When Elvira was five, she was taken from her mother and given to one of the house slaves. It was common for fair-skinned children to be taken out of the fields; she was not the first of the master’s sons’ indiscretions, nor would she be the last. She was given to a woman called Peggy, who came from a long line of house slaves. Peggy had recently lost a daughter to a fever, and perhaps the mistress felt that she would benefit from a replacement child. What, after all, was the difference between one young slave girl and another? If the plan had been for Peggy to adopt and nurture Elvira, it
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People really dont realize the intricate horrors caused by slavery. It wasnt just the hard labor and ppl being sold. It was also those mothers who were raped by the masters and other white men, bore the children resulting from that trauma, and then getting those children snatched away to be raised as someone else's child
