This seemed to be a common trend throughout most of history, not just US history. For slave traders, wouldn’t it have been far more profitable for the children of slaves to be born free, forcing slave owners to have to buy more slaves?
I get why slaves reproducing is good for the owner, because they have an infinite labor source, but it feels bad for everyone else involved in the trade?
In a more US centric focused bonus question, with the 1790 Naturalization Act, why wouldn’t slaves born on US soil be considered citizens and be free? Technically they weren’t bought so they wouldn’t be property according to slave owners so why was it considered the owner’s right to own child slaves born on US soil?
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I think slave owners just thought of their slaves the same way they think of the cattle or other work animals. If a cow they have has a calf, that is THEIR calf, and they get to sell it or slaughter it or whatever. In their mind, they owned the cow, they paid for the cow the feed and live while it grew the calf, and so the calf is theirs.
about the naturalization stuff, it seems like you are trying to apply 20th century logic to 18th century laws. The law didn’t recognize slaves as “people”, so the act wouldn’t apply.
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