Horrors of slavery: His job was to impregnate slave women, then impregnated his owner’s wife and daughter
When Sheriff Thomas McKinley drew his pistol, Margaret Harlow, the plantation owner’s wife, stepped forward, her belly opened, her child lying dead at her feet, and she raised her bloodied hands in front of Tobias.
Scars of slavery-1: No one wanted to marry the colonel’s crippled daughter, so he handed her over to the roughest slave
Eulália had married the colonel five years prior – an ambitious widow who saw Violeta as an obstacle to her own plans. She had two children from her first marriage and always made it clear that Violeta was an unwanted nuisance.
Seven Chldren-3: Slavery reduced people to property regardless of blood ties, genetic connections in a world ruled by skin colour
But workers nearing 50 depreciated like equipment wearing out, their value declining steadily toward whatever they might fetch in a final sale. Samuel understood this calculus with perfect clarity. He had watched it play out with other ageing field workers whose treatment shifted as their usefulness declined. Yet Samuel occupied a peculiar position that complicated these typical patterns.
Because she’s Black: Why first Black woman to sing for four American presidents died in penury, buried in unmarked grave
Everywhere she went, critics raved. The Washington Post described her voice as “clear and bell-like… Her low notes are rich and sensuous with a tropical quality. The compass and quality of her registers surpass the usual limitations and seem to combine the height and depth of both soprano and contralto.”
