via Flickr
Content Warning: The following story contains graphic details about rape and sexual assault.
Robert Lumpkin’s Richmond, Virginia slave “jail” was a prosperous operation that did American slaveowners’ dirty work for them.
Rather than pay handsomely for recently kidnapped and enslaved Africans, plantation owners of the 1800s turned to breeding farms for their forced labor needs.
See, to keep a steady supply of enslaved people ready for trade, America had to build an infrastructure that would keep prices steady and the most inhumane realities of slavery hidden.
That’s where Lumpkin’s facility, known as “The Devil’s Half Acre” came in.
No one held behind his compound’s 12-foot wall had done anything wrong nor illegal.
Yet, enslaved African men were forced to rape the women (sometimes even committing incest) with bags and hoods over their heads, in order to satisfy the demand for forced laborers of Lumpkin’s loyal customers. Some breeding farms were so successful that they exported between 10,000 to 20,000 enslaved people a MONTH!
Laws like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 didn’t just help capture and return enslaved people to their owners, but protected the assets of these “farmers” who beat, tortured, bred, and sold enslaved people for a living as well.
Lumpkin’s property was willed away after the Civil War and eventually became Virginia Union University, but its existence shows how horrifying practices were permitted to thrive by the government, business owners, customers, and authorities.