Family separation in American slavery

"[2]: 582 Historian Calvin Schermerhorn wrote of Franklin & Armfield, entrepreneurs of the 1820s and 1830s, "As it innovated in finance and transportation, Franklin and Armfield became an engine of family wreckage and social disruption.

What one contemporary critic called 'the Slave-Factory of Franklin & Armfield' produced captives by disarticulating families.

"[3] The motivation for this family separation was market forces; Theophilus Freeman wrote to other traders in his network in 1839: "I want you to buy nothing but No.

"[5] The death from cholera of Harriet Beecher Stowe's toddler in 1849 was one of the reasons she began writing about slavery; her grief at his death connected her to enslaved mothers who were irrevocably separated from their children by slave traders.

"[7] Another survivor of American slavery told the WPA Slave Narratives project, "If you want to know what unhappiness means, just stand on the slave block and hear the auctioneer's voice selling you away from the folks you love.