nt during one of these meetings with their masters they were told they are viewed as impure in Gods eyes. Even the girls own family would look down upon them if they were to get pregnant. Worse still is that when the child was born by law they follow the mothers status in life. Thus these children although half white were forced into slavery by their own fathers often to be sold on the auction block. One would think these slave girls would receive some type of sympathy from their mistresses who might understand from a female standpoint of the torture endured by these poor girls. One would be extremely wrong. Many mistresses viewed these illegitimate children as a source of great jealousy towards these young girls. No white woman wanted to even consider that her husband would have affection for a black woman over herself. Women who got pregnant in slavery were forbidden to ever speak the name of the childs father so that they would not implicate the white male in this despicable crime. This rule was also used to hide the truth from the mistresses. Most of the time the mistresses kept their mouths shut form their husbands but they made sure the children were ripped form their mothers care and sold as soon as they could profit. No human love is stronger than a mothers love for her child. No pain is greater than if that child is torn away from its mother and never to see each other again. If the slave girl was lucky she might be sold with her children as well but this was a rare case. Harriet Brent said it best, I admit that black man is inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white men compel him to live; it is the torturing whip that lashes the manhood out of him; it is the fierce bloodhounds of the South, and the scarcely less cruel human bloodhounds of the north, which enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. They do the work. ( Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl page 68) How can a man become ...
