When slaves were allowed to marry, who would perform the ceremony?

Answer 1

1) Annie L. Burton, Memories of Childhood's Slavery Days (1909)

If a slave man and woman wished to marry, a party would be arranged some Saturday night among the slaves. The marriage ceremony consisted of the pair jumping over a stick. If no children were born within a year or so, the wife was sold.

At New Year's, if there was any debt or mortgage on the plantation, the extra slaves were taken to Clayton and sold at the court house. In this way families were separated.



(2) Bethany Veney, A Slave Woman (1889)

Master Jonas Mannyfield lived seven miles from us, on the other side of the Blue Ridge; and he owned a likely young fellow called Jerry. We had always known each other, and now he wanted to marry me. Our masters were both willing; and there was nothing to hinder, except that there was no minister about there to marry us.

One day, there was a colored man - a pedler, with his cart - on the road, and Jerry brought him in, and said he was ready to be minister for us. He asked us a few questions, which we answered in a satisfactory manner, and then he declared us husband and wife. I did not want him to make us promise that we would always be true to each other, forsaking all others, as the white people do in their marriage service, because I knew that at any time our masters could compel us to break such a promise; and I had never forgotten the lesson learned, so many years before, in the blackberry pasture.

As you can see, there were marriages performed by itinerant ministers (?) or by jumping the broom.

gatita_63109

Answer 2

Usually, it was the slavemaster who performed the ceremony.
Slaves' vows included "Until death or seperation do we part."
Jumping the broom was a European pagan ritual, that masters made slaves do as a farse or form of entertainment.
Slave marriages were not legally recognized, which is why after the Civil War, the first thing many slaves did was to register their marriages with the Freedman's Bureau.