page_title: Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean
section_title: Contraception
hierarchical_section_title: Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean / Contraception
caption_attribution_description: English: Often referred to as the Peacock flower or bird of paradise
context_page_description: Enslaved women were expected to maintain the enslaved populations, which led women to rebel against this expectation via contraception and abortions. Infanticide was also committed as a means to protect children from either becoming enslaved or from returning to enslavement.
context_section_description: Contraception was an act of rebellion because it shifted the power and control from enslaver to the enslaved. Since enslaved women were expected to maintain the enslaved populations, enslaved women used various methods to undermine this expectation. Abortions and contraceptives were also seen as a means for enslaved women to exercise agency over their bodies by allowing the women to control their ability to be impregnated. The peacock flower and the cotton root were plants that could be used as abortifacients. In Maria Merian's Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam, she recorded that indigenous women used the plant to induce abortions. In the United States and Caribbean, both indigenous and enslaved women have used the peacock flower to abort pregnancies. The cotton root was also used as a form of contraception. The use of cotton root was common, with other enslaved men worrying about their own population due the high use of cotton root. By taking contraception and abortifacients, enslaved women were denying enslavers authority over their bodies; by not having children, enslaved women were limiting the profits enslavers could make off their bodies.
caption: Caesalpinia pulcherrima, otherwise known as the "peacock flower", was used to induce abortion.
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