The Peculiar Institution: Slavery In The Antebellum South

Chained Love

The sexual abuse and exploitation of slaves and degradation of the slave family in antebellum America was not uncommon. Slave owners had a totalitarian authority over their slaves and subsequently over their children.

The laws of both the state and federal governments strengthened the belief that slaves were chattel, lacking any civil rights. In The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South, the author states: “Nor could a chattel be a party to a suit, except indirectly when a free person represented him in a suit for freedom. In court he was not a competent witness, except in a case involving another slave. He had no civil rights, no political rights, no claim to his time, no freedom of movement.” (Stampp, 1989).

While not legally endowed with the rights of marriage, often slave couples appealed for the approval of the slave owner’s to join in quasi-marital unions. While these were not legally binding marriages, on some level this was permission from the slave owner’s that allowed the couple to have children.

Slaves were often forcefully separated from their families. They adapted to their circumstances by creating family units with other slaves with whom they lived and worked. Slaves conferred the status of kin on non-blood relations, addressing each other as brother, sister, aunt, or uncle (Berlin & Rowland, 1997).

Enslaved parents had no parental rights to their children. Enslaved men and women had no right to marry. The sale, or hire of slaves to other plantations, either near or far, destroyed the bonds that the enslaved were able to form with those whom they had formed kinships. Under slavery, slave owners controlled and sold entire families of slaves. Slave owners could choose to sell families or family members for profit, as punishment, or to pay debts. Slave owners also gave slaves to their adult children, or other family members, as wedding gifts.

The bonds between slaves were as permanent or as temporary as the interests of the slave owner. Any familial union was subject at any time to being broken through the sale of one or more of the slaves. When the cotton and sugar plantations in the Lower South created a high demand for able-bodied slaves (especially men) in the nineteenth century, approximately one million black men, women, and children were sold from the Upper to the Lower South (Gutman, 1976).

Sexual abuse and exploitation of slaves was commonplace. While the rape of slaves was occasionally motivated by the wish to increase the slave population (through slave breeding), more often than not, the rape of ones slaves was motivated simply by the belief that slaves were property with which you could do as you pleased. It was your right, granted by law. In the case of Alice and Rufus, Dana remarks “I was beginning to realize that he loved the woman - to her misfortune. There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.” (Butler, 1979). Rufus’ motivation to continually rape Alice lies not only in his right to do so, but the secondary motivation of his feelings for her.

The southern culture ardently forbad sexual relations between white women and black men in the cause of racial purity but this same culture, to a large extent, protected sexual relations between white men and black women.

The children of white fathers and enslave mothers were mixed-race slaves whose physical appearance was commonly classified as mulatto. By 1860, just over 10% of the slave population was mulatto. (Boundless U.S. History, 2015). This caused strain and hatred of the female slave by the mistress of the house, and subsequently led to the further mistreatment of the child born of these rapes as the mistress took out her aggressions on the child, while essentially ignoring the glaringly obvious misdeeds of her

husband.

Some female slaves called "fancy maids" were sold at auction as concubines or into prostitution, which was termed the "fancy trade.” (Boundless U.S.

History, 2015). These were the only class of enslaved females who sold for greater prices than skilled male slaves.

Popular writings in the South perpetuated the myth that female slaves were lustful, promiscuous, hypersexualized black Jezebels who brazenly tempted white owners into sexual relations. Enslaved men were forced by the slave owners into sex, often as a form of punishment for misconduct. Enslaved men’s mistresses also manipulated them into having sex. If an enslaved man attempted to refuse or threatened to tell, the mistresses would unjustly accuse them of rape. On occasion, enslaved men and women were forced to breed and after doing so the enslaved men were sold by the slave owner and forced to leave their families.

Through the sexual exploitation of slaves and degradation of the families of the enslaved, the slave owners were able to gain even more control over them. The constant threat of the loss of loved ones reinforced the tyrannical authority slave owners had over the enslaved. As we see with Alice, often times the only escape seemed to be to take one’s own life to bring an end to the

pain.

Works Cited

Berlin, I., & Rowland, L. (1997). Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African-American Kinship in the Civil War Era. New York: New Press.
Boundless U.S. History. (2015, July 21). Women and Slavery. Retrieved September 20, 2015, from Boundless: www.boundless.com/u-s-history/textbooks/boundless-u-s-history-textbook/slavery-and-reform-1820-1840-16/slavery-in-the-u-s-122/women-and-slavery-657-9221/
Butler, O. (1979). Kindred. Beacon Press.
Gutman, H. G. (1976). The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925. New York: Pantheon Books.
Stampp, K. M. (1989). The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South. Vintage; Reissue edition.