Broomstick Marriage on the Border: Enslaved Relationships in Antebellum Kentucky and Western Virginia

This paper explores the relationship practices of slaves in Kentucky and western Virginia prior to the Civil War, focusing on the ways in which their decisions were influenced not just by their adoption of African and African-American traditions but those of white border South residents, as well. Stemming from Tyler D. Parry’s recent conclusions about the “cultural similarities and differences” between poor white and slave communities in a “transatlantic framework,” this paper analyzes the contacts and contrasts between slave communities and white families in these mountainous border states. In doing so, this paper bridges three historical fields: the study of slavery in the upper South, the literature on the practice of slave marriage more broadly in the American South, and the burgeoning field of border and transatlantic scholarship.

As historians of American slavery have argued, the practice of slavery in the antebellum upper South differed in many ways from its practice in the plantation regions of the Deep South. Having long moved away from myths of a more benevolent system, historians nonetheless point to factors like the hiring-out system, the proximity of free states, and the prevalence of sale “down the river” as shaping the lives of upper South slaves. How did these issues, as well as the attitudes of white border residents toward issues like marriage and separation, influence slave families in these areas? This paper will use a variety of sources, including WPA narratives, Freedmen’s Bureau records, circuit court records, and published slave narratives to answer this question.