Subversion Of The Womb

Chinedu Dike

Chinedu Dike's Profile

Monday 22 June 2026

Subversion Of The Womb

The year 1808 brought no true relief.
The Atlantic gates were locked by law,
but the violence only turned inward,
and the trade grew deep within the soil.

The human womb became a workshop,
a calculated mill of forced labour
where mothers were viewed as mere assets
and children were born into debt.

Virginia became a central market
and Maryland grew into a dark zone;
human lives were treated as crops,
and families were harvested for cash.

Newspapers printed the daily prices,
listing young girls for sale
and rating them like farm livestock
because the market demanded constant growth.

Corporate ledgers tracked the births,
writing babies on long pages
right next to corn and tobacco,
counting them as basic goods.

An old legal decree ruled the land,
stating that the child followed the mother’s status,
which meant bondage became a permanent inheritance
and freedom was exiled by law.

The Southern fields demanded labour,
and the law classified the human soul,
grouping men and women with cattle
and taking away their basic rights.

This early horror built the foundation
and sank deep into the country's lawn,
becoming the structural root
where systemic racism grew from this base.

When the old coastal ports shut down,
New Orleans became the grand market,
expanding the domestic auction block
as the internal trade found a new center.

Masters engineered their human stock
by picking out strength and youth,
forcing people into pairings
and using terror to build wealth.

Young girls bore the heaviest load
as children raising children,
left with no protection from abuse
under a system of total dominance.

The rulers wanted absolute control,
claiming the mind and body
while trying to erase the heart
and destroy the spirit.

Public advertisements filled the papers,
pricing a woman's body openly,
putting a fee on motherhood,
and normalizing the terrible trade.

White mistresses joined the business
to buy and sell human lives,
using ownership for social stance
and holding supreme local power.

The mistress turned anger into force
with the whip and the lash,
creating deep cruelty within domestic walls
because the ledger demanded total obedience.

Hidden relationships formed in secret,
crossing the strict color line,
but these ties were very dangerous
and discovery brought swift destruction.

When a pregnancy revealed the truth,
sharp panic drove desperate actions,
forcing women to seek hidden medicine
or flee the land to survive.

Black men faced extreme violence,
meeting the rope and the fire,
risking everything for family
and dying to protect loved ones.

The law crushed these secret ties,
demanding pure separation
and using blood to keep control
while building walls of constant fear.

Yet through the immense trauma,
the people forged a fierce existence,
refusing to be broken completely
and keeping their inner light alive.

The system tried to own the womb,
but lines of subversion fought back
as enslaved people resisted the rules
and claimed their own humanity.

They rejected the forced pairings
and chose their own hidden bonds,
finding love in the shadows
and protecting each other in secret.

Women learned the power of herbs
and used roots from the forest,
practicing quiet sabotage
to keep their bodies for themselves.

Escape became a path to autonomy;
people ran beyond the fields,
following the midnight stars
as they looked for open ground.

Generational pain severed family trees,
leaving a structural grief
that echoes today
through a heavy and deep history,
but the covert networks survived.

Solidarity countered the dark design
because the human spirit could not be catalogued;
the bonds of survival outlived the ledger,
and the people continued to endure.

Chinedu Dike's Profile

Subversion Of The Womb

Trending Now

Most Rated Poems

Recently Joined

FPG Feeds