The concept of a family played crucial roles in enslaved people's lives. a persons family connected them to various community networks as well as the benefits of these networks. The family networkings represented a sanctuary in which slaves could feel a sense of belonging which was disconnected from the forced labor that controlled their lives. They were able to create a sense of individuality and love and devotion for those apart of their families which defended from the daily loneliness and desperation of enslaved labor.

During the Antebellum periods, enslaved people were still determined to express themselves in any way they could. Some of the expressions used were arts, craftsmanship, folktales, and by educating themselves. During the hours they were able to rest slaves would engage in singing and dancing, using their bodies to create rhythm, a well known dance being the patting juba. Despite many obstacles involving the disapproval of cultural activities, slaves created amazing musical traditions and instruments like the banjo that had a huge impact on American music later on.

When slaveholders would catch onto bonds being formed between slaves they would weaponize those bonds and threaten to sell off a person apart of a community or family. They did this to enable harder work, punish disobedience, or just to establish superiority. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of marriages, many with children, were torn apart by sale "downriver," (down the Mississippi river). These threats wouldn't end after their master passed. A lot of times this could mean more families more families separated because of sale after the master has died.

Sexual violence, unwanted pregnancies, and child-rearing, (raising children,) all while working in the plantations made enslaved women's lives more prone to disruption and danger. Pregnancies occured from rape did not usually mean a lighter workload for the mother either. Most enslaved women had no choice involving love, sex, or motherhood. On many plantations rape was present, and like the threat of tearing apart families, slaveholders used sexual violence as a form of terrorism to increase production, instill obedience, and hold power. Sexual abuse was not restricted to unmarried women. On many accounts, fairly violent slaveholders would force men to witness the rape of their wives, daughters, and other relatives as punishment, or to show dominance.

A former slave, Harriet Jacobs, wrote her masters attempts to sexually assault/abuse her in her narrative titled, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs tells that her abilities to successfully defend herself against the sexual attempts and her determination to love who she wanted gave her a stronger sense of freedom.

Enslaved women had no justice since white society did not see sexual violence against black women as a crime. Racist pseudoscientists claimed that black women could not be raped by white men because the sexual organs were not compatible. State law sometimes supported that view and stated that rape could only occur between two white people or a black man and a white woman. The consequences of rape would turn to the victim in the case of slaves. If a slave retaliated from a rapist whether it be any white attacker their actions were seen as crimes.

An enslaved woman named Cilia became a victim of repeated rape by her master, Robert Newson. He raped Cilia hundreds of times resulting in two children and several miscarriages. Cilia became desperate to end the torture and in the fall of 1855 Cilia took a club and beat her master over the head, killing him. Instead of sympathy and consoling the community called for her execution. On November 16, 1855, after a ten day trial, Cilia was hung for her crimes against her master.

PBS. “Antebellum Slavery.” Pbs.org, PBS, 2019, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html.

Sambol-Tosco, Kimberly. “Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Education, Arts, & Culture | PBS.” Thirteen.org, 2019, www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/history.html.