“The master whished to reproduce”: slavery, forced intimacy, and enslavers’ interference in sexual relationships in the antebellum South, 1808–1861

Djelid, A. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-4869-6857 (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. ISSN 1466-4658 doi: 10.1080/14664658.2024.2317499

Abstract/Summary

This article examines the extent to which enslavers across the antebellum South forced enslaved men and women to reproduce. Using a spectrum of violence as a tool of coercion, enslavers coerced, cajoled, and forced enslaved people to reproduce the institution of slavery, selecting specific individuals for their desirable characteristics and then exploited their offspring. This article explores the gendered experience of this forced reproduction and investigates how enslavers hired out or reserved enslaved men as “stock men” to breed with enslaved women, the age of these sexually exploited women and girls, how some enslaved men navigated forced reproduction to their advantage, and the concept of agency within this situation. The study of forced reproductions proves an important historiographical addition to the histories of slavery, capitalism, and sexual violence.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/116166
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/14664658.2024.2317499
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > History
Publisher	Taylor & Francis
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