Women and Children Slaves in Africa and New World

Women and Children Slaves  in Africa and New World: The women was the man focus for African slaves due to a women’s ability to carry children, housework, cook and take care of men sexual needs.  In the New World, the focus was men due to the labor that men provided, but usually they focused on boys about to turn into men because they could be bought cheaper.

When looking into slavery in women and children, I think the two things that surprised me most is that slave owners in Africa, some were women and married slave men, the men continued to be slaves and work and the woman had additional slaves for other purposes, but she would use the women slaves to gain favor, pay off debts and etc. with exchange of sexual trades. She ran it like a business.

The other, thing that surprised me was that the most sought after slave more than women was a man that had his genitals removes. The survival rate after the removal was only 5% post-surgery, they could manage the house, but the man didn’t have to worry about the slave using himself as means to reproduce, seduce or other means with women in the man’s house.

Where and When  did the property of slaves change from African slaves to African Cattle (Human) for profit? Some history facts I found,  my previous post discussed the Swahili.  While the Swahili, changed and started to did treat their slaves like cattle, and it carried over to the new world. The resulted in a different stigma of slavery in the New World than what was in Africa. The Stigma that remains today it from the treatment that the citizens during that time took part in with slavery, slaves where less than human.  The dehumanization that took place here is far worse than slavery in any other country. Slavery might have been banned and outlawed, but the weight of what happened here still affect how we see, view, treat, and interact with people that are different than our own race. Even if you are a person that has multiple races, you face being separated from groups that are within your own race; even called half-breed; comparing you to still not being fully human. Being an activist for equal treatment, you really have to look outside your own perspective to understand inequality, racial separation, stereotypes, and white privilege. While Africa’s slavery was not race related, ours was and the stigma is still here. Unless we confront the past honestly, we can never move forward honestly. At this point, I hope and dream that instead of having 5 boxes to check your race when filling out applications, registration, and other forms; we just have one: Human Race.  Instead of additional boxes to say we are European-American, African-American, Latino American, Native Indian, and Pacific Islander American: We just replace that with American(US Citizenship)  or Visa (Non-US Citizenship).  Ido not see an end to Slavery or as you say, Human trafficking. The Atlantic Slave Trade was not the only human trafficking in history and in the future. In 2008, the United Nations estimated nearly 2.5 million people from 127 different countries are being trafficked into 137 countries around the world. Do you see an end to 2.5 million people and over a 31.6 billion dollar industry? Did you know that Human trafficking is the number one fastest growing criminal activity, and the second highest to drug trafficking?

Women to Men ratio of who they desired for genders was 2:1, is only in Africa. It was not the same in the New World. Men out weighed Women as the desired slave gender to have.

Now what about the children in the New World, that same from Slave Masters? This was the most information I could find without additional history repots that are hard to come by.  So what happened to the children? Where they sold, kept or killed?  In dealing with children, that would depend. Children of Slave owners had to deal with state slave codes, but basically any one of even 1/16 African blood was considered black and thus could legally be enslaved. My knowledge and experience in studying different backgrounds are contracted. Once again, Men outweighed women in the United States. But, women were sexually assaulted and that resulted in having children. The slave master could do and did several different things. He sold the children, not wanting to be reminded of his behavior and most men did have wives that would lash out at the women and children that the master had his inappropriate behaviors with. Women were beating, locked up and treated by the wives horrible,

The following passages sketch the nature of the master-slave relations, and their consequences:

"Maria was a thirteen-year-old house servant. One day, receiving no response to her call, the mistress began searching the house for her. Finally, she opened the parlor door, and there was the child with her master. The master ran out of the room, mounted his horse and rode off to escape, 'though well he knew that [his wife's] full fury would fall upon the young head of his victim.' The mistress beat the child and locked her up in a smokehouse. For two weeks the girl was constantly whipped. Some of the elderly servants attempted to plead with the mistress on Maria's behalf, and even hinted that 'it was mass'r that was to blame.' The mistress's reply was typical: 'She'll know better in the future. After I've done with her, she'll never do the like again, through ignorance'" (Stanley Felstein, Once a Slave: The Slaves' View of Slavery, p.132).

But, that is just one example. Some master would have the children work in the house not in the field, and in some situations the children were sent north (mostly boys) to live free. Boys were sent north to live as free due to it was inappropriate for girls to fend for themselves. Children were slaves, and often treated, kept and sold as so. The value of a child would depend on size, weight, health, and how fast or slow you need to get or get rid of it. Sadly, like livestock.

But, if you were born into slavery regardless of who your father was, you were a slave until your master (sometimes your father) set you free.  So the life of a slave owner, who was the father, depends on what he chooses to do.

There are some rare cases, like Great Grandma Anna, who is said that after the master wife died, and he sought her out. She was an attractive young girl, and the master was smitten by her, she was his housemaid. After the wife was gone, she got pregnant by him. She went on to father 11 children by her master. She lives inside the house with the children. Inside the house, she was the women of the house. She ran the house. Outside the house, she was just the housemaid, no power or say so. It is said that, they loved each other and live together for years until he passed away. But, like I stated before this is a rare case, but it is tracked and written down in the family history book to be passed down to future generations.

Most slave family’s history show some trace of having white master’s children in the blood line. It was wrote somewhere, can’t remember the exact spot, but min 10% of the slave population by the civil war was bi-racial children from relationships from Slave masters and slave women. I would cite this, but like I said, I can’t remember the exact source this is from; so it should be noted that I can’t prove this for a fact just sharing an opinion.