The Tragedy of Child Separation

My great-great-grandmother, Nancy Kendall and her husband, Andrew had eight children. Only six of those children survived to adulthood. We have all read accounts of what it was like in earlier centuries for parents going through the child bearing years. Life spans were short, and losing a child to illness or a mishap was commonplace.

According to my grandfather, Nancy Kendall was a devoted and loving grandmother to all of her grandchildren. Her act of sharing a few stories about her involvement in The Underground Railroad was, for my grandfather as an eight-year-old boy, a precious gift he always cherished.

As a mother, I think of Nancy’s life - bearing and caring for a large family of children of her own, while at the same time doing what she could to help fugitive slaves. But Nancy, as a free woman, had something enslaved persons did not - freedom. She had a home. She knew she might lose a child. But, she also knew she would never have a child ripped from her arms and sold away from her. 

One of the worst tragedies a slave could experience was that of family separation. Many never saw their loved ones again. ​

Losing a child tears at the heart of every parent like no other pain. As with any parent, the fear of losing their children was greater for the enslaved than the physical pain of being whipped or beaten.

In recent times, parents and children experienced child separation at the southern border of our country. Approximately 5,500 families were ripped apart.  Hundreds of families have not been reunited. 

We do not have audio recordings of enslaved families being torn apart. We can, however, hear the haunting voices of children separated from their parents at the border. The language may be different, but the cries are the same.

 
​Next time:  More on the Tragedy of Family Separation​