Hello, Sara, I would suggest looking at every large plantation in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware as a breeding farm. The breeding in some cases began during transatlantic travel though the International Slave Trade was ending as forced breeding and rape was ramping up. For documentation, I'd search the sales records where they exist and trace back the sales of young children.
Reading this made me angry and slightly ill. I had read that enslaved women were forcefully impregnated in order to produce more slaves, but I had no idea it was on this scale. We will never end racism until the whole history is told, especially the really awful parts. Thank you for doing this work.
We will never end racism... politicians in the pockets of modern slavers will ensure division... only mitigation is possible...we must be stronger. Give the past claws and it will scratch out the eyes of the future...
The plantation that held my ancestors on my fathers side still exist today. Still own by the the orignal descendants family. The Moore Webb Holmes plantation in Marion, Alabama. They still give tours.
The family that owned slaves on my mothers side was a breeding plantation in Wilcox County Alabama (PineApple), History is needed and it should never be treated as new.
Oh my God, how appalling. When people mock the notion of paying reparations to descendants, they over look the pain and suffering inflicted upon generations of this abominable horror. How about compensation for pain and suffering, not to mention back wages and the entitlement to profits born of unimaginable torture and abuse?
Serious generational wealth was amassed by this grieviously abhorrent mistreatment and cruelty. History, warts and all, needs to be taught in American schools.It is only what's right.
Thank you so much for your hard work in uncovering this history. I majored in African history at Fisk University, and first heard of the infamous breeding farms from my history professor, the late Dr. Woody Farrar. As I now pursue a master's degree in history I will delve deeper into this and hopefully have a book come out about it. Oh I am going to become a paid subscriber as well. Keep up the good work.
Learning about this history, and the way it has been kept a secret, has sickened and enraged me. And the terms "breeding farms" and "forced impregnation" seem terribly inadequate to describe these rapes. I am shaken. “Natural reproduction” - What a lie. How deeply demeaning.
I was never aware of this fact, and learning it makes me sick. I'm so sorry for the inhumanity these people endured. This kind of thing should be taught in school, as we know, it isn't. The powers that be like to cover up things that make them look bad.
OMG! Is this all really true? I have never read or heard of this before. The breeding plantations. Treating humans like animals for profit. Makes me physically ill. I grew up in the West, had never heard of this or had never been taught this before. Now I know what my friend meant by forced pregnancy. He wouldn't explain when he said it. Had to do with his father's side.
Now I understand why so many politicians want to ban history about slavery.
I’ve heard it before, but only regarding specific slave owners, who were particularly infamous. One of the rape areas is a notorious ghost haunt. If you take a tour, you get walked through the places women were held. I believe the American Horror Story-Witches used inspiration from certain slave owner stories.
This history is at the same moment hard to believe, surely uncomfortable to conceive (an understatement), and all too easy to envision, given our familiarity with the basest behaviors and pursuits of which we know humans are capable.
Such powerful dissonance, readily accepting what is so hard to believe, surely makes one recoil, sick to the stomach at what humans are capable of.
This very important history surely merits further research and documentation, with as much detail as can be found.
I thank Celly Blue for bringing to attention this article so well written by William Spivey.
It’s very heartbreaking and we must remember that, though they may not know it for certain, many Black folks have to go through their entire lives wondering if they are the product of rape generations ago.
I would say to them that they are a product of a woman’s strength to survive. That is the legacy you inherited, not the brutality of the rapist or “breeder”. A woman may have suffered to create your line but I think she would be proud to see you walking free today. She would tell you that your opportunities and ideas and contributions are a salve to her pain. She would say that she is proud of you. You are her legacy and you are a lot!
I first learned about this when living in Southern Indiana. I was told that there were no large cotton or tobacco plantations in Kentucky, that the principal "crop" was human beings.
Reading this article brings so many insights into what we are experiencing today and into what is at stake as we go to the polls to elect Kamala Harris as POTUS. It is horrifying to read what Mr. Spivey writes about the “natural propagation” of slaves and the mindset of those who enslaved them. It is horrifying to read about the dehumanization of those slaves that underlies everything else you read about them. What we don’t read about but should probably consider is that for the system of slavery Mr. Spivey describes to even exist, there had to be a dehumanization of another sort.
Slavers, whether coming from the elite class of people who enslaved others in all kinds of ways with total impunity and a sense of entitlement or… from the middle class of people aspiring to a higher rung on the “ladder” of success or from simple farmers who needed help on the farm and saw owning a slave as an investment in the future … they all had to conjure up, maintain and cultivate a basic belief that made what they were doing okay. In doing so they enslaved themselves and separated themselves from their own humanity.
And because it was truly a BIG LIE they were seeding into the minds and hearts of themselves, the slaves and the generations to come … they had to take certain actions to keep it alive. Put most simply, they had to maintain their elite status in their minds and hearts, but also in the minds and hearts of EVERYONE.
Systematically denying all those outside their elite circle their basic human rights was a no-brainer. They had to deny them their right to an education because they needed to cultivate the big lie. They had to deny them the right to vote because they had to keep them dependent and dis-empowered in order to maintain their own power and control. They had to deny them the right to reproductive rights … they needed a constant supply of fresh meat for their factories. They basically had to control every aspect of their lives in order to perpetuate a BIG LIE that was so beyond belief it had to be forced on people. So … add constant fear into the mix and do it on every level and oh … nurture the illusion of separation.
Authors like Mr. Spivey evoke the fundamental human quality of compassion and connection we all share. Reading his words, I am going to those people and places in my mind and my heart and it hurts ME. It shocks ME. My mind and my heart feel torn open as I read what he writes.
Although he is writing about the past, all the components of the stories he tells about the real people who experienced or perpetrated them then are still in play today. I think we all know this on some level … its shared knowledge we carry from whichever side of the equation we come.
And maybe that was a big part of the animating energy we saw and felt at the DNC in the last days. What brilliance on the part of Kamala to speak to the idea of FREEDOM and expand it to include a broader group of people … the American Middle Class. In these days, we don’t have slavery in the same way Mr. Spivey is writing about but … we do have exactly what the slaveowners intended when they put laws and social limitations in place to hold space for the racial and social inequality that would ensure their own elite status.
The 2024 DNC showed us all, no matter what class or color or country or religion we come from or arise out of, that the MOMENT IS NOW. The DNC blasted a hole in the illusion of separation … and we all shared the bliss of connection as we realized that we truly are in this together and our numbers are many. There are truly more things which bind us together than keep us apart … and together we can fight for a bright future.
Many thanks to you Mr. Spivey for your efforts to enlighten us all about what is actually possible for the human Spirit to embody. As I read your words and then contrast them with the words I heard over the last days from Reverend Warnock or Reverend Sharpton, of Kamala, Michelle, or from a guy like Tim Walz, who embodies an open hearted common sense approach to life that inspires and empowers all those whose lives he touches … and so many others … I am reminded of the amazing extremes we human beings are capable of.
We really are all in this together. We need to come out into the Light now. This really is a MOMENT in which we are called upon to CHOOSE and ACT. We have the numbers of people. We outnumber the elites! And … have strong, charismatic, heart-centered, ready, willing and able leaders who can lead into a future that we can all thrive in.
And … there is no un-knowing something that you know. The DNC was a direct experience of KNOWING our connection, our solidarity, our belief that all things are possible and on every side of the equation. It can go either way. We decide. So … not going back. When we fight we win. Lets GO!
Yes, Mary, I also ache for the people that have been robbed of their own humanity as they enslave(d) others or have been forced through indoctrination to see other human beings as separate and less human. This big lie has poisoned the water of our country (and the world) for far too long. Thank you for putting into words how the experience of the DNC gave us such a powerful antidote to that poison.
I could not click the heart icon even though the information was new to me. Most likely because I spent four years being educated in Virginia schools: Washington-Lee (now Liberty, as of two or three years ago) High School in Arlington, then two at Madison College (now James Madison University in Harrisonburg) between 1956 and 1960. We never got beyond “The War Between the Stares” as they call it down South. We were never told which side won. When I ask my sister if she knew (she went to Yorktown High School) she said she didn’t. This was, as I later learned, in spite of the fact that our great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather both fought in an Ohio regiment that came from Delaware County. Had I known the details when I lived in Virginia I would have said so because I hated the South every year I lived there. They didn’t like me much either, I was too much of a Northerner. I didn’t understand why at the time but I felt it. So learning about the deeper depravity of a part of the country I hate anyway doesn’t give me approving feelings. It makes me ill.
The slave breeding industry was extremely horrific. States like Virginia and Delaware became “supply” states while many in the Deep South were demand states. Raping slave women was considered both profitable and manly. And that’s just for openers. Some aspects of this are depicted in the novel James.
Indiana had quite a history of its own. During the second wave of the KKK there were more members in Indiana than any other state, followed by Ohio.
Why did you suddenly write that. I was reading the comments and didn’t see Indiana mentioned?
Hello, Sara, I would suggest looking at every large plantation in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware as a breeding farm. The breeding in some cases began during transatlantic travel though the International Slave Trade was ending as forced breeding and rape was ramping up. For documentation, I'd search the sales records where they exist and trace back the sales of young children.
Reading this made me angry and slightly ill. I had read that enslaved women were forcefully impregnated in order to produce more slaves, but I had no idea it was on this scale. We will never end racism until the whole history is told, especially the really awful parts. Thank you for doing this work.
We will never end racism... politicians in the pockets of modern slavers will ensure division... only mitigation is possible...we must be stronger. Give the past claws and it will scratch out the eyes of the future...
The plantation that held my ancestors on my fathers side still exist today. Still own by the the orignal descendants family. The Moore Webb Holmes plantation in Marion, Alabama. They still give tours.
The family that owned slaves on my mothers side was a breeding plantation in Wilcox County Alabama (PineApple), History is needed and it should never be treated as new.
Thank you.
Oh my God, how appalling. When people mock the notion of paying reparations to descendants, they over look the pain and suffering inflicted upon generations of this abominable horror. How about compensation for pain and suffering, not to mention back wages and the entitlement to profits born of unimaginable torture and abuse?
Serious generational wealth was amassed by this grieviously abhorrent mistreatment and cruelty. History, warts and all, needs to be taught in American schools.It is only what's right.
Thank you so much for your hard work in uncovering this history. I majored in African history at Fisk University, and first heard of the infamous breeding farms from my history professor, the late Dr. Woody Farrar. As I now pursue a master's degree in history I will delve deeper into this and hopefully have a book come out about it. Oh I am going to become a paid subscriber as well. Keep up the good work.
And you likewise, keep up your good work. A light needs to be shed on this shameful past.
I can hear a former president ready to say "but there were nice people on both sides."
Pretty sad state of affairs when "southerners" only have respect for oppressors, and the most vile ones at that.
Learning about this history, and the way it has been kept a secret, has sickened and enraged me. And the terms "breeding farms" and "forced impregnation" seem terribly inadequate to describe these rapes. I am shaken. “Natural reproduction” - What a lie. How deeply demeaning.
I was never aware of this fact, and learning it makes me sick. I'm so sorry for the inhumanity these people endured. This kind of thing should be taught in school, as we know, it isn't. The powers that be like to cover up things that make them look bad.
OMG! Is this all really true? I have never read or heard of this before. The breeding plantations. Treating humans like animals for profit. Makes me physically ill. I grew up in the West, had never heard of this or had never been taught this before. Now I know what my friend meant by forced pregnancy. He wouldn't explain when he said it. Had to do with his father's side.
Now I understand why so many politicians want to ban history about slavery.
Thank you for enlightening me. 🐦🌹
I’ve heard it before, but only regarding specific slave owners, who were particularly infamous. One of the rape areas is a notorious ghost haunt. If you take a tour, you get walked through the places women were held. I believe the American Horror Story-Witches used inspiration from certain slave owner stories.
This history is at the same moment hard to believe, surely uncomfortable to conceive (an understatement), and all too easy to envision, given our familiarity with the basest behaviors and pursuits of which we know humans are capable.
Such powerful dissonance, readily accepting what is so hard to believe, surely makes one recoil, sick to the stomach at what humans are capable of.
This very important history surely merits further research and documentation, with as much detail as can be found.
I thank Celly Blue for bringing to attention this article so well written by William Spivey.
It’s very heartbreaking and we must remember that, though they may not know it for certain, many Black folks have to go through their entire lives wondering if they are the product of rape generations ago.
I would say to them that they are a product of a woman’s strength to survive. That is the legacy you inherited, not the brutality of the rapist or “breeder”. A woman may have suffered to create your line but I think she would be proud to see you walking free today. She would tell you that your opportunities and ideas and contributions are a salve to her pain. She would say that she is proud of you. You are her legacy and you are a lot!
YES!!❤️
I first learned about this when living in Southern Indiana. I was told that there were no large cotton or tobacco plantations in Kentucky, that the principal "crop" was human beings.
Reading this article brings so many insights into what we are experiencing today and into what is at stake as we go to the polls to elect Kamala Harris as POTUS. It is horrifying to read what Mr. Spivey writes about the “natural propagation” of slaves and the mindset of those who enslaved them. It is horrifying to read about the dehumanization of those slaves that underlies everything else you read about them. What we don’t read about but should probably consider is that for the system of slavery Mr. Spivey describes to even exist, there had to be a dehumanization of another sort.
Slavers, whether coming from the elite class of people who enslaved others in all kinds of ways with total impunity and a sense of entitlement or… from the middle class of people aspiring to a higher rung on the “ladder” of success or from simple farmers who needed help on the farm and saw owning a slave as an investment in the future … they all had to conjure up, maintain and cultivate a basic belief that made what they were doing okay. In doing so they enslaved themselves and separated themselves from their own humanity.
And because it was truly a BIG LIE they were seeding into the minds and hearts of themselves, the slaves and the generations to come … they had to take certain actions to keep it alive. Put most simply, they had to maintain their elite status in their minds and hearts, but also in the minds and hearts of EVERYONE.
Systematically denying all those outside their elite circle their basic human rights was a no-brainer. They had to deny them their right to an education because they needed to cultivate the big lie. They had to deny them the right to vote because they had to keep them dependent and dis-empowered in order to maintain their own power and control. They had to deny them the right to reproductive rights … they needed a constant supply of fresh meat for their factories. They basically had to control every aspect of their lives in order to perpetuate a BIG LIE that was so beyond belief it had to be forced on people. So … add constant fear into the mix and do it on every level and oh … nurture the illusion of separation.
Authors like Mr. Spivey evoke the fundamental human quality of compassion and connection we all share. Reading his words, I am going to those people and places in my mind and my heart and it hurts ME. It shocks ME. My mind and my heart feel torn open as I read what he writes.
Although he is writing about the past, all the components of the stories he tells about the real people who experienced or perpetrated them then are still in play today. I think we all know this on some level … its shared knowledge we carry from whichever side of the equation we come.
And maybe that was a big part of the animating energy we saw and felt at the DNC in the last days. What brilliance on the part of Kamala to speak to the idea of FREEDOM and expand it to include a broader group of people … the American Middle Class. In these days, we don’t have slavery in the same way Mr. Spivey is writing about but … we do have exactly what the slaveowners intended when they put laws and social limitations in place to hold space for the racial and social inequality that would ensure their own elite status.
The 2024 DNC showed us all, no matter what class or color or country or religion we come from or arise out of, that the MOMENT IS NOW. The DNC blasted a hole in the illusion of separation … and we all shared the bliss of connection as we realized that we truly are in this together and our numbers are many. There are truly more things which bind us together than keep us apart … and together we can fight for a bright future.
Many thanks to you Mr. Spivey for your efforts to enlighten us all about what is actually possible for the human Spirit to embody. As I read your words and then contrast them with the words I heard over the last days from Reverend Warnock or Reverend Sharpton, of Kamala, Michelle, or from a guy like Tim Walz, who embodies an open hearted common sense approach to life that inspires and empowers all those whose lives he touches … and so many others … I am reminded of the amazing extremes we human beings are capable of.
We really are all in this together. We need to come out into the Light now. This really is a MOMENT in which we are called upon to CHOOSE and ACT. We have the numbers of people. We outnumber the elites! And … have strong, charismatic, heart-centered, ready, willing and able leaders who can lead into a future that we can all thrive in.
And … there is no un-knowing something that you know. The DNC was a direct experience of KNOWING our connection, our solidarity, our belief that all things are possible and on every side of the equation. It can go either way. We decide. So … not going back. When we fight we win. Lets GO!
Yes, Mary, I also ache for the people that have been robbed of their own humanity as they enslave(d) others or have been forced through indoctrination to see other human beings as separate and less human. This big lie has poisoned the water of our country (and the world) for far too long. Thank you for putting into words how the experience of the DNC gave us such a powerful antidote to that poison.
Thank you Therese. ❤️
Mary,
Thank you for sharing your deep and interwoven perspectives. Such strong resonance brings tears.
And thank you for illuminating deep facets I had not grasped in connection with the Harris Campaign’s theme title “Freedom!”
With a feeling of caution, I’m allowing myself to begin to dream that we could be coming out into the light now. 🤞🏼🌊
❤️
So when Lincoln visited he was really looking into the heart of the evil he had to vanquish. Like Belsen.. or Auschwitz.
I could not click the heart icon even though the information was new to me. Most likely because I spent four years being educated in Virginia schools: Washington-Lee (now Liberty, as of two or three years ago) High School in Arlington, then two at Madison College (now James Madison University in Harrisonburg) between 1956 and 1960. We never got beyond “The War Between the Stares” as they call it down South. We were never told which side won. When I ask my sister if she knew (she went to Yorktown High School) she said she didn’t. This was, as I later learned, in spite of the fact that our great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather both fought in an Ohio regiment that came from Delaware County. Had I known the details when I lived in Virginia I would have said so because I hated the South every year I lived there. They didn’t like me much either, I was too much of a Northerner. I didn’t understand why at the time but I felt it. So learning about the deeper depravity of a part of the country I hate anyway doesn’t give me approving feelings. It makes me ill.
The whole story is here. Recently finished reading this. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-american-slave-coast-ned-sublette/1121684065
The slave breeding industry was extremely horrific. States like Virginia and Delaware became “supply” states while many in the Deep South were demand states. Raping slave women was considered both profitable and manly. And that’s just for openers. Some aspects of this are depicted in the novel James.
This article made me cry. It was heartbreaking to read. Shame on this country for refusing to print the truth.