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Is there a historical fact that black people were eaten by white people?
5:46 PM
Yes, historical records document specific, rare instances where Black people were eaten by White people, though historians emphasize that this was not a routine or systemic practice of slavery. Instead, documented cases fell into two main categories: survival cannibalism during shipwrecks and documented atrocities aboard illegal slave ships. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The historical facts regarding this topic are detailed below.
1. Documented Historical Cases
Historians have verified specific incidents of White people consuming Black people, primarily driven by extreme circumstances or severe maritime atrocities: [1, 2]
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- The Arrogante Atrocity (1837): In one of the most clearly documented archival cases, the crew of the Portuguese slave ship Arrogante was accused by liberated Africans of killing an African man, cooking his flesh, forcing other enslaved people to eat it, and consuming his heart and liver themselves. [1, 2]
- Maritime Survival Cannibalism: In several historical shipwrecks, starving White crews resorted to “the custom of the sea” (survival cannibalism), frequently targeting Black individuals on board first.
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- The Peggy (1765): A famine occurred on this American ship, resulting in the White crew killing and eating an enslaved Black man.
- The Tyger (1766): Following a shipwreck off the coast of Florida, a Frenchman named Pierre Viaud killed and consumed an enslaved Black man to survive.
- The Whaling Ship Essex (1820): After the ship was sunk by a whale, the surviving White crew members ultimately consumed the remains of four Black sailors who died of starvation. [1]
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2. Post-Execution Desecration
During the era of U.S. chattel slavery, some extreme acts of violence following slave rebellions crossed into the consumption or medicinal utilization of human remains: [1]
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- The Desecration of Nat Turner (1831): Following his execution for leading a major slave revolt, historical accounts indicate that local White individuals boiled down portions of Turner’s body into a “medicinal substance” to be ingested, while others transformed his skin and bones into trophies and purses. [1, 2]
3. The Terror of the Middle Passage
During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, a pervasive fear existed among captured Africans that White Europeans were cannibalizing them. [1]
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- As detailed in famous historical accounts like The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), many Africans had never seen White men before and assumed they were being fattened up and transported across the ocean to be slaughtered and eaten. [1, 2]
4. Academic Distinction: Literal vs. Metaphorical
Public discussion of this topic often stems from a misunderstanding of academic texts. [1]
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- In the landmark book The Delectable Negro by Vincent Woodard, the author explores how the slave system “consumed” Black bodies.
- While Woodard provides specific historical accounts of physical consumption, much of the text focuses on metaphorical cannibalism—meaning the literal starvation of slaves, the systemic exploitation of their physical labor, and the sexual and psychological consumption of Black people by White society. [1, 2, 3]
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