9781422274248

protections for pregnant slaves and infants in place. However, such protections were more about protecting their property from harm, not about dignity or human rights for the women and children. Slave women also had little to no say over their children’s lives, due to their legal status as property of the owner. CHILDREN AT WORK AND AT PLAY Childhood during the colonial era was very different from today; this is especially true for children born into slavery. Infant mortality rates were high, and many children died before they turned five years old. Those who survived infancy played and worked alongside their mothers until they could work independently. There was no guarantee that even young children would remain with their parents, siblings, or extended kin. Once weaned, they could be sold or traded. Sojourner Truth, a woman who escaped from slavery and became famous as an abolitionist during the 1840s, once described the sale of slave children that she witnessed: There was snow on the ground, at the time of which we are speaking; and a large old-fashioned sleigh was seen to drive up to the door of the late Col. Ardinburgh. This event was noticed with childish pleasure by the unsuspicious boy; but when he was taken and put into the sleigh, and saw his little sister actually shut and locked into the sleigh-box, his eyes were at once opened to their intentions; and, like a frightened deer, he sprang from the sleigh, and running into the house, concealed himself under a bed. But this availed him little. He was reconvened to the sleigh, and separated for ever from those whom God had constituted his natural guardian and protectors, and who should have found him, in return, a stay and a staff to them in their declining years. In addition to the risk of being sold, slave children learned what they saw growing up. By playing near their working parents in the home and in the fields, children learned how slaves were expected to behave. They also learned songs, games, and

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Women and Children in Slavery