Slave Breeding; Fact or Fiction

[ole]

There seems to be some interest in the subject, but no one will able to find it a year from now if we leave it where it was.

ole

[blue_zouave]

Ole, looks like there's a book coming out on the very subject:

http://www.southendpress.org/2007/items/87781

BTW, I was raised on that old chestnut about black athletes being superior because of breeding back in the slave days. Does anybody know about primary source documents, pedigrees and stud books, maybe?

Zou

[ole]

Thanks blue. I suspect that the issue is very much like "black confederates:" both sides aim for extremes.

By the way, there's at least one anthropologist (Robert Ardrey) who advances the thought that the physical superiority of the African predated slavery. If it's true that slave-breeding enhanced that "natural" superiority, and it could be, then it would follow that the black athlete does have an edge.

ole

[elektratig]

Ole,

Here is my earlier post from another thread:

Professor Stampp discusses "slave breeding", which he defines as "raising slaves for the specific purpose of marketing them." (Peculiar Institution, pp. 245-51. He concludes that the evidence of systematic slave breeding as a separate enterprise is scarce, although he cites some examples, as well as instances in which owners in the upper south "maintained an amazing imbalance of the sexes in their holdings."

On the other hand, he notes that it is clear "that slaves were reared with an eye to their marketability -- that the domestic slave trade was not 'purely casual.'" Even owners dedicated primarily to planting took steps to encourage procreation through "favorable conditions and attractive incentives", recognizing that every child raised was (in the words of a Georgia overseer) "part of the crop."

"Many masters counted the fecundity of Negro women as an economic asset and encouraged them to bear children as rapidly as possible. In the exporting states these masters knew that the resulting surpluses would be placed on the market. Though few held slaves merely to harvest the increase or overtly interfered with their normal sexual activity, it nevertheless seems proper to say that they were engaged in slave breeding."

The slaves understood:

"'This was perfectly evident to me from the meritorious air with which the women always made haste to inform me of the number of children they had borne, and the frequent occasions on which the older slaves would direct my attention to their children, exclaiming, "Look missis! little n****s for you and massa; plenty little n****s for you and little missis."'" (pp. 248-49, quoting a slaveowner's wife's journal)

Sad.

The original post is here:

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/civil...html#post31202

[samgrant]

Having lived in Africa for 4 years (Kenya), the athletic aspect of this is somewhat interesting to me.

The fact is that most slaves imported into the US were of West African descent. The Europeans were the West African slavers, the Arabs were the East African slavers.

Now we all know that we have had some excellent Black American sprinters, Carl Lewis comes to mind, but no Black American distant runners. This may be explained by the general attributes of the tribes inhabiting those different parts of Africa.

We see that Kenyans often place as many as 6-7 of the top 10 finishers in Marathon races. I know my students ran to school in the morning, and ran home and back to lunch.

In East Africa the tribes are descended from generally Nilotic/Hamictic/Bantu ethnic groups, generally thin, long limbed folks.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about the West African ehnic heritage. but expect that relative to the West Africans they have more muscle mass.

This all has something to do with "slow-twitch" vs. "fast-twitch" muscles. Look it up.

Meanwhile here's what, at first browse, seems to be a reasonable article on the subject.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200009180009

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[ole]

Thanks for resurrecting that, elektratig.

So Stampp fell into the reasonable pond? I'd heard, perhaps from him, that an actual farm devoted to breeding slaves for sale was a rare find, it is logical to assume that the slaveholder who had slaves to spare would try to make the spare ones as valuable as possible.

ole

[Bobbie]

In a book "Caucuses of 1860: A History of the National Political Conventions of the Current Presidential Campaign..." I found an interesting example:

"Mr. Gaulden of Georgia made his Charleston slave-trade and slave-breeding speech again. He announced himself a slave-breeder. (...)
He spoke of the slave-trading and slave-breeding State of Virginia, when a delegate of Virginia called him to order for casting an imputation upon the State of Virginia. Gaulden thought he had been paying Virginia a high compliment. He said: Well, I will said the slave-breeding State of Georgia, then. I glory in being a slave-breeder myself. I will face the music myself, and I have got as many negroes as any man from the State of Virginia. And as I invited the gentlemen of this Convention at Charleston to visit my plantation, I will say again that if they will come to see me, I will show them as fine a lot of negroes, and a pure African too, as they can find anywhere. And I will show them as handsome a set of little children there as can be seen, and any quantity of them, too. And I wish that Virginia may be as good a slave-trading and slave-breeding as Georgia".

So, either there was no slave-breeding in Virginia, or it was not considered there as something to be proud of.

[ole]

So, either there was no slave-breeding in Virginia, or it was not considered there as something to be proud of.

I suspect the latter. It's a puzzlement. Seems that the only proper use of slaves was in planting and operating an agricultural enterprize. Although buying and selling one's own slaves was common practice, the trader was held in low esteem (go figure!). It follows, somewhat, that the breeder was likewise held in low esteem.

ole

[Bobbie]

Originally Posted by ole

I suspect the latter. It's a puzzlement. Seems that the only proper use of slaves was in planting and operating an agricultural enterprize. Although buying and selling one's own slaves was common practice, the trader was held in low esteem (go figure!). It follows, somewhat, that the breeder was likewise held in low esteem.

ole

I would also chose the second possibility.

Yes, a kind of puzzlement. Maybe Mr. Rhett was quite logical (logical, not right), when he wanted legalisation of African slave-trade, reasoning that if one aspect of slavery was deemed evil, it made the whole institution the subject of controversy. Thus slavery should be either good in every way, or evil in every way. Otherwise it was hypocrisy.

If breeders were held in low esteem, it would explain why we don't have many narratives of slave-owners, who would boast of their slave-breeding achievements.

[jpeter]

This is a very interesting topic and one I'd like to know more about.

I think it's safe to say slave traders (and slave breeders) were considered a lower-class occupation to those able to own slaves. Pardon the analogy, but a 19th century wealthy land owner may like having more agricultural farm animals as real assets, but he looked down on those that raised and bred animals. I'm sure the same held true for slave traders. Society was still highly stratified at that time.

However, I would also guess that many slave owners may have played the part-time role of slave breeder. They could easily do this by simply arranging males and females or insisting on copulation or even marriage between specific slaves. This could have been done in a casual conversation to a hired foreman and no documentation would exist.

I would be fascinated to read evidence of someone who actually made their living out of the selective breeding of slaves.... where actual documentation existed.