The Truth about Mandingo or n*gger fighting

This is from Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave written by Himself

In chapter II:

The sabbath is not regarded by a large number of the slaves as a day of rest. they have no schools to go to; no moral nor religious instruction at all in many localities where there are hundreds of slaves. Hence they resort to some kind of amusement. Those who make no profession of religion, resort to the woods, in large numbers on that day to gamble, fight, get drunk, and break the Sabbath. This is often encouraged by slaveholders. When they wish to have a little sport of that kind, they go among the slaves and give them whiskey, to see them dance, "pat juber", sing and play on the bangjo. Then get them to wrestling, fighting, jumping, running foot races, and butting each other like sheep.

****The following paragraph break is what I made and is not part of the original text:

This is urged on by giving them whiskey; making bets on them; laying chips on one slave's head, and daring another to tip it off with his hand; if he tipped it off, it would be called an insult, and cause a fight. Before fighting, the parties choose their seconds to stand by them while fighting; a ring or a circle is formed to fight in, and no one is allowed to enter the ring while they are fighting, but their seconds, and the white gentlemen. They are not allowed to fight a duel, nor to use weapons of any kind. The blows are made by kicking, knocking, and butting with their heads; they grab each other by their ears, and jam their heads together like sheep. If they are likely to hurt each other very bad, their masters would rap them with their walking canes, and make them stop. After fighting, they make friends, shake hands, and take a dram together, and there is no more of it.


****This book is available to download for free on amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Adventures-American-Written-ebook/dp/B00849XAJW/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1360426518&sr=1-1&keywords=henry+bibb

I didn't realize folks denied it.   I guess I need to go back and read it again.

newdiva1 wrote: I didn't realize folks denied it.   I guess I need to go back and read it again.

one particular young lady said to me 'where is it in history?' to which i quipped, 'its where the rest of your history lies'

pattigurlatl wrote: afrokock wrote: i was surprised when some of bhms brightest denied that it never existed when we were discussing django That surprised me to AK. Even Black Scholars denied it as I read that Slate article. Oh all the offended whites across the various newsboards used that to defend their ancestry.

wow the fighting techniques were brutal

I can't believe that people tried to deny that white slave masters would do that - humans can do evil things in the name of sport.