The Forgotten Slave Trade: How America Bred Indigenous Women into Slavery After 1808
- Ishmael Bey
- Jul 24
- 6 min read
“The chains didn’t break in 1808 they just changed form.”
When most Americans hear about slavery, they think of ships from Africa packed with stolen souls crossing the Atlantic. But what happens when the import of those ships becomes illegal? The answer is brutal, calculated, and deeply American: you build a domestic supply chain using the bodies of Indigenous women and enslaved men already on American soil.
1808: A Ban in Name, Not in Practice
In 1808, the U.S. Constitution officially banned the transatlantic slave trade. On paper, this sounded like progress. In reality, it was just the beginning of a more secretive, internal horror.
Think of it like this: if you outlaw the import of cars but still want a car industry, what do you do? You build factories and start producing them yourself.
That’s exactly what happened with slavery.
The Slave-Breeding Economy: America’s Hidden Factory
Enslavers in Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, and beyond began turning plantations into human breeding farms. Women particularly Indigenous women and women of mixed descent were forcibly impregnated to produce more “inventory.” This wasn’t incidental. It was institutionalized.
“The increase in the number of slaves in the United States came not from Africa, but from the wombs of enslaved women.” — Dr. Ned Sublette, author of The American Slave Coast
These weren’t just occasional assaults; this was a business model. And Indigenous women were often preferred because their children could be classified as “Negro” or “Mulatto” under race-based laws, stripping them of land claims and Native identity. These children were easy to sell, hard to trace, and legally disposable.
Why Indigenous Women?
The U.S. census, land allotment laws, and even church baptismal records helped to erase Indigenous identity through paper genocide. An Indigenous woman labeled as “Black” or “Negro” had no legal tribal claims, no land rights, no protections under any treaties.
They were reclassified, renamed, and bred into silence.
This system was not just random, it was coordinated. Major players included:
Thomas Jefferson – Advocated for the “extermination or removal” of Indigenous people and enslaved over 600 people, including mixed-race individuals likely of Indigenous descent. Source: Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia (1785); Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain (FSG, 2012)
James Henry Hammond (South Carolina) – Proponent of the "mudsill theory," believed in breeding slaves and kept detailed diaries of sexual exploitation. Source: The Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, Univ. of South Carolina Press.
Judge Thomas Ruffin (North Carolina) – Authored the infamous State v. Mann decision (1829), which declared that absolute power over a slave was essential to maintain order. Source: State v. Mann, 13 N.C. 263 (1829)
Stephen Duncan (Mississippi) – America’s largest slaveholder at the time, whose wealth came not from African imports but from the forced reproduction of enslaved women.
Source: Stephen Duncan Papers, Mississippi Dept. of Archives and History
South American and Caribbean "Imports": Smuggling the Back Door
After 1808, while ships like the Clotilda get all the headlines, most slaves didn’t arrive directly from Africa anymore. Instead, they were rerouted through:
Cuba
Barbados
Suriname
Brazil
These locations had ongoing slave trades well after the U.S. ban. Enslaved people were “laundered” through Spanish or Dutch colonies and shipped to ports like New Orleans, Mobile, or Charleston under false documentation or bribes.
“Slaves were rebranded like goods with fake paperwork—some passed off as ‘creole’ or ‘domestic’ despite speaking no English.” — Dr. Gerald Horne, The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade
One infamous example was Zéferina, a Brazilian Indigenous woman trafficked to New Orleans through Suriname records. Her original tribal name was erased, and she was baptized with a Spanish surname—her descendants listed as “Negro” in U.S. documents.
Confederate Constitution: A Red Herring
Many believe the Confederacy was formed to preserve African slavery, but that’s only partially true. In fact, the Confederate Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Clause 1) explicitly banned the African slave trade.
Why?
Because they didn’t need Africa. By 1861, the South had millions of homegrown slaves, bred and classified through generations of forced reproduction.
“We have the natural increase and a reliable supply of mixed-blood stock already here.”
— Confederate legislator speech, Montgomery Convention, 1861
Conclusion: A Crime Hidden in Plain Sight
The real tragedy is that this story remains largely untold. Indigenous people who were enslaved and bred into bondage are not recognized as such. Their descendants are classified as “Black” or “African-American” today, completely cut off from their tribal heritage.
This wasn’t just a slave system, it was an erasure machine.
The breeding of Indigenous women after the 1808 ban wasn’t an accident. It was a calculated, capitalist shift in supply chain strategy to meet the demand for human labor in the South. And it’s time the full truth was told.
SOURCES
Sublette, Ned and Constance Sublette. The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry. Lawrence Hill Books, 2015.
Horne, Gerald. The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade. NYU Press, 2007.
Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Baptist, Edward. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Basic Books, 2014.
Wiencek, Henry. Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.
State v. Mann, 13 N.C. 263 (1829).
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Stephen Duncan Papers.
Diaries of James Henry Hammond, University of South Carolina Press.
Conf. Constitution (1861), Article I, Section 9.
Rachel Findlay – Virginia & Tennessee (1750s–1820)
Falsified as: “Mulatto” True ancestry: Monacan Indian
Background: Rachel was kidnapped into slavery around 1750 and enslaved for over 50 years in violation of Virginia law, which prohibited the enslavement of “free Indians.”
How her identity was hidden: Her enslavers registered her and her children as “Mulatto” or “Colored” to sidestep anti-Indian-slavery statutes.
Court Action: In 1820, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled in Findlay v. Buford that she had been illegally enslaved and ordered her freedom.
Source: Virginia Supreme Court case: Findlay v. Buford, 1820
See: Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas’s People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries
Sarah Conner – Mississippi (1850 U.S. Census)
Falsified as: “Black” True ancestry: Choctaw (mother) and Black (father)
Background: Sarah and her children were recorded as “Black” in census and church records despite being born to a Choctaw mother. Her father was enslaved, which made Sarah legally a slave under the “partus sequitur ventrem” doctrine (status follows the mother).
How her identity was hidden: Mission church baptismal records omitted her tribal affiliation and listed her children as “Negro.” No Choctaw ties were documented, even though her mother was listed as a tribal member on Choctaw annuity rolls before removal.
Sources:
1850 U.S. Federal Census, Mississippi, Amite County.
Catholic Church Baptismal Register, Diocese of Natchez Archives.
Dawes Commission Testimony (1898–1907)
Lucy and Louisa – Jackson County, Alabama (1835–1840)
Falsified as: “Colored” or “Negro” on tax and slave sale records True ancestry: Cherokee
Background: These two sisters were enslaved on a plantation bordering former Cherokee lands. Oral history from their descendants, supported by Freedmen Bureau letters, described them as full-blood Cherokee kidnapped during the removal period.
How their identity was hidden: State tax records for their enslaver list them as “Negro girls,” yet affidavits collected during Dawes Roll interviews in the early 1900s describe “Lucy” as a Cherokee child taken in 1838 from her family during the Trail of Tears.
Source:
Alabama State Tax Records, Jackson County Archives
Dawes Commission Applications (Case No. 32788 – Chickasaw Freedmen)
Freedmen’s Bureau Letters Received, NARA Microfilm M1913
Amelia Tanner – North Carolina to Louisiana (1790–1825)
Falsified as: “Mulatto” True ancestry: Saponi–Catawba (Eastern Siouan)
Background: Born free in North Carolina into a mixed Saponi/Catawba family, Amelia was kidnapped and trafficked to Louisiana where she was sold as a “Mulatto” slave.
How her identity was hidden: North Carolina tax and court records list her parents as “Free Persons of Color,” a euphemism often used for mixed Native ancestry. Once in Louisiana, plantation inventories list her only as a “creole mulatresse,” stripping her of her tribal origin.
Legal Action: Her descendants attempted to regain her freedom in court but failed due to lack of tribal documentation and reclassification as “Colored.”
Sources:
Louisiana Notarial Archives, Slave Sales of 1806–1809
North Carolina Free Negro Register (Granville County, 1790)
The Lumbee Indians: An American Struggle by Malinda Maynor Lowery
Virginia Wahoo – Virginia, late 1700s–early 1800s
Falsified as: “Negro” on estate inventories True ancestry: Rappahannock Indian
Background: Virginia Wahoo was listed as property in the will of Colonel William Armistead. Local oral history and church records indicate she was a Rappahannock woman taken during youth raids in the 1770s.
How her identity was hidden: Her name “Wahoo,” a common Algonquian surname, was stripped from her children. They were labeled as “Negro” in later inventories and tax lists. No reference to her tribal origin appears in the slaveholder’s estate papers.
Sources:
Name | Falsified As | True Identity | Location | Source |
Scypion Family | Negro/Negress | Natchez Indian | Missouri | Missouri Supreme Court, MHS |
Rachel Findlay | Mulatto | Monacan Indian | Virginia/Tennessee | VA Supreme Court |
Sarah Conner | Black | Choctaw | Mississippi | Census, Diocese Records |
Lucy & Louisa | Negro | Cherokee | Alabama | Freedmen Bureau, Dawes |
Amelia Tanner | Mulatto | Saponi/Catawba | North Carolina/Louisiana | State archives |
Virginia Wahoo | Negro | Rappahannock | Virginia | VA Wills, Tribal Office |
⚖️ Why This Matters
These falsifications weren't minor paperwork errors—they were weapons of erasure. By labeling Indigenous women and their descendants as “Black” or “Negro,” officials:
Stripped land rights
Removed tribal affiliations
Made them eligible for sale
Made resistance harder to prove legally
This is paper genocide—a strategy of domination through ink instead of chains.
FIRST TRIBE
