"From the moment of its introduction into the Atlantic world, hereditary racial slavery depended on an understanding that enslaved women's reproductive lives would be tethered to the institution of slavery. At the same time, few colonial slave codes explicitly defined the status of these children. This essay explores English slave codes regarding reproduction under slavery alongside the experience of reproduction to suggest that legislative silences are not the final word on race and reproduction. The presumption that their children would also be enslaved produced a visceral understanding of early modern racial formations for enslaved women. Using a seventeenth-century Virginia slave code as its anchor, this essay explores the explicit and implicit consequences of slaveowners' efforts to control enslaved women's reproductive lives."
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Original Language: English
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Morgan, Jennifer L. (2018-04-03). "Partus sequitur ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery". Small Axe. 22 (1): 1–17. doi:10.1215/07990537-4378888. ISSN 1534-6714. S2CID 150349388.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Enslaved_women's_resistance_in_the_United_States_and_Caribbean
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Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean
Enslaved women were expected to maintain the enslaved populations, which led women to rebel against this expectation via contraception and abortions. Infanticide was also committed as a means to protect children from either becoming enslaved or from returning to enslavement.
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