"Negro Dog"

"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.