The basic social unit among plantation slaves was the family. Parents and children shared a cabin or a part of a cabin. The recollections of former slaves regularly speak of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and grandparents. Slave weddings brought men and women together, often—though not always— for life, and everyone on a plantation knew which child belonged to which set of parents.

Unfortunately, it was often difficult for slaves to keep their families together. Long work hours made it hard for slave families to spend much time in each other's company. Sharing a cabin with another unrelated family, as was often the case, also interfered with family life and privacy. Even worse was the fact that parents did not always have a say in the upbringing of their children; the planters, not the parents, were the ultimate authority on the plantation. And hanging...