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A woman with a child walks towards two other figures. Eliza tells Uncle Tom that he has been sold and she is running away to save her child.
Illustration in Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852).

Formerly enslaved Black women refuse to leave their children behind.

1850s

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Illustration in Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852).

During the 1850s, New Orleans newspaper advertisements for escaped enslaved people indicate that out of the 151 Black women who escaped slavery, none of them left their children behind.