Abstract: »Partus sequitur ventrem was a legal principle which stated that the social status of being a slave was to be passed down biologically from mother to child. This meant that if a woman was a slave, all of her children would be too. Despite being introduced to the colonies around the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade, this principle continued to shape slavery and the colonies up until abolition. This essay will discuss the ways partus sequitur ventrem shaped colonial perceptions of race by looking at two of these perceptions: economic objectification, meaning people being seen as profitable objects, and sexual objectification, meaning people being seen as sexualised objects. These two forms of objectification will be compared firstly in terms of their prevalence, and then in terms of their impacts on interpersonal relationships, liberation discourse, small-scale resistance, and the sex industry. It will be argued that while both objectifications had substantial impacts on enslaved people, economic objectification was more pervasive.« (Source: The Elphinstone Review)

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