Slave Breeding

“A thought-provoking piece of scholarship that sheds light on the complex history of slave breeding in America. Smithers’s book will be hotly debated in the profession.”—Michael L. Ondaatje, University of Newcastle, Australia

“As engaging as it is compelling, bold, and captivating, Smithers’s Slave Breeding pulls the reader through its pages with heart-wrenching exposition of the dark and ugly chapter of what could rightly be characterized as the sexual zeitgeist of American national history.”—Tunde Adeleka, Iowa State University

“Most Americans would agree that slavery existed, but they might have wildly different ideas about what slavery was like and what legacy it left. In Slave Breeding, Gregory D. Smithers exposes how these divergent views developed by tracing two historical threads: the vernacular history of a largely African American community and a professional history of primarily white, male historians.”—H-Net Reviews

“Bold and evocative. . . .Slave Breeding represents a significant contribution to the literature of American slavery that will be of considerable interest to students of the antebellum South as well as historians of women, gender, the family, and sexuality.”—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

“The depth of scholarship in this book is remarkable; integrating an impressive array of historiography and a judicious use of primary sources, such as the WPA Slave Narratives, Smithers effectively weaves the story of slave breeding into American and African American history from the nineteenth century to the present.”—The Historian