5 Horrible Ways African Men Were Sexually Abused By White Slave Masters

5 Horrible Ways African Men Were Sexually Abused By White Slave Masters

During the slavery era, which lasted for over 400 years, Africans were captured and chained, forced onto ships and taken into unfamiliar countries all against their will. Through their very bitter experiences on these ships, many of the captured Africans lost their lives before reaching their unknown destinations. For the ones who survived, it was just the start of sleepless nights, long hours of work on plantations on empty stomachs, and the constant reminder that in their fresh lives they were nothing but a commodity to their masters. And also not forgetting horrible and painful sexual exploitation and abuse. The sexual abuse of enslaved African men is something that was not only rampant but also extremely painful and inhumane.

Buck Breaking: 

Buck Breaking as a form of sexual abuse was very popular in the Caribbean and it involved slave owners and white supremacists and merchants forcefully having sex with a male slave right in front of the public to embarrass him and make him feel less of a man. Buck Breaking became popular when slaves increasingly rebelled against their masters. Enslaved African men were first stripped naked and flogged in front of a crowd, after which a white man raped them to serve as a warning to other slaves who planned to rebel. Most times, enslaved men who had families were forced to have sex with each other in front of their families or were raped in front of their sons by their masters. Many of the enslaved men who had gone through the process of buck breaking killed themselves afterward or they ran away and never ever returned. For the slave owners and white supremacists, buck breaking either on ships or on the fields was a way of utterly embarrassing the men and showing white dominance.

Breeding Farms:

If you’ve ever wondered how the term ‘mother fucker’ came about, just read on. During the rise of the slave abolitionists who were fighting against slavery, the slave trade drastically reduced. They usually stopped slave ships, they helped slaves to escape, and many slaves gained a fresh form of confidence to rebel against their masters, or even resist and escape. This affected negatively the slave trade and also, plantation owners did not have enough labor to meet the market demands for their produce. They then invented breeding farms that exploited the sexuality of men. This was just another horrible sexual abuse of enslaved African men. 

At these breeding farms, they forced healthy enslaved African men to have sex with enslaved women to get them pregnant. The white slave masters did not care if these women were the daughters, mothers, or even relatives of the men. They forced the men to have sex with at least 6 slave women a day to increase the possibility of the number of slave women who got pregnant.

Breeding farms became a very lucrative business especially in South America and created the term ‘mother fucker’ which literally means a male having sex with his mother. Many enslaved men who were the heads of breeding farms died because of sexual exhaustion.

Sex For Entertainment:

Many white supremacists, wealthy slave merchants, and aristocrats often used enslaved men as a form of sexual entertainment. Enslaved men were often forced to line up naked for their sexual organs to be examined, laughed at, and discussed. They also made the men dance naked. In extreme cases, they made an enslaved man to forcefully have sex with an enslaved virgin to entertain the white onlookers.

Castration and Genital Mutilation:

Their owners castrated or sexually mutilated, enslaved African men as punishment. Such punishments were often meted out to an enslaved man when he was caught in bed with his master’s wife or daughter or when he was said to be married or having an affair with an enslaved woman, whom the master or merchant have sexual interstate in. They also did these acts to take away any form of pride of an enslaved African man. Enslaved men who were often the leaders of a group of slaves on a plantation or a rebel group were castrated and referred to as women to show the white man’s dominance over their black slaves. This was just another horrible form of sexual abuse of enslaved African men. 

African American women had to endure the threat and the practice of sexual exploitation. There were no safeguards to protect them from being sexually stalked, harassed, or raped, or to be used as long-term concubines by masters and overseers. The abuse was widespread, as the men with authority took advantage of their situation. Even if a woman seemed agreeable to the situation, in reality she had no choice. Slave men, for their part, were often powerless to protect the women they loved. 

For many enslaved African Americans, one of the cruelest hardships they endured was sexual abuse by the slaveholders, overseers, and other white men and women whose power to dominate them was complete. Enslaved women were forced to submit to their masters’ sexual advances, perhaps bearing children who would engender the rage of a master’s wife, and from whom they might be separated forever as a result. Masters forcibly paired “good breeders” to produce strong children they could sell at a high price. Resistance brought severe punishment, often death.”