How Enslaved Black Women Resisted Slave Breeding By Using Cotton Roots as Contraceptives
How Enslaved Black Women Resisted Slave Breeding By Using Cotton Roots as Contraceptives "Throughout the antebellum era, slave breeding was a highly profitable investment. Slaves were scarce. The cheap labor they provided in plantations wasn’t cheap anymore and slave children sold like wildfire. Slave breeders carefully paired which slave would mate with whom. Like livestock, these slave breeders knew the role of biology in producing the healthiest stock. Like good farmers fortuned with fertile ground, the slave owners knew to select the best stock of seeds to plant. Slave breeding should have been an ingenious investment idea if the livestock reared and harvested weren’t humans. But it didn’t matter to the slavepreneurs how their business decisions affected this group of humans, especially as they have been named slaves. However, it always matters when your livestock have minds of their own, and can choose to use it against you. Consequently, black women began to think for thems...