ABSTRACT
The archetypal grief of enslaved mothers and their descendants are a part of our collective cultural suffering. This type of grief is nurtured and kept alive because of the conditions of the trauma which first began creating it through the pattern of a Mother of Sorrows archetype. The possibility of death for the mother as well as the loss of not just one child but all of her children would have pressed heavily on the heart of any enslaved mother. Rage as a part of any grief is typical, Savage noted that this is especially true in the case of mothers who have lost their children as a result of murder. One of the differences between children lost to parents in contemporary times and those lost during slavery are the children sold away from their mothers. This was always a threat to mothering slaves—the sale of their children.
