Wet nursing under slavery was not simply an act of childcare. It was another way enslaved women’s bodies were controlled and exploited. Enslaved mothers were sometimes forced to breastfeed the children of slaveholders, often while their own babies also depended on them for nourishment. The practice could separate mothers from their children and place the needs of white families above the health and wellbeing of enslaved families.
There were also deeply rooted beliefs about Black women’s bodies and breast milk. Enslavers and some medical writers promoted the idea that enslaved women’s milk was especially strong or beneficial for white infants, sometimes associating it with supposed natural immunity or resistance to disease. These ideas were not based on a legitimate understanding of racial biology. They reflected the racist assumptions used to justify exploiting enslaved women while treating their reproductive labor as another resource that could be controlled.
The claim that an enslaved woman could be whipped for allowing both a white child and her own Black child to nurse from the same breast should therefore be approached carefully unless a specific historical record is provided. Rules concerning wet nurses varied between plantations and slaveholding societies, and surviving records do document brutal regulation of enslaved women’s breastfeeding and maternal responsibilities. But the broader historical reality is already horrifying enough without presenting an unverified detail as universal practice.
Enslaved women were expected to nourish children belonging to people who claimed ownership over them, sometimes at the expense of their own children. Their milk, labor, fertility and motherhood could all be treated as property under slavery. Understanding this history means recognizing that slavery did not only exploit Black people through forced physical labor. It also sought control over the most intimate parts of their lives, including motherhood and reproduction.
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