The Breeding of American Slaves: True Stories of American Slave Breeding and Slave Babies, Paperback/Various

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The Breeding of American Slaves True Stories of American Slave Breeding and Slave Babies By Various Recollections of American ex-slaves and their memories of breeding and babies Taken from the American Slave Narratives "If a woman didn't breed well, she was put in a gang and sold. They married just like they do now but they didn't have no license. Some people say that they done this and that thing but it's no such a thing. They married just like they do now, only they didn't have no license. Henry Banner, Ex-Slave, County Hospital, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: Unknown but born around 1849 "Dr. Polk and his son, the one my mother beat up and left lying on the ground, were two mean men. When the slaves didn't pick enough cotton for them, they would take them down the field, and turn up their clothes, till they was naked, and beat them nearly to death. "Mother was a breeder. While she did that weaving, she had children fast. One day, Tom Polk hit my mother. That was before she ran away. He hit her because she didn't pick the required amount of cotton. When there was nothin' to do at the loom, mother had to go in the field, you know. I forget how much cotton they had to pick. I don't know how many times he hit her. I was small. I heard some one say, 'They got Clarisay Down, down there ' I went to see. And they had her down. She was stout, and they had dug a hole in the ground to put her belly in. I never did get over that. I'm an old woman, but Tom Polk better not come 'round me now even. "I have heard women scream and holler, 'Do pray, massa, do pray.' And I was sure glad when she beat up young Tom and got away. I didn't have no use for neither one of 'em, and ain't yet. "It wasn't her work to be in the field. He made her breed and then made her work at the loom. That wasn't nothin'. He would have children by a nigger woman and then have them by her daughter. "I went out one day and got a gun. I don't know whose gun it was. I said to myself, 'If you whip my mother today,