Read the passage below and answer the following question:
"By tying the legal status of the child to the womb of the mother, colonial legislators did more than solve a legal anomaly. They positioned Black women’s reproductive capacity as the very engine of wealth accumulation, turning childbirth itself into a site of capital growth for the planter class."
—Historian Jennifer L. Morgan, analyzing the legal coding of hereditary slavery in the seventeenth-century English colonies
Which of the following best explains the primary legal and economic consequence of the doctrine described in the passage?
- AIt aligned colonial statutes with English common law, which traditionally determined a child's legal status based on the father.
- BIt immediately established a fully formed, nationwide system of racialized chattel slavery upon the arrival of the first Africans in 1619.
- It legally codified slavery as a hereditary status passed through the mother, ensuring that the children of enslaved women and white enslavers were born into slavery.Answer
- DIt eliminated gendered differences in resistance, causing enslaved women to lead armed rebellions at the same rates as enslaved men.
Answer
It legally codified slavery as a hereditary status passed through the mother, ensuring that the children of enslaved women and white enslavers were born into slavery.
The correct option accurately identifies that the doctrine described is partus sequitur ventrem, which legally decreed that a child's status followed that of the mother. This legally codified slavery as a hereditary status and ensured that children born to enslaved women, including those fathered by white enslavers, became the legal property of the enslavers, directly tying reproductive labor to wealth accumulation.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
The legal doctrine of Partus sequitur ventrem and the gendered exploitation of enslaved women's reproductive labor.
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