Slave marriages in the United States were typically illegal before the American Civil War abolished slavery in the US. Enslaved African Americans were legally considered chattel, and they were denied
An 1899 illustration of a broomstick wedding ceremony. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
Husbands, Wives, and Families sold indiscriminately to different purchasers, are violently separated-probably never to meet again, 1843, New York Public Library
Illustration of Uncle Tom and his baby from Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Marriage of a colored soldier at Vicksburg by Chaplain Warren of the Freedmen's Bureau
Slave breeding was the practice in slave states of the United States of slave owners systematically forcing slaves to have sexual relations and bear children. It included coerced sexual relations betw
Slave marriages in the United States
…enslaved people would be mollified and less likely to run away. A slaver could permit a couple to have a relationship, essentially providing approval to breed, which would increase the number of people they enslaved and make more money for the slaver. Enslaved women, whether married or not, were subject to…
Enslaved people dancing on a South Carolina plantation. The Old Plantation, c. 1790.
Slavery