Slave Breeding; Fact or Fiction

[prroh]

It goes against good economic sense to Not include the value of ones slaves in the market place, in the normal business operations of slave owners in a slave based economy.
It is not good economics to let excess production capacity lay fallow., especially if there is a market for it somewhere else.

Mark Twain wrote a short story in his dark, late career stage. In it a man is convicted of murder in the antebellum south and sentenced to hang. Suddenly, evidence is produced that the murderer is actually part black, whereupon the judge overturns the hanging as the murderer is now a valuable property, whose sale will go to the county coffers.

Fiction, I know, but from the pen of a genius very familiar with the attitudes of the time.

[dvrmte]

Off topic, but maybe of interest, there's a great book by Karen Pryor called _Don't Shoot the Dog._ It's about training, and its concepts can be used for training anything and anyone, from dogs and cats to human beings. I do a lot of training people in my work, and I found the book to be excellent.

Regards,
Cash

Thanks, I'll keep an eye open for it. I know how to train them properly, I'm just too lazy and tend to let the beagles use their own instinctive skills and let them enjoy it. You can't teach a dog to have fun.
Sorry for straying.
Sincerely,
dvrmte

[OpnOlympic]

I think dvrmte in Post #202, probably has the answer as to why the slave breeding was never, effectively systematized i.e. it was much simpler (thus easier) to let nature take its course and reap the rewards without any undue effort on the part of the slaveowner.

[dvrmte]

I think dvrmte in Post #202, probably has the answer as to why the slave breeding was never, effectively systematized i.e. it was much simpler (thus easier) to let nature take its course and reap the rewards without any undue effort on the part of the slaveowner.

I doubt human baby mills would've gone over very well. It's just too evil to think about. It would have gone way over the edge of acceptance.

Sincerely,
dvrmte

[Severon]

I doubt human baby mills would've gone over very well. It's just too evil to think about. It would have gone way over the edge of acceptance.

Sincerely,
dvrmte

I definitely agree with that statement. Even the thought of human baby mills is repugnant.

[OpnOlympic]

True enough, IF slaveowners did Not believe that blacks were a lower form of human being and needed to be enslaved in order to civilize them. them. If they did not believe that, then they were the worst kind of hypcrites and, worse, had No logical or historical rationale for their practice of race based slavery.

[Leah's Choice]

The wife of a Georgia planter wrote that "many indirect inducements [are] held out to reckless propagation, which has a sort of premium offered to it in the consideration of less work and more food counterbalanced by none of the sacred responsibilities which hallow and ennoble the relation of parent and child; in short, as their lives are for the most those of mere animals, their increase is literally mere animal breeding, to which every encouragement is given, for it adds to the master's live-stock and the value of his estate."

Oh, my God.

[Severon]

Oh, my God.

My thoughts exactly.

[Battalion]

The birth rate doesn't establish it. It's the amount of surplus slaves. You're looking at the wrong variable.

Regards,
Cash

Surplus slaves by itself cannot prove out any "slave breeding."

The similar birthrates of free and slave -consistently, decade after decade- indicate nothing but a normal increase in the slave population.

[OpnOlympic]

With similar birthrates, did the number of slaves increase at a faster rate than whites, in the new slave states in the West?, If so, why was that?

[matthew mckeon]

If the population of slaves increased in the old Southwest (Mississippi etc.) isn't it more likely that they were carried there? A brisk business in selling slaves from the "old South" (i.e. Virginia) to the "new" South.

[OpnOlympic]

More likely, they were 'sold' there with the assisstance of the Forresst Bro's et. al.

[Severon]

More likely, they were 'sold' there with the assisstance of the Forresst Bro's et. al.

You're probably right but I wouldn't necessarily point the blame to Forrest.

[OpnOlympic]

No blame intended, merely an example of the fact that there was a systematized 'business' for the buying and selling of slaves. To reliably transport and sell to other geographical areas where slaves were needed, from those areas where economic interest made more business sense to sell them away, rather than keep them where they were born and/or raised.

[Severon]

No blame intended, merely an example of the fact that there was a systematized 'business' for the buying and selling of slaves. To reliably transport and sell to other geographical areas where slaves were needed, from those areas where economic interest made more business sense to sell them away, rather than keep them where they were born and/or raised.

I do agree with that.

[ole]

I have no doubt but that there was extensive traffic from east to west ... we still use the term "sold down the river." What we don't have is evidence of large-scale or even significant breeding of slaves specifically for sale.

It is, however, highly illogical to believe that a slave-owner didn't keep an eye on the quality and quantity of his livestock. Or that the Virginia owner of fifty slaves wouldn't sell off some of them if he couldn't work them.

[Severon]

I have no doubt but that there was extensive traffic from east to west ... we still use the term "sold down the river." What we don't have is evidence of large-scale or even significant breeding of slaves specifically for sale.

It is, however, highly illogical to believe that a slave-owner didn't keep an eye on the quality and quantity of his livestock. Or that the Virginia owner of fifty slaves wouldn't sell off some of them if he couldn't work them.

I definitely agree with that. Slaves were as precious as a work horse. If they were good, they were kept.

[OpnOlympic]

The slave was kept, If they were good 'And' there was productive work to be done; If Not, they were usually, sold off.(like any other livestock)

[ole]

Again, Opn has expressed animal husbandry better than I.

The dairy farmer has to work to improve his herd. But the size of his herd is limited to what he can produce profitably. A hundred cows is foolish when the milk price doesn't quite equal the cost of feed and overhead. He has other concerns; the value of his surplus. When he can produce the records that this heifer is the produce of a cow that produces X pounds of milk per day with a butterfat content of y, and that the sire was z, he can ask a ridiculous amount of money for the heifer. I'll suppose the same is true in the blooded horse trade.

I'm not saying that a planter knows that this buck throws boys, and that mammy nurtures healthy children, but I am saying that he was, at least, aware.

[cash]

Surplus slaves by itself cannot prove out any "slave breeding."

The similar birthrates of free and slave -consistently, decade after decade- indicate nothing but a normal increase in the slave population.

But you're really not measuring birth rates. All you're measuring is numbers existing in various age groups, which doesn't count those who died or were taken to other states at young ages.

Surplus slaves is a more accurate measure. Not every slaveowner would be breeding slaves, which would mean that low births among some, combined with high infant mortality rates among slaves, would mean that the breeders could account for enough of an increase to make the numbers of young slaves roughly equivalent to the free population.

Regards,
Cash