[The following is in relation to the alleged practice of slave breeding which almost certainly took place at times in the American South (and allegedly in the North, as part of operations to kidnap free blacks from the North and smuggle them south to be sold at a 100% profit as escaped slaves without masters.).]
J. F. Boone recalled specifically the stories of breeding his slave father told him.
[My father] said that they used to put up niggers on the block and auction them off. They auctioned off niggers accordin’ to the breed of them. Ike they auction off dogs and horses. The better the breed, the more they’d pay. My father was in the first-class rating as a good healthy Negro and those kind sold for good money. I have heard him say that niggers sometimes brought as high as five thousand dollars.
My father said that they breeded good niggers – stud’ em like horses and cattle. Good healthy man and woman that would keep stalled up. Wouldn’t let them get out and work. Keep them to raise young niggers from. I don’t know for certain that my father was used that way or not. I don’t suppose he would have told me that, but he was a mighty fine man and he sold for a lot of money. The slaves weren’t to blame for that.
Source:
Musgrave, Jon. “ ’Uncle Bob’ Wilson.” Slaves, Salt, Sex & Mr. Crenshaw: The Real Story of the Old Slave House and America's Reverse Underground R.R. Marion, IL: IllinoisHistory.com, 2004. 444. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Samuel S. Taylor. [n.d. 1936-1938]. Interview of Henry “Happy Day” Green of Barton, Ark. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. Arkansas Narratives. 4:2 92, 96.
Further Reading:
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