Slaves in the United States were often subjected to sexual abuse and rape, the denial of education, and punishments like whippings. Families were often split up by the sale of one or more members, usu
Scars of Peter, a whipped Louisiana slave, photographed in April 1863 and later distributed by abolitionists
Bill of sale for the auction of the "Negro Boy Jacob" for "Eighty Dollars and a half" (equivalent to $1,770 in 2025) to satisfy a money judgment against the "property" of his enslaver, Prettyman Boyce. October 10, 1807. Click on the photo for complete transcription.
Abolitionist drawing showing enslaved people being tortured
Plantation slave cabins, South Carolina Low Country
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
Treatment of slaves in the United States
…Celia, a slave in 19th-century Missouri, dealt with women slaves who had been sexually abused by their masters. There are many documented instances of "breeding farms" in the United States where slaves were forced to conceive and birth as many new slaves as possible. The largest breeding farms were located in the…
Enslaved people dancing on a South Carolina plantation. The Old Plantation, c. 1790.
Slavery