole
Issue (genealogy)
Colonial American bastardy laws
Female slavery in the United States
History of sexual slavery in the United States
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
Legitimacy (family law)
Marriage of enslaved people (United States)

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