“What I will tell you is that many enslaved children were not allowed to breastfeed,” Damaras said. Some mothers were enlisted as wet nurses for white children; others were prevented from breastfeeding because they were expected to work without interruption. Damaras also told us about the damage that researchers found in the bodies of young people—including cases of osteoarthritis, a condition that normally doesn’t affect people until they are beyond their fifties. But here they saw osteoarthritis in the remains of children as young as sixteen. Damaras’s face, ever so briefly, became swollen
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