Slave marriages in the United States

Before the American Civil War, slave marriages were usually not legal in the United States. Enslaved African Americans were treated as property, not as people, and had no civil or political rights. This did not change until slavery was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.^[1]

Slave Codes

Slave codes were laws created by states and the federal government starting in 1705 to control the lives of enslaved African Americans. These laws treated enslaved people like property—just like animals or tools on a farm.

They were not allowed to:

Sign legal agreements
Own property
Control their time or movements

Anything they had legally belonged to their enslaver. They could not legally marry or keep their families together. After the slave rebellions, it became illegal to teach them to read or write. In 1856, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that enslaved people were not U.S. citizens and had no constitutional rights because they were considered property.^[2]

Historiography

Since the mid-1970s, some historians—like Herbert Gutman, John Blassingame, Jacqueline Jones, Ann Malone, and Eugene D. Genovese—have argued that most enslaved children were raised by both their parents. But more recent studies, including a review of census and slave records from Loudoun County, Virginia, suggest otherwise. According to historian Brenda E. Stevenson, enslaved fathers often could not play a strong role in the family. Many enslaved mothers led their families alone, and their husbands often lived on different plantations, known as having "abroad" spouses. As a result, enslaved men might have close relationships with more than one woman.^[3]

However, Herbert Gutman found a slave register from a South Carolina plantation that covered almost 100 years. It showed that some enslaved men and women had long-lasting marriages. He also found similar examples in other states like Virginia, northern Louisiana, North Carolina, and Alabama.

Slave traders often broke up families by selling them to the Deep South and Southwest, especially in the years before the Civil War. Even so, many enslaved people tried hard to find and reunite with their loved ones. Historians still debate how much the interstate slave trade actually broke up families.^[4]

Slave Marriages In The United States Media

Marriage of a colored soldier at Vicksburg by Chaplain Warren of the Freedmen's Bureau
Thomas Nast, Emancipation, 1865, wood engraving print, King & Baird, printers, Philadelphia
Ellen and William Craft, fugitive slaves and abolitionists
Courtyard and interior structures at Bent's Fort
Sarah Ann and Benjamin Manson's marriage certificate from the Freedmen's Bureau