Slave Diet and Nutrition

[matthew mckeon]

Dear Socknitter,
I think you're right about slave clothing being cloth, not skins or anything like that. The cotton textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts produced a coarse cotton cloth specifically for sale to slaveowners called "negro cloth."

I like this thread.

[johan_steele]

Ole & Sockknitter; Ami moved this for you. Should be a little easier to find here for those w/ an interest in the subject.

It's one of those threads that equates directly w/ the every day life of the time... and it is valuable to me as a reenactor.

[sockknitter]

Okra rings a bell as being a food supposedly brought to North America by African captives. I'm going to look that up. A little bit of trivia I want to confirm is that okra is closely related to cotton. Also I'm going to look up to see if peanuts or groundnuts came from Africa.

[mobile_96]

Gumbo is the African word for okra.
When Africans were captured, or about to be, if they suspected they would be sold into slavery, the women would sew seeds into the hem of their clothes. The idea being, if they had the chance, they could try and grow things they were used to eating, if it was unavailable where they were being transported to.
I read this in a cook book set back in the 60's. Think I still have the set around here somewhere. Besides recipes, they covered some of the history of different food items.
Chuck in IL.

[ole]

Thanks ami and shane. Any insight into who, how, and what during the WBTS period is useful.

Recommendation. civilwarinteractive.com has a presentation on food, including the pig, its history, uses, ethnicity, and place in the war. Good, miscellaneous read recommended for all. Think I'll go make a grilled ham and swiss on 7-grain wheat. With a thin slice of onion and genoa salami.
Ole

[Alabaman]

Dear Socknitter,

After all my carrying on regarding "sources" and replies on CWT, I truly stand corrected in my misconception upon the importance of sound & reliable sources. After reading your fine thread, I now realize the utmost importance of supplying reliable sources along with a reply. I humbly stand corrected in my error regarding "sources." One never ceases to learn, I'll be the first to add! :-)

Re: your post and it's 'rating':

I will vote your post with a five star rating due to it's great thought provocation and the lesson it taught me. And I was unaware of a member being able to vote more than once? I mistakingly trid to vote on a rating which I had already done, and a note 'popped up' saying I had already voted on this post?

Re: slave diets:

In all honesty, I am not well versed in the nutritional intake of the average slave in the South. I am aware of contemporary argumentation equivocating the 'slave' diet with the current health staus & normal equilibrium of people of African descent today. From my education, whch included a typical rudimentary 'brushing over' of the subject of Nutrition, I was taught this to be a fallacy. Hypertension, to my understanding, is either inherited genetically or secondary to predispostion of other causative factors, dietary factors included. However, having an ancestor as a slave, and exhibiting grossly unchecked hypertension today due to an ancestor's diet over 140 years ago, is unfounded to the extent of my education. (I do not currently read JAMA but used to do so with zeal. ) If this were medical fact, most white Southerers could claim a ditto causative factor in exhibition and presentation of this potentially fatal physiological anomaly. Poor & middle class whites ingested basically the same as their enslaved neighbors, with some reasonable exception. The 2 ex-slaves I actually spoke to, vehemently stood upon the premise of receiving a good diet, well balanced in protein, carbohydrates & fatty acids. They stated their real dietary concerns came during post-slavery times. Perhaps the key to some perplexing nutritional deficiency and a subsequent disease, was the lack of certain water soluable/fat soluable vitamins. Liberal foraging upon the wild fruits and nuts which exist in the South, would certainly provide some vitamin C and other important vitamins needed for normal equilibrium. I've personally read many personal recollections of hunting game & catching fish, by slaves. Also, most slave homes had their own little plot set aside for vegetable gardens, just like their white neighbors. I'm not aware of a PRONOUNCED or SEVERE disease outbreak due PRECISELY (for emphasis, not shouting) to dietary (poor diet) malnutritional induced illnesses but most diseases experienced by slaves and whites alike, were related to contagious or acute disorders. However, a compromised host can fall prey to certain diseases, due to malnutrtion. I am truly unaware that a well developed people, such as most slave images portray, were underfed deliberately, but I'm certainly game for a counter-presentation by fellow members of CWT, in a respectful discussion. Again, Socknitter, great post!

Respectfully,
Alabaman

[MobileBoy]

Hey Everyone,
Just going from photos the slaves don't look any skinnier than normal whites.Considering the long hours that they worked they were fed adequately.No they didn't eat as good as the plantation owners but neither did a lot of white poeple.I've read many references where slaves had ground set aside to tend to their garden.I believe most had this because most references come from the slaves themseleves talking about working on their garden after having been in the owner's field all day.Shane's hypothesis makes a lot of sense to me.The overwhelming majority of African-Americans love chitlins and pigfeet.They also love turkey necks.The idea that they developed this habit from being given the cast off parts so to speak makes sense.
It may not be accurate but it seems logical.Collard greens are easy to grow so maybe that comes from there to.I very seriously doubt slaves did much of any hunting.I can't see them having weapons to start with or being allowed to go off into the woods.As far as fishing goes that's a possibility.Blacks generally keep baby fish to eat I would use as bait so maybe that comes from practice generations ago as well.Maybe I'm reaching here.We all know they love chicken (as does every race).Chicken was fairly common in those days but I'm not sure if the slaves got to partake(I doubt it).They were valuable property so I imagine they were fed plenty enough.It just wouldn't make sense economically to starve your property.Sorry for getting off track Shane's ideas just got me thinking.

[ole]

In all honesty, I am not well versed in the nutritional intake of the average slave in the South.

Apparently, none of us are. In that respect, this thread has become an explorative expedition -- which is an excellent goal.

The more I think about it and read responses and speculations, the more I lean to a conclusion (as if such a thing were possible) that there is no generality. By and large, it makes economic sense to keep your slaves in a condition to put in the work expected. But there were those, and likely very few, with the attitude that it was cheaper to buy more slaves than to maintain those they had (presumably meaning that buying a working-age slave and working him to death was cheaper than birth-to-death maintenance).

I'm convinced that most owners provided space for personal gardens. This would presumably make the slaves a bit more self-sufficient and therefore reduce the expense of feeding them. The value of that self-sufficiency would naturally have to exceed the value of the produce of that land (for greedy planters) or at least approximte the value.

Agree with Rob that it makes no sense to project an ancestor's nutrition-related debilities to his/her progeny. Granted, a malnourished mother is going to produce a weak infant. To the degree that this infant, properly nourished, remains disadvantaged through its lifetime and the effect on that infant's children, is a question I will defer back to Rob or any other medical types we have.

The overwhelming majority of African-Americans love chitlins and pigfeet.

Challenge. Perhaps southern blacks love chitlins and trotters more than northern blacks? I'm unaware of a heavy consumption of such things, but I could be uninformed. This would be an invitation for northern African-Americans or close acquaintances to chime in.

And then there's the chicken. Presumably, slaves of the more beneficent owners might well have been given a few or, at least, allowed to have some. A handful of chickens and, of course, a rooster, could contribute quite significantly to a small family's sustenance. There would be eggs. And one or two hens would be allowed to hatch them, thus providing a sustainable resource. When a hen no longer produced enough eggs to justify her feed, she became dinner -- remembering that her daughters (and a son or two) remain to renew the cycle.

Back to the thread. It would appear that the slave's nutrition depended solely on the sufferance of the owner. Good, bad, or indifferent. I believe the average slave had an inherent, instinctual if you wish, knowledge of what must be eaten. Balancing that against what was available or attainable is another matter.

Anxious for more input.
Ole

[cedarstripper]

My two cents.

According to Eugene Genovese's The Political Economy of Slavery, livestock kept in the deep South was consistently of poor quality. Quality pork, hams and beef had to be imported from Missouri, Tennessee and Kentucky or the free states. Milch cows and beef cattle were described as "deplorable." A cow from a gulf state did well to produce 15 lbs of butter a year, while a cow from New York averaged 85 lbs. By 1860, hogs in the Chicago market averaged 228 lbs, while plantation records of 4000 hogs from eight different states showed a median weight of only 140 lbs. Many planters preferred to ship their stock for export to the West Indies, etc.

The cause of this poor quality was thought to be "climate unsuitable for good grasses or livestock," however, in later years, both were improved with great success. The general conclusion Genovese seems to come to is that efforts and capital to improve breeding and care of stock simply took a back seat to cotton cultivation. Hogs and cattle were left to forage on their own, often getting no grain at all, and their poor quality was the result. The Reverend G. Lewis - 1845: Georgia cattle are "objects of pity, not to be fed upon, but to be fed. Left to shift for themselves all winter, thier bones look and stare at you."

As noted in Bell Irvine Wiley's The Plain People of the Confederacy, "Confederate troops complained that the animals supplying them with beef had to be held upright for shooting."

I have read that planters bought "shoddy" for the making of slave's clothing. Shoddy was a recycled wool fabric.

Cedarstripper

[ole]

Excellent contribution, cedarstripper.

It's the kind of thing that adds to learning about a non-controversial subject (since no one has yet expressed strong views).

Brings up a rather disgusting difficulty of lying wounded, overnight, in some backwoods location -- for example, Pittsburg Landing. Neighborhood hogs were responsible for changing many wounded to kia. And that wasn't the only battlefield to report that kind of incident. Better to freeze to death.

Ole