Slave breeding in the United States
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Slave breeding was the practice in slave states of the United States of slave owners systematically forcing enslaved people to have sexual relations and bear children.[1] It included coerced sexual relations between enslaved men, women, and girls; forced pregnancies of enslaved women and girls; and forced breeding of specific enslaved people in hopes of producing relatively stronger future slaves.[1][2] The objective was for slave owners to increase the number of people they enslaved without incurring the cost of purchase, to fill labor shortages caused by the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, and to promote desired physical characteristics.[3][4]
- ^ a b Marable 2000, p. 72.
- ^ Djelid, Aisha (2024). ""The master whished to reproduce": slavery, forced intimacy, and enslavers' interference in sexual relationships in the antebellum South, 1808–1861". American Nineteenth Century History. 25 (1): 21–43. doi:10.1080/14664658.2024.2317499.
- ^ Davis 2014, pp. 51-53.
- ^ "Master-Slave Relationship, Enslavement, African American Identity: Vol. I, 1500-1865, Primary Resources in U.S. History and Literature, Toolbox Library, National Humanities Center". nationalhumanitiescenter.org. Retrieved July 27, 2025.