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Slave Breeding: Sex, Violence, and Memory in African American History. By Gregory D. Smithers. (Gainesville and other cities: University Press of Florida, 2012. Pp. xii, 257. $74.95, ISBN 978-0-8130-4238-1.)
This book makes the compelling case that historians have incorrectly downplayed the role of slave breeding within the peculiar institution. This error is the result of several issues, the most important being how to define slave breeding. For most readers slave breeding likely conjures up images of plantations where people were the main crop and masters forcibly bred black men and women like livestock. Author Gregory D. Smithers makes it clear that while this practice did occur, it is not a sufficient definition. Slave breeding, he argues, should really apply to all acts by masters to control the sex lives and reproductive activities of the enslaved, including forced marriages, rape, and the targeted sale of family members. Smithers finds his...