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Buck Breaking

9008 Views • Created 3 years ago By Phillip Hamilton • Updated 2 years ago

Created By Phillip Hamilton • Updated 2 years ago

"Buck Breaking of Slaves" Myth Explained

I'm going to address this in multiple parts, because there's actually quite a lot to unpack here - much more than it seems on the surface! I'll address your actual question about this 'buck breaking' practice first, though. To get to the heart of the matter from the outset: no, the practice described in the article you linked to did not exist. This is literally the first that I have ever heard of this practice supposedly existing, and when I went digging around to try and see if I could figure out its origin story, I essentially found two versions of the story: the one that you've linked to, which is the milder of the two, and another which is more overtly homophobic and black nationalist in its rhetoric. Like most of these memes that go around the internet, there are absolutely grains of truth to the story, but the practice of "buck breaking" they're describing simply did not exist. I have never seen any evidence for it, I know of no-one who studies the dynamics of sexual abuse in slavery who has mentioned it and the idea of it being a wide-spread phenomenon is really quite ludicrous when you consider the wider historical context. Sodomy, as such activity would have been considered during the time of slavery, was proscribed in harsh terms both by law and by cultural convention in antebellum America. The idea that 'festivities' revolving around male-on-male r---, involving a large number of white men in the upper echelons of southern society invited apparently to participate widely and freely, were a prominent part of slaveholding is really quite nonsensical. If nothing else the individuals involved would be exposing themselves to an incredible physical, legal and social risk, regardless of how prominent their status was in wider society, and it would seem to me utterly remarkable that we are supposed to believe this practice involving so many white men was completely widespread and yet never once acknowledged in the historical record. It is, frankly, a fanciful and unnecessary assertion. That is not say that male-on-male sexual abuse did not occur. It absolutely did - and the very fact that we have historical records testifying to it in a period so hostile to same-sex activity is quite significant. Though they are fleeting, we do have references to the sexual abuse of male slaves by white male owners in the historical record; a handful of slave narratives (including Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl) contain references that seem to clearly refer to non-consensual, exploitative same-sex activity; at least one study of abolitionist rhetoric has identified how some strands of abolitionist thought tried to imply that there was an inherently homoerotic component to the exploitation of male slaves that could and did culminate in sexual abuse. Indeed, abolitionists went to great lengths to highlight sexual abuse as a particular, masculine act of depravity in general. Plantation owner Thomas Thistlewood quite notably made explicit reference to the practice in Jamaica even in the 1700s, when he briefly drew attention in his diary to news that another slave owner had been accused of committing sodomy with one of his male domestic servants. Sexual abuse was a defining feature of the institution of slavery, and though the vast majority of victims were women, the abuse of men by other men - as well as the abuse of men by women, and women of women - certainly occurred as well. Fundamentally though, sexual exploitation in slavery was about more than physical gratification: it was about power. R--- and sexual assault were tools of violence, humiliation and dehumanisation just as much as the whip or the fist were. They were used both to realise and to express the power of the white slave owner over his or her black slaves. Male on male sexual violence was a means by which the incredible power of the slave owner could be demonstrated; to its victims living in a profoundly gendered society (and slave communities were strongly gendered even if in different ways to white society), it was a uniquely and profoundly humiliating act of violence that directly assaulted their masculinity and their dignity. That power and humiliation lay not only in the ability of slave owners to actually commit sexual assault against other men, but in the fact that they could do it, keep it a secret from a wider society that demonised same-sex activity, and get away with doing so. This is also true for the abuse of women, by the way, and for the abuse of men by women (although the abuse of men by women is a more complex affair in terms of what it means for structures of power, because that really challenges the gendered conventions of contemporary society - see this older answer which touches on this). The damage done by sexual exploitation goes beyond the physical and the individual; the motivations for such exploitation likewise do. In a similar vein, public violence and humiliation - including example-making - were very much a part of the dynamic of at least plantation slavery. We do know that many slave owners would make an example of a particular individual in full view of the other people living on the plantation including his or her family; such violent degradation and humiliation would often go so far as to making friends and family of the victim participate, usually by having them take responsibility for whipping or beating their loved one. Slavery was an institution that depended on not just on physical abuse to function but on relentless, systematic psychological violence as well - such public demonstrations of punishment, and especially the involvement of family and friends in tha process, served to enhance psychological as well as physical degradation. Whilst sexual exploitation certainly could have ritualised elements to it, it was not generally a 'public' affair in the sense that it was something done with an audience. Though it was often was an 'open secret on a given plantation and could be ritualised in some senses, it would not be as this article makes out. That kind of grand display of violence would usually typically be more 'conventional' in nature. That's not to say public displays of sexual violence did not or could not happen ever, just that that was certainly not the norm, and that there was certainly no widespread practice like this one. We do overwhelmingly find in the historical record that sexually exploitative relationships were usually intimate - with both men and women, abuse of this kind was much more likely to befall those whose tasks brought them into constant contact with white masters and overseers, rather than fieldhands on plantations. What I would be quick to emphasise, though, is that sexual abuse and assault are a lot more complex than the kind of extremely physically violent assault described here. Sexual exploitation includes all manner of activities - of which enslaved African Americans were not passive victims. As with all the degradation and abuse they were subjected to, enslaved people found a multitude of ways - some quiet, some profound - to resist and subvert white power. There were some men and women who made the best of a bad situation by engaging in a quasi-consensual relationship with their exploiters, in the sense that they would exploit the sexual attraction or desire of their master to try and improve their own conditions or win favours from them. Though this is something we only have record of women and men doing in the context of opposite-sex arrangements it isn't a stretch of the imagination to conceive it happening in same-sex arrangements, either, but it is doubtful we will ever have explicit evidence to that end. I stress the use of the 'quasi-consensual' here because such arrangements were always inherently exploitative and could never be consensual - but African American men and women were not without agency or self-determination, and even in the face of the most incredibly degradation within slavery, found a variety of means to pro-actively resist and subvert white power over their lives. Something else I'd like to unpack, though, is your description that "gay white slaveholders" were responsible for male-on-male sexual abuse in the context of racial slavery. In particular, the use of the word 'gay' here is problematic, particularly for a historian. Most historians would not describe anyone in antebellum America as gay - or, for that matter, straight. We understand today that the mechanics of sexual attraction are fundamentally biological; that people who experience exclusive or near-exclusive attraction to people of the same sex and gender have always existed. But Human societies have not always had the concept of homosexuality that we do today. Absolutely, there has always been an awareness and an understanding that men can have sex with other men - but the idea that someone could be gay, that it could be a defining characteristic of their identity or categorisation as a member of society, simply did not exist for most of Human history. That is a fundamentally modern phenomenon. For that reason, historians do not generally like to impose these identities or categories on figures in the past. Sexual attraction is perhaps fundamentally a biological phenomena, but sexual orientation is absolutely a social construct (although 'attraction' is also surely at least partially socially constructed - but that's taking us beyond the boundaries of this discussion). The reason why I particularly emphasise that for this answer is because our own use of these modern terms is imperfect, and that's especially significant for your question. Alfred Kinsey quite famously posited that sexual attraction works along to a spectrum, with a 7 point classification system for where individuals fell in that spectrum with 0 representing absolute heterosexuality and 6 representing absolute homosexuality. But our social construct of sexual orientation does not really accommodate that dynamic - you are straight, gay or bisexual. In Kinsey's language, as a society we say that you are either a 0, a 3 or a 6 - 1, 2, 4 and 5 have to pick a side. Someone who is a 1 by Kinsey's definition ("Predominantly heterosexual, only incidentally homosexual") must identify either as 'straight' (which wrongly implies the total absence of same-sex attraction or activity) or 'bisexual" (which wrongly implies a state of equalit in sexual attraction or activity), even though neither of these terms properly captures the lived experience of an individual who might feel they are a 1. And this is assuming Kinsey's scale is a good measure of sexual orientation - there are plenty of people (myself included) who feel Kinsey's terms are still too restrictive and broad, even though he gives us more than double the number of classifications we use in popular culture! This is especially problematic because although they are intended and usually used as hallmark of sexual orientation, terms like 'gay' and 'straight' also have a cultural implication of action. As labels for categorising other people, they essentially serve a function of allowing you to get quickly get a reference to shared cultural understandings about the characteristics and behaviour of other people - "X identifies as gay and a man; this means X is attracted to other men; therefore X only has sexual and romantic relations with men". The problem with how we categorise people according to a few narrow sexual orientations is that you can't really make that third leap, the leap of exclusivity in attraction or behaviour. People can, do and have throughout history engaged in sexual behaviour - both consensual and non-consensual - with sexes and genders to which they do not experience predominant or, indeed quite possibly, any attraction. Physical capacity for attraction does not necessarily determine willingness for engaging in sexual activity, which is affected by all manner of different social, cultural and other factors. So when we see examples of male-on-male or female-on-female sexual abuse in the historical record, it is simply not possible for us to look back and attribute these things to the perpetrators being 'gay', especially in the context of slavery where the role of power assertion is especially significant. It would be anachronistic for us to impose that modern identity upon these individuals - they simply would not have identified as gay. The concept would have had no meaning to them in the same way it does today. If we were somehow able to deduce the complexities of their own sexual preferences and desires, it is simply not appropriate to make a judgement as to where they might have fallen in our modern, western understanding of the spectrum of sexuality because to them, that spectrum did not exist as it does to us. Even if it was appropriate for historians to put historical figures into modern groupings of sexual orientation, evidence for same sex activity between two individuals in the historical record is by no means sufficient for us to declare them gay - just as evidence for opposite sex activity is not enough for us to declare someone straight. These are imperfect and modern concepts, and they are best left out of historical discussions concerning the lives of people who lived long before they became part of our cultural fabric. One thing that did strike me in trying to find the variations on this meme is that they nearly all make a point of emphasising (some more than others) homosexuality or gayness in their descriptions. It rather feels to me that there is a presumption being made in the dissemination of this myth that this is somehow a particular and uniquely awful crime beyond the sexual exploitation of black women, and this presumption is not rooted in an appreciation of the historical dynamics of sexual and gender roles, but rather a disapproval of same-sex behaviour in general. There's little doubt in my mind that this particular myth has been constructed and disseminated with homophobic thinking and intentions colouring it. It invokes certain stereotypes of modern gay people being predatory and sexually violent, particularly the longer varieties of the myth that appear on some websites. In conclusion then, yes, the meme you have encountered is largely fictionalised. Whilst the sexual exploitation of male slaves by white men and women alike was absolutely a real thing, as was the use of ritualised public humiliation and violence as a means of dehumanisation and asserting control, the exact phenomena this article describes strikes me as being quite fanciful. It is doubtlessly circulated with an ulterior motive and an agenda in mind, one that is probably tinged with homophobic sentiments. There is no shortage of very real trauma in the historical record when it comes to slavery - these real people who suffered so much injustice do not need to have, nor do they deserve to be demeaned by, us inventing more. We should likewise be careful not to impose our own modern ways of thinking onto the people of the past, for similar reasons - as historians we must try to understand these people somewhat as they understood themselves. Our own ideas about which boxes people should be placed into aren't very useful for doing that. By which of e few quick-fire reacing recommendetions and sources for this: Ihomes lusier, "he senuel Abuse uf uleuk tien Under Atmericam slevery", Juurmel of the History of Sexuality (20113 445 - 404 • Thomat Paster, Iang hetane anwal He ef tame ev teuity in Farty Amerine mairly juhn Selliant • Fay Yarbaraugh, "Fower, Perceptiar, and Interracial Sex: Former Slaves Recall a Multiracial Southr, ihe ju • Trevor Bumard. 1L, "The Bleck Bedy Lrutic and the Republican Dudy Poitic) al of souter lisiury /1, m. 3(200 09-s. • Takng a glanee back at Fostor leadt me to also heleve Wlom Snnemann, Male Aoie Intimacy in Forly America: Sryond Ramantic endshp (2000) might be af interest, though Ive notread il mysel. And for mere general reading recommendatiors on the theme of gender, sexuality and gendered resislance in slevery, ellhough musl of these are aboul women ralher then men • zhode Reddock, Anterrogotng Cunbbeon Mascalinbes: heoretcal and Empricol Anclpes (2004 - Chapter (Hilary Deckles) mainly. • Hiary Reckien, Cntering kemen: Bender Desaret in Corthnean Sinve Socety (199 • Barbara Bush, Save Women in Carbbean Saonty 1650 - E (1990 • Seepharie Camp, Cinser ta Fnednm: Fntiovns iomen and Puerydeoy enittae in the Plantaien South (2004. • Marie Schwartz, Sirching a Slave: Motherhood ond Medicine in the Antebelum South (2006. • Deine Derry. Smng the Subie jor the tarvestsRpe: Cender andi Siavery in Anlebellum Georgio (2007). jenniter Margan, tannuring Whmen: Depmdurtion and Render in nw World Siovery(2n04 * Renee Herrisur, isioved onen ovd che Aetof Meaater m Antebellum Americo (200. As e yereral l YL, I wrule this aller a lony day and on the verge of sleep, so pleese ee erors in spelling or preserrationi Tve tned to catch most of them.
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Buck Breaking

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