Black Code Breeding
In 1800 there were less than a million slaves in the United States. In 1808 United States banned the import of slaves, effectively stopping the Atlantic slave trade to the US. However, by 1860 the slave population quadrupled to 4 million. The United States was not about to give up its ascension to world power status on the backs of its slave economy, so she, especially in the South, hit on the effective strategy of increasing the number of slaves already within her borders. The primary methodology was by taking Black women and breeding them to produce more slaves. To do this effectively, the family unit would have to be dismantled, so the men especially could not be allowed to be husbands or fathers, and they were especially discouraged from this by having to witness women being raped and sold. John Tubman, who was actually not a slave, threatened to snitch on his wife Harriet when she confided in him her desire to escape to the North to freedom. I never saw past the irony or understo
