Abstract/Summary

This article examines the extent to which enslavers across the antebellum South forced enslaved men and women to reproduce. Using a spectrum of violence as a tool of coercion, enslavers coerced, cajoled, and forced enslaved people to reproduce the institution of slavery, selecting specific individuals for their desirable characteristics and then exploited their offspring. This article explores the gendered experience of this forced reproduction and investigates how enslavers hired out or reserved enslaved men as “stock men” to breed with enslaved women, the age of these sexually exploited women and girls, how some enslaved men navigated forced reproduction to their advantage, and the concept of agency within this situation. The study of forced reproductions proves an important historiographical addition to the histories of slavery, capitalism, and sexual violence.