Birthing a slave Motherhood and medicine in the antebellum South 1st Edition by Marie Jenkins Schwartz ISBN 0674257995 9780674257993

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ISBN 10: 0674257995 
ISBN 13: 9780674257993
Author: Marie Jenkins Schwartz

The deprivations and cruelty of slavery have overshadowed our understanding of the institution’s most human dimension: birth. We often don’t realize that after the United States stopped importing slaves in 1808, births were more important than ever; slavery and the southern way of life could continue only through babies born in bondage.

In the antebellum South, slaveholders’ interest in slave women was matched by physicians struggling to assert their own professional authority over childbirth, and the two began to work together to increase the number of infants born in the slave quarter. In unprecedented ways, doctors tried to manage the health of enslaved women from puberty through the reproductive years, attempting to foster pregnancy, cure infertility, and resolve gynecological problems, including cancer.

Black women, however, proved an unruly force, distrustful of both the slaveholders and their doctors. With their own healing traditions, emphasizing the power of roots and herbs and the critical roles of family and community, enslaved women struggled to take charge of their own health in a system that did not respect their social circumstances, customs, or values. Birthing a Slave depicts the competing approaches to reproductive health that evolved on plantations, as both black women and white men sought to enhance the health of enslaved mothers–in very different ways and for entirely different reasons.

Birthing a Slave is the first book to focus exclusively on the health care of enslaved women, and it argues convincingly for the critical role of reproductive medicine in the slave system of antebellum America.

Birthing a slave Motherhood and medicine in the antebellum South 1st Table of contents:

Chapter 1: Slave Women and Reproductive Labor

• Reproductive Control and the Economics of Slavery
• The Maternal Role of Enslaved Women in the Plantation Economy
• The Social and Cultural Expectations of Slave Mothers

Chapter 2: The Medicalization of Slave Births

• Obstetrics and the Care of Enslaved Women
• Physicians, Midwives, and the Role of Medical Authority in the Antebellum South
• The Lack of Agency for Enslaved Women in Reproductive Health

Chapter 3: Childbirth and the Slave Experience

• The Physical Realities of Childbirth for Enslaved Women
• The Impact of Forced Labor on Pregnancy and Maternal Health
• The Emotional Toll of Birth and Loss for Slave Mothers

Chapter 4: The Role of Black Midwives and Healers

• African Traditions of Birth and Healing in the Slave Community
• The Practice and Knowledge of Slave Midwives
• Tensions Between Traditional and Western Medical Practices

Chapter 5: The Impact of Slavery on Slave Motherhood

• Family Separation and the Trauma of Slave Mothers
• The Loss of Maternal Autonomy: Legal and Social Realities
• Reproductive Exploitation: Breeding and the Enslaved Woman’s Body

Chapter 6: Slave Mothers and the Politics of Resistance

• Reproductive Resistance: Enslaved Women’s Agency in Childbearing
• The Survival of African Cultural Practices and Maternal Identity
• Slave Mothers and the Preservation of Black Families

Chapter 7: The Intersection of Race and Medicine in Reproductive Health

• Racialized Medical Practices and Their Impact on Slave Mothers
• The Legacy of Scientific Racism and Slave Reproductive Health
• The Role of Medicine in Perpetuating Slavery

Chapter 8: Postwar Reflections: The End of Slavery and the Legacy of Slave Motherhood

• The Transition from Slavery to Freedom and Its Impact on Black Families
• The Aftermath of Medicalized Birth and Reproductive Control
• The Continuing Struggle for Maternal Rights in Postbellum America

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Marie Jenkins Schwartz,slave Motherhood,medicine,antebellum South