In antebellum America, sex with enslaved people was about power as much or even more than it was about sexual gratification.

The infamous painting "Virginia Luxuries" suggested that sexual contact with slave women was considered a dominance tactic, akin to outright violence against slave men.

https://seaofliberty.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/image/virginian-luxuries-1810.jpg

The writings of Harriet Ann Jacobs, a former slave, describe how some slaveowners would rape their human property as a way to assert their power. Violence and sex, in the context of American slavery, were closely intertwined. Because slaves had no rights, consent as we know it was irrelevant.