throughout early america, enslaved women were valued for their childbearing and labor capabilities. many slave owners would purchase female slaves specifically to bear children so that they could increase the number of bodies they owned. consequentially, birth rates among enslaved africans were significantly higher than those of white women both in north america and in europe. in alice clifton’s case as well as others involving slave infanticide, the murdered child was considered to be destroyed property of the slave owner, adding an additional legal dimension to the situation. many african american women used abortifacients in an attempt to control their birth rates, which could have been done for a number of reasons, including not wanting to bear a child into slavery or claiming agency over their own body by being the ones to determine if and when they had children. the fact that clifton's child may also have been fathered through instances of sexual violence also most likely had significant effect on alice’s decision to take her daughter’s life. following clifton’s trial, jack shaffer was put on trial for these assaults against clifton. however shaffer, known to the town as "the fat shaffer" and generally disliked, was not charged with rape, but rather the equivalence of damaging property and was not found guilty for even this crime. clifton’s identity as a slave woman, like many slave women in early america, probably contributed to this lack of guilty verdict due to the low status she held in society and the general belief that her body was not something she had ownership over.