"Negro Dog"
Years ago I watch a 1982 movie called ‘white dog” starring the black actor
Paul Winfield. The movie was about a white German Shepard trained to attack and
kill people of the melanin persuasion; of course, then, I assume the movie was
fictional. Paul Winfield’s character took on the task of trying to break the
dog from this heinous indoctrination, ultimately believing he had taken the
killer instinct out of the dog, he tested the dog on a fellow black trainer and
the dog no longer had a hatred for black skin but he turned on his white coworker
and Paul’s character had to kill the dog.
It was a tragic ending to a
perverted coercion from a sick owner who would teach an innocent animal such a
sadistic psychosis.
In later years my love of animals took me into the field of
a veterinary technician and my job brought me in contact with an actual
racist dog, yes, a dog that reacted viciously because of the color of my skin.
At first I thought that I may have been mistaken but I decided to test my
theory. There was one other black co-worker and I asked her to attempt to
cuddle with the dog, she was an Australian Shepard and the dog became vicious
with her as well. I then asked my white coworker to do the same thing and the
dog was extremely friendly with her and other white people, but the moment I or
the other black woman came any where near her she would become vicious again. When the dog was in the company of white people she was totally sweet and loving, a completely pleasant demeanor. I
never thought it was possible, but sure enough there are people who raise their
dog to hate people of color too.
In my recent research of black history, I
came across true stories of dogs that were trained to hunt, subdue and
sometimes kill runaway slaves, they were called “negro dogs.”
Solomon Northrup of which the book and movie, “12 years a slave” was
written about gave his account of escaping into the Louisiana swamp. In the
swamp his worries were many; he spoke of water moccasins, slimy reptiles, bears, wild
cats and alligators but neither of these he dreaded more than the fearsome dogs
that were in pursuit. These dogs were called “negro dogs” trained to hunt
specifically slaves that ran away from their owners, but sometimes even a slave
caught on the roads traveling at night coming from a neighboring plantation
also were victim to the vicious dogs.
In the book The name "Negro" its Origins and evil use, by Richard
B. Moore page 75 reads:
Special uses are noted like a "negro dog" a dog used in hunting
runaway slaves. No mention is made in the Oxford Lexicon though the fact that
many such dogs were trained ferociously to tear into pieces human beings of
dark hue commonly enslaved at the time. this was accomplished by starving these
dogs and then deliberately allowing them to eat raw meat out of the abdomen of
a black figure formed like a human person, thus conditioning the dog to
associate satiation of starvation with the rabid rending and eating of a
dark-colored human being. Doubtless, the sense of smell was also used in this
monstrous training of dogs to devour human beings.
Slave patrols, which often were non slave owners were known to be brutal,
most brutal of all were the pattyrollers who were used to track down fugitive slaves
and often used dogs who would pick up the scent of the slaves tracking them
into trees or nearby fences. Most commonly used were bloodhounds because of
their strong sense of smell, oftentimes if the dogs caught up to the slaves before
the owners they were terribly maimed and sometimes killed.
The situation was so
bad that the Georgia Supreme Court ruled in 1855 that dogs could be used to
track fugitives if they did not "lacerate or otherwise materially injure
the slave."
The popularity of the dogs was such there would be promotions in advertisement
to sale these “negro dogs” trained specifically to hunt black human beings.
