Infanticide, Love, and Spite

I would like to investigate the reasons, consequences, and implications revolving around acts of infanticide during the 19th century committed by enslaved mothers and/or midwives. With a crucial aspect of the so-called function of the female slaves being the reproducer of more laborers and, thus, capital, the ultimate rejection of this function takes form in infanticide, in which even the sliver of hope and love between a mother and her child was outweighed by the horrors of enabling the child to be raised into a slave. From the religious guilt of sinning to legal objectification of child as property of the slaveholder, I aim to explore the various emotional and psychological struggles that both led to and resulted from the act of infanticide by the enslaved mother and/or midwife.

Although I am still searching for sources, I would like to use a primary source from a female slave perspective about the case of infanticide that they have witnessed, heard, aided, or (in the best case, though presumably non-existent) committed. One source that I have looked into is used by Deborah Gray White in Ar'n't I a Woman, where a slave midwife named Mollie talks about her repentance in witnessing and, implied as, aiding the act of infanticide for slave women she helped deliver (126). Another source that I am considering is from the WPA Narrative of the Oklahoma Writer's Project, an interview of Lou Smith and her account of a case in which a mother murdered her baby to prevent her child from being sold away and within slavery.