Is it true that african americans had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery?
 

I just read about it and quite shocked. Is it true?

I'm sure someone here will know.

Yes it is true. Unfortunately it also caused their offsprings to have a violent streak.

who was the stupid ass senator who went on the radio saying that?

Of course they were. Slaves were an investment. Big, healthy slaves were picked and bred to generate more big, healthy slaves. It was silly that Jimmy the Greek lost his job over saying that out loud.

Breeding such traits in only a few generations highly unlikely.

From my understanding, slave shippers, with substantial help from African tribes themselves (the part many history books gloss over), weren't overly interested in individual traits, but rather sheer numbers ... more slaves that made it over alive, the more money made for shippers.

As for slave traders selling at auction, yes strength was an attribute many buyers sought, but not the only one. Think of what slaves were mostly used for ... working in the fields - sure strength helps, but so does stamina when planting / harvesting, etc.

To digress a bit, consider the situation of underfed prisoners kept in harsh WWII concentration camps, and the like ... many of those who survived tended to be of average to even slightly below average height and weight; not big tough guys...

And that relates to slavery in the aspect that slaves too were often severely underfed and tightly packed on the months long voyage to Colonial America - those with lower metabolisms stood a better chance of survival.

In short, much of the traits one associates with black slaves were already present and not bred in by slave traders. Anyone doubting that, take a look at the physical attributes of natives in many African countries today - note the similarities.

Ron

i guess his comment would have been ok if he was at a back woods jamboree or a klan rally. :1orglaugh he had a mouth that got him fired.

Really? What African countries have YOU been to?....I know for a fact in Nigeria that a LOT of men there are short and of a smaller build and Nigeria/Ghana were the HUB of West African slavery.....Have you seen what the average Nigerian eats?...There aren't enough CALORIES to make big slaves like the ones found in America.

And hell, if you own a living creature, it would be STUPID not to try to breed the most desirable traits, which were size, strength, and stamina....

so pure bred or mixed- the real question.

Most slave owners bought stout females and males. Therefor they naturally ended up with stout children. They didn't do it with intent, it was just a naturally occurring situation.

So what was the reasoning behind the INTENT of buying "stout" females and males?

I am relatively confident the slave owners did not purchase the slave without intending the bloodline to last many generations rather than a couple.

And the fact is, it does not take multiple generations to see results with breeding. I can see the difference between me and my son with only adding one new person to the process, his mother.

Those old enough will remember a man named Jimmy The Greek Snyder. He was the best known sports gambling tout of his day, which was the 1970's. He was a very popular well known part of the CBS NFL broadcasts as a commentator.

One Sunday Jimmy was talking about black NFL players and made a comment about how the slave owner would 'mate his big black buck with his big black woman' - caused a shitstorm, he was fired and never worked again in the media.

political correct bullshit, there is nothing offensive at all about the statement - he was stating a historical fact, he never said or inferred slavery was a good thing.

What are you talking about?

I agree, that whole incident was blown out of proportion.

But the inference of the statement (rightly or wrongly, intended or not) was that the black player was a good player simply because he was born with physical talent. Whereas the white player was good because he worked to develop talent.

If he used that term, then I can see why.....Saying that a slave owner would "mate his black buck" on a Sunday afternoon with millions of mainstream americans watcing is inferring that he is being bred like a common house dog....I hope that you understand that as I will not explain it any further.

Now if he used the terminology that Baddog used, then he shouldn't have been fired.

What you said.

i think that you would find that whatever artificial selection happened it was negligible to tens of thousands of years of natural selection

slave drivers are vicious but sabre tooth tigers are much worse (i think?)

Edit:

Remember about what people see when you post? Just a reminder, old man.

Baddog you and old man Sally seem to get along quite well, maybe time to set up a mutual jerk between you two?

nope

http://www.interracialgay.org/images...ite-bottom.jpg

It would be pretty dumb of a slavemaster to not do that.

He also said that thru genetics, blacks had different muscle structures in their legs.

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that was an exact quote of what he said - why do you have a problem with it? he's stating a fact, that yes slave owners would breed slaves like a common house dog, so they'd have stronger bigger slaves. they'd also beat their slaves worse than any common house dog. should people not mention how slaves were treated? i don't understand you as a black person taking this position, you want to sweep slavery under the carpet?

of course in this politically correct world of ours Jimmy the Greek should have kept his mouth shut but the guy wasn't a racist, he was friends with all the major black athletes of the day.

why did he even bring that up in the first place? reminds me of dan hicks and his nergo knuckle ball comment on cbs live golf game! :1orglaugh

damn i was off as to when this happened, i thought i was really young when this happened - it happened in 1988.

Who was Jimmy ?The Greek? Snyder?

Jimmy ?The Greek? Snyder was a once a Las Vegas gambler who rose to national prominence as a commentator on the NFL Today show. But it was his comments to a reporter in a Washington D.C. restaurant that reopened an old wound. He was asked to ?prognosticate? the future of blacks in the NFL. Snyder commented that whites needed to maintain their presence in the sport?s coaching and management ranks since black athletes would eventually dominate every position on the field.

?Why?? Snyder was asked. His response set off a firestorm that led to his unceremonious benching by the network?s executives. ?The black is a better athlete to begin with because he?s been bred that way.? He continued, ?This goes all the way back to the Civil War when during slave trading, the owner ? the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.?

Synder was not fired for misrepresenting history (even though there are still historians that would have us believe that slave breeding never existed, and if it did exist it certainly did not happen on any conceivable scale). However, there is evidence that blacks were indeed bred. That evidence comes from the former slaves themselves.

Breeding has a lot to do with performance. Just look at the large numbers of NFL player's that are following in their father's footsteps.

Agreed on all accounts.

There was also selection added in due to the journey across the atlantic too. Anybody who wasnt in 100% good health didnt make it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_b..._United_States

Ex-slave Maggie Stenhouse remarked, "Durin' slavery there were stockmen. They was weighed and tested. A man would rent the stockman and put him in a room with some young women he wanted to raise children from."

Ask Jesus :pimp

it is racist and flat wrong to insinuate slave owners bred slaves. Most likely they just picked them in alphabetic order or the played eenie-meenie-miny-mo

The breeding of men by men, what a fascinating question.

and one way older than america

http://www.meh.ro/original/2010_04/meh.ro4043.jpg

I would imagine that the harsh tribal life of being from Africa during that time period in the first place would tend to breed hardier people than than the kind of burgois Europeans and Americans who could afford slaves.

I don't believe it's in the "breeding" but the actual work being done. Slaves were primarily used to do work their owners didn't...mainly manual labor. Slaves worked in the fields all day while their fat owners sat inside. Also take the food into account. I'm pretty sure slaves were fed lesser meals than the owners while doing 1000% more work. With that combination, their bodies would have naturally adapted to lesser intakes of protein and other essential amino acids. The body is a phenomenal thing and when it's not getting enough nutrients, it finds a way to adapt. Basically their bodies adapted to do more with less. Those genetic changes have stayed and that's why blacks are generally more athletic, stronger, and possess more endurance.

I've had black friends that would go to the gym for 6 months and look like a fucking body builder. When in the same amount of time, our white friends didn't look nearly as ripped or developed. My friend Lynell said it was his Mandigo blood but I digress.

I agree with the premise that slave owners purchased the strongest and healthiest slaves, but in those times, just making it across the ocean in those slave boats would have been a good indicator of strength and will to live. But, I don't think it played a big part in the genetic make up of a present day black man. I feel it was a combination of hard work and poor diet that sparked the genetic advantages we witness today.

An addendum to my post above. The slave owners did more mental work and that's why whites are smarter than blacks.

Booya!!! I'm just fucking around.....that was a complete joke! Everyone knows Asians are the smartest people in the world. :thumbsup

Your DNA is the same the day you're born and the day you die, it's your DNA that you pass onto your offspring which means adaptation to your environment isn't passed on, merely the ability to do so which was passed on to you through thousands of years of actual evolution and natural selection.

this is interesting

Your post his one huge contradiction. I think you're confusing genetic adaptation (at a molecular level) with intelligence adaptation. You say that environmental adaptations aren't passed down through the genome and you are completely incorrect. That is exactly what defines genetic adaptation and gene mutation.

For example: A man has no clothes. He learns that he can use animal fur to keep himself warm. He passes this down to his children, and their children's children. That would be the passing of knowledge, not genetics.

On the other hand, a man is cold and doesn't quite figure out how to use animal furs to warm up. His body starts to produce more hair, speeds up his metabolism to produce more internal heat, and grows thicker hair. This is genetic adaptation and is certainly passed down through generations in the form of DNA...it becomes a part of his genome. If it wasn't passed down, everyone in the world would look the same.

A black man's genetic make up is different that white persons because of those adaptations. Their bodies adapted to become uber-efficient, using the best of the little they received. They processed nutrients more efficiently in the areas they most needed them (muscular structure, bone density, lung capacity, etc).