In Louisiana, black women were put in cells with male prisoners and some became pregnant.
All children born in the penitentiary to blacks were property of the state.
At 10 years, they would be auctioned off. The proceeds were used to fund schools for white children.
Before the Civil War, most prisoners in the South were white. The punishment of enslaved African Americans was generally left up to their owners. Louisiana, however, did imprison enslaved people for "serious" crimes, generally involving acts of rebellion against the slave system.
A number of these imprisoned slaves were women. Penitentiary records show a number of women imprisoned for "assaulting a white," arson, or attempting to poison someone, most likely their enslavers.
Some of these female prisoners became pregnant, either by fellow inmates or prison officials. In 1848, state legislatures passed a law declaring that all children born in the penitentiary to African Americans serving life sentences would become property of the state.
The women would raise the children inside the prison until the age of 10, at which point they would be auctioned on the courthouse steps.
Many of the buyers were prison officials, including heads of the company that ran the penitentiary. The proceeds were used to fund schools for white children.
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