Alligator bait, also known as gator bait, is the practice of using little black children as bait to catch alligators. Some say it was done by white men during slave times in Florida and Louisiana and other parts of the American South.
Here is the most complete account of how it was done, coming from the grandson of someone who says he used to do it:
… the slaves who had babies they would steal the babies during the course of the day, some times when their mothers weren’t watching . … some would be infants, some would be a year old, he said some would be toddlers, he said they would grab these children and take them down to the swamp, and leave them in pens like little chicken coops.
They would go down there at night, take these babies and …. tie them up, put a rope around their neck and around their torso, around here, and tie it tight.
… they’d be screaming. … what they were doing would help them to chum the water. He said when they would throw the babies in tied to this rope, he said in a matter of minutes, he said, the alligator were on them. He said the alligator would clamp his jaws on that child, as a matter of fact once he clamped on them he was really swallowed, he said you couldn’t see anything but the rope!
Possibly a tall tale, but there is more:
There is also an account of this practice in Sharon Draper’s “Copper Sun” (2006). It is a work of fiction about a slave girl written for schoolchildren, but the book is meant to be as true to life as possible based on what we know commonly went on back in those days.
In 1923 Time magazine carried this story:
From Chipley, Fla., it was reported that colored babies were being used for alligator bait. The infants are allowed to play in shallow water while expert riflemen watch from concealment nearby. When a saurian approaches his prey, he is shot by the riflemen.
The Chipley Chamber of Commerce said the story was “a silly lie, false and absurd.” Maybe so, but it was widely reported in the American press, so it was at least believable among White Americans of the time.
Film: The practice has appeared in at least two films: “Alligator Bait” (1900) and “The ‘Gator and the Pickaninny” (1900). Two tales of boys used as alligator bait were told in “Untamed Fury” (1947).
Language: Probably from at least the 1860s up until the 1960s “alligator bait” was a racial slur among whites for little black children. In Harlem in the 1940s it was applied to blacks of any age from Florida.
Imagery: From at least the 1890s to the 1960s black children were often pictured as alligator bait, particularly on postcards. One man in Florida had a picture framed and put on his wall showing nine naked little black boys with the words “Alligator Bait” written below:
1890s:
1900s:
1910s:
1920s:
1930s:
1940s:
1950s:
1960s:
Yet more pictures at authentichistory.com
See also:
WOW. I know I have criticized you in the past for your intense focus on racism, but this one is right on target. It’s painful to think about, but facts are facts and they should be brought to light.
I have to applaud you that you are able to present such awful facts without breaking down.
Keep up the good work!! But do take a break once in a while. This type of post could really damage one’s psyche.
I wonder did this really happen? It’s to bizarre and wicked to believe/accept. But as you stated ‘Abagond”, it was a widely held, or discussed topic in the white press/community. I’d like to think that maybe this ‘tall tale’ was the result of what anglos’ , as unfortunate circumstances of people from their travels in African countries, being injured by actual alligators, randomly as opposed to the ‘hearts/souls’ of whites, being that despicable, evil and twisted….
However, there are just to many ‘images’, ie postcards and the like dedicated to this possibility. I lived in Washington, D.C, a while back, and attended several of traveling, ‘Black American museum/memorobillia’ roadshows, and I saw hundreds of ‘knicknacs’, postcards, poster and other types of ‘art’, as you have pictured, of black infants and toddlers as food/bait for alligator. Unbelievable…..
I would really like to know if that’s true. Such a vast array of memorabilia is enough to confirm it for me. But I’m from Florida, and alligators are really not hard to catch. They’re like sitting ducks. I mean, they sun themselves for long periods in the day. Their presence is always known, even if they’re just babies. Alligators were in great abundance back then too. If they were using rifles to just shoot them it would have been absolutely no trouble whatsoever. Even if they were catching them and sealing their mouths shut, they shouldn’t have needed bait for that.
I think that if whites were doing that back then it was meant to be a really cruel joke for them to laugh about, something to intimidate mothers into submission. I honestly believe that sounds more like the point of doing that.
What the sh!t?!?!?! IHow have I never heard of this before?
Well, I stand corrected. I had to look that up, and it seems this gator trapper’s favorite method of catching an alligator is a baited line. http://www.coastalsenior.com/archives/august2004/SNRgator.html the other “how-to” sites also suggest baited lines when the goal is to kill the alligator.
Like you, I’m not sure whether to believe children were really used in this way–but the threat of violence and the devaluing of human beings in these images is shocking even if they did not. Even the person telling the story to the man on the video might not have been truthful–but think about how threatening and horrifying to hear the story. I mean, when the man said, “I won’t sell them to you, I just want you to see them,” about the shackles–ugh. What kind of a country is this?
I believe this is true, after everything Whites have done, I cannot believe that they didn’t do this. These pictures, its sickening, use babies as allegator bait, wtheck?! Your post focus on alot of racism, but its because racism is around, so keep doing your thing. Abagond I truly respect you and what your doing. I have never heard of this before, didn’t even know anything about it, but I thank you for bringing it to alot of people’s attention.
I’d like to see more evidence than memorabilia of this sort and one old cracker’s reminiscences about something his grandaddy once told him.
One thing’s for sure, however: the memorabilia indicates that even if this DIDN’T occur, it was widely seen as a “humorous” threat. And we do know that white people thought that black people were easily scared (to wit, the Klan’s belief that they looked like ghosts and that black people were “naturally” scared of ghosts – no evidence anywhere that any black person ever thought that the Klan was anything but a bunch of white a**holes dressed up in sheets).
But yeah, more evidence of this occurring would be nice.
I also find it striking that the children are naked in most of the images. It’s like a sickening combination of utter dehumanization and lasciviousness.
Jesus! (((SMH))) Thanks Abagond for all of your articles. You the man. But looking at those photos and reading this REALLY freaked me the hell out. The more I read about white folks, the more I look at them in a different light. I see now they REALLY are psychologically screwed.
This is beyond SICK!
All I can say is WOW, can someone really be that cruel and devilish. On second thought considering what or shall I say who we are dealing with.
Julia sez:
It’s like a sickening combination of utter dehumanization and lasciviousness.
You find pictures of naked children lascivious Julia?!
You ain’t baby-sitting my kids!
Phoenix:
On second thought considering what or shall I say who we are dealing with.
Yeah. Because we all know that white people routinely use black babies as alligator bait, right?
Thaddeus
Phoenix:
On second thought considering what or shall I say who we are dealing with.
Yeah. Because we all know that white people routinely use black babies as alligator bait, right?
——————————————————————-
I cannot speak for ‘Phoenix’, but my interpretation is that, no, ‘I’ do not think that whites, ‘routinely’, if at all, used black infants/toddlers for bait, but that the images depicting ‘the possibility’ of such an atrocity, was ‘entertaining’, thought to be humorous, and ‘kitschy’ art-worthy’; that, in and of itself, is food for thought(pun intended).
I think ‘we’ are discussing three/3 things here:
1/one, that it did happen,
2/two, that this could have happened, and ,
3/three, whites were tititilated at the thought of it happening.
The problem with stuff like this is that it presumes that everyone thought it was cute ‘n funny at the time.
I wonder what Americans are going to look like 100 years from now when people start bringing up Sara Palin, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck as “a good illustration of what kind of people we’re dealing with”.
1) I don’t know.
2) It certanily could have happened;
3) I doubt that “whites” were titilated by this, but I’m sure some whites were.
Racism persists because people would like to believe in the humanity of the inhumane. There are too many people that still would like to make excuses, challenge the validity or rationalize the reasons behind such heinous acts (see Victoria’s comments as example).
Remember that Africans were not believed to be nor treated as human beings by those who enslaved them so it is highly probable that using their children in this sick manner actually happened!!! They kidnapped pregnant women that would give birth on slave ships and yet there are those that want to believe they wouldn’t use our children for bait. These photos are perfect examples of the mindset of the people that would create these depictions. What is that saying… “Art imitates life”.
The dehumanization and degradation of Africans and their ancestors has existed for hundreds of years without ceasing in order for “white people” to justify the vileness and the inequality that exists in society.
Love your site Abagond… I’ll go back to lurking.
BlackButtrFly – I’m not debating whether I believe that this occurred – I do believe it did. I think the evidence is too strong that it did. What I was debating was whether or not they actually were used as bait or if they were threatening mothers that their babies would be used as bait and collectively thinking of that as some sick joke. I’m sorry that I wasn’t clear in my comments.
** and there is no valid reason nor rationalization for either using them as bait or threatening to and watching what the mothers would do to stop it from happening.
This sickens me. I don’t know whether to cry or vomit first. It’s highly likely that it occurred. Fast forward to present day, many white people still can’t see non-white people as actual nuanced human beings. It seriously depresses me.
Thaddeus
The problem with stuff like this is that it presumes that everyone thought it was cute ‘n funny at the time.
I wonder what Americans are going to look like 100 years from now when people start bringing up Sara Palin, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck as “a good illustration of what kind of people we’re dealing with”.
1) I don’t know.
2) It certanily could have happened;
3) I doubt that “whites” were titilated by this
——————————————————————
The ‘some’ is a good place to start. But, that it WAS a part of ‘some’ white’s psyche, is straight up Clive Barker/Stephen King and ‘SAW’ bs. Also, I’m thinking that the alligator image, if not true, may be an allorgical/metaphor representative of the ‘white psyche’, as opposed to actual alligators. I hope, because Blacks in America, were in essence, vulnerable as hell, to the whims of white supremacy, anger and rage. So, in many/most cases, blacks were being ‘consumed’ by the white dominant power structure.
F*kcing gruesome. It looks like something from the nazis.
I bet there are still some psychopaths to this day who reminisce “the old days when there was still some real good humour…”
@Victoria
I understand what you are saying but within your comments and even your explanation there is still the underlying sense of trying to find ‘humanity in the inhumane’.
It’s not just you that is guilty of this type of thought process… a great deal of us who don’t understand how people could possibly be capable of such make the mistake of rationalizing the insane because it’s hard to process such vileness if you are sane.
I always thought these pictures were part of some sick racist joke, but then I wondered why always alligators? If white people got kicks from seeing innocent black children in danger, then why not picture them in other sorts of danger, like almost falling out of windows or almost getting hit by a car? Or why not lions, bears or even crocodiles, animals that are far more dangerous? There was Little Black Sambo and the tigers, but that image is always part of the story, not on its own like this one.
But then once I found out that the pictures might not be just a joke but come from something in history, they made way more sense.
Granted, though, if it turns out there was some minstrel routine of alligator baiting, that would make sense of the pictures too. But the mere slur of “alligator bait” I do not think is enough. There is something behind the pictures. It is more than just sick humour.
“Thaddeus said:
The problem with stuff like this is that it presumes that everyone thought it was cute ‘n funny at the time.
I wonder what Americans are going to look like 100 years from now when people start bringing up Sara Palin, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck as “a good illustration of what kind of people we’re dealing with”.
1) I don’t know.
2) It certanily could have happened;
3) I doubt that “whites” were titilated by this, but I’m sure some whites were.”
Weren’t whites titilated by hanging black men and photographing them? I.e., lynching. There are many pictures of white men and women laughing and pointing at dismembered black men (and some women).
Thaddeus,
I hope you’re kidding in your response to me, but in case you’re not:
No, I do not find them lascivious. But I suspect that the intended audience was supposed to.
Maybe I should have said it this way:
It’s a combination of straight-up dehumanization mixed with a very creepy sexualization.
Is that better?
No, I do not find them lascivious. But I suspect that the intended audience was supposed to.
Ah, yes. Because we know that evil people are evil in everything, correct? Not only were they racists, they were pedophiles.
Yeah, makes perfect sense to me, Julia.
Straight-up dehumanization? I buy that.
Sexualization? Sorry, no. Baby nudity is not necessarily sexcual. In fact, your two arguments run contrary to one another: on the one hand, you think these people are dehumanizing blacks. OK, fair go. On another, you think they’re setting up black children as sexual objects?
Wha….?
BtW, Julia, it was pretty common at the time to show babies nude in commercial propaganda.
@ Oyan:
The ‘some’ is a good place to start. But, that it WAS a part of ‘some’ white’s psyche, is straight up Clive Barker/Stephen King and ‘SAW’ bs.
Not sure what you mean here, or why comparing this to fiction seems to be a good idea for you.
@BlackButterfly
I understand what you are saying but within your comments and even your explanation there is still the underlying sense of trying to find ‘humanity in the inhumane’.
It’s not just you that is guilty of this type of thought process… a great deal of us who don’t understand how people could possibly be capable of such make the mistake of rationalizing the insane because it’s hard to process such vileness if you are sane.
The problem with that, BB, is that evil is rarely insane. Evil becomes banalized to the point where people don’t even notice it.
Granted, though, if it turns out there was some minstrel routine of alligator baiting, that would make sense of the pictures too. But the mere slur of “alligator bait” I do not think is enough. There is something behind the pictures. It is more than just sick humour.
Agreed.
@Patricia
Weren’t whites titilated by hanging black men and photographing them?
Many, yes. And many were appalled. It certaijnly became a national cause for shame, which it wouldn’t have if 100% – or even 70% – of white America was clapping its hands and going “Yay! Cool!”
Gruesome. D:
I suspect this never actually happened, but was the punchline to a old, forgotten racist joke/line done in pictorial form, like the memes we see today on the internet.
Still, dehumanizing and unfunny.
I guess ‘Thaddeus’ told us lol! He’s totally or intentionally missing the point. Sure not all whites engaged in the wholesale lynching of black Americans, or used black toddlers for alligator bait, but, it was practically a national past time. Whole communities engaged in this. The many post card pics of lynchings and pictures document that history. Some Italians were in the mafia, murdered many people, some Germans imprisoned Jewish people in concentrations camps, not all. Some young black Americans are in gangs and killing their own people on the daily. Some people in the Khymer Rouge murderd thousands upon thousands of people. The ‘not all/ or some factor’ is irrelevant.
@Blackbutterfly
In text it’s difficult for me to convey exactly what I mean sometimes. In my head it sounded like this: if there is no need for bait in alligator catching, then the use of children is even more sinister than I can begin to wrap my mind around. I figured it was true in the first place, but the fact that there is apparently a need for bait merely confirms that whites would do this. I do not believe in either instance that there is a shred of humanity involved. I sought to prove it true and ended up doing something pretty white instead. I appreciate that you took the time to point it out and to further respond to my comments. Thank you.
Oyan, using black infants as alligator bait was a national past-time?
Really?
So then it should be really easy for you to find us, say, three newspaper articles about it, right? I mean, it being a national past-time and wholly approved by whites and all, this shouldn’t be too hard.
As for “wholesale lynching”…. How many lynchings do we need to count before things become “wholesale”? without looking at google, how many lynching do you think were reported in the U.S.? If it was wholesale and so widely approved of, how do you account for the fact that some states had no lynchings of black people at all? Wisconsin, IIRC, had one in the early 19th century and it’s unclear if that was a racist lynching or not. Most of the people lynched by white folks in the U.S., in any case. where – TA DA! – white.
So the “not all” factor isn’t an issue here. You seem to be claiming that lynching was an exclusive behavior of blacks toward whites and that, furthermore, it was well-distributed throughout the U.S., that all or most whites supported it and engaged in it. Finally, you seem to believe, through your use of the word “wholesale” that this happened to hundreds of thousands of blacks.
This is the problem with dogmas: racist lynching is elevated to a paradigmatic behavior of all whites, everywhere. This is PRECISELY the message you are trying to convey. My argument that it is not has nothing to do with the idea that “some” or “not all” whites did this: my argument is based on the fact that this was not a behavior even engaged in by a MAJORITY of whites. It didn’t have to be to be evil and racist, granted. But I’m not arguing against the fact that some forms of lynching were racist: I’m arguing against the idea that “we can understand who THESE PEOPLE are” based on lynching.
I always thought these pictures were part of some sick racist joke, but then I wondered why always alligators?
Most likely due to the fact that southern racism and the natural habitat of alligators are primarily in the same area. Geographically, it is where most hate crimes occurred. I can see the graphic imagery being used as a hate tool for sure.
If any real incident involving children being used as “alligator bate” had occured, I’m sure it would have been followed by the mysterious disappearance of some white folk. One would think there would have been some form of record of such a thing. Regardless, it is grossly disturbing.
If racist southern whites could brutalize a 14 year old (Emmett Till) I have no doubt in my mind that they could steal sleeping infants from their mothers and feed them to aligators.
If racist southern whites could bomb a church and destroy four innocent black children I have no doubt in my mind that they could steal sleeping infants from their mothers and feed them to aligators.
If racist southern whites could casterate and hang, drag, burn, and eviscerate blacks as they did with impunity before the mid-sixties then I have no doubt in my mind that they could steal sleeping infants from their mothers and feed them to aligators.
: (
I can see the graphic imagery being used as a hate tool for sure.
Definitely my take on it, absent better info.
If racist southern whites could brutalize a 14 year old (Emmett Till) I have no doubt in my mind that they could steal sleeping infants from their mothers and feed them to aligators.
“Could” and “did” are two different things, Poetess.
I, for one, believe humans are possible of pretty much any evilness you can name.
I have no doubt that this happened. Was it common? No. Did all whites participate in it? No. But I have no doubt that somewhere deep in the Bayou or Everglades somebody sometime did this. That’s the whole point. It is a “joke” that is so much “funnier” because it is based on reality. When one sees a postcard depicting a black kid screaming in terror of an alligator, one can wink his eye to the other guys and then it is rip roar laughter!
I have seen enough in my life time that this does not surprise me at all. And the violent acts which are the most horrendous are not usually comitted by “criminals” but god fearing decent people. The ones who “obey and uphold the values”. I’ve seen this many times. Nice people slip, they somehow loose control, they just lost it, you know. They did not mean bad. They just say: “But I know I’m a good person”.
They were also the guys who did the holocaust. The top dog of the SS, Heinirch Himmler, was a teatcher. Commanders of einsatz groups were usually middle class guys, cops and engineers etc.
The guys who made the Stalins genocide possible were mainly bureucrats like finnish guy called Otto Ville Kuusinen. He is the only non russian/soviet who has ever been buried to the Kremlin wall. He was the boss of the party organ which controlled all the jails, camps, courts and such in which some 14-16 million people perished (estimate by Mihail Gorbatshov). And lo behold, he was originally a teatcher too and a journalist.
We all have seen the photos from lynchings in which you can see decent looking white ladies in their summer dresses and kids smiling and having fun. They are out to celebrate and have a nice picknick. And somewhere in the backround there is still smouldering carcass of a humanbeing hanging from a tree. And these photos are not from 1800′s but from 1920′s and 30′s South.
These people loved their kids very much. Actually the commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Höss was very nice man and never physically punished his kids or shouted at home. He liked classical music, books and science, gardening and arts. And he killed some 2-4 million people in little more than couple of years. He gassed them, skinned them, tortured them, killed them in forced labour etc.
Guys who lead the Rwandan genocide were priests. The serb leader who lead the ethnic clensing of Bosnia was a poet and a psychologist. All nice and decent guys and men of good values. Not junkies, drunks, gangsters. But guys who keep the society together!
And there you have it. In those postcards. Actually the one in the piccaninny post was more terrifying than this one. But there you have it: black kids in terror and alligators after them. In photos. Maybe they are set ups, maybe not. But the fear in those kids eyes is real.
Who the fuck would do these set ups anyway? What kind of a photographer would take pictures like this? Propably the one who took pictures from graduations, church festivities, weddings and such. The nice guy, you know. The one who took your wedding picture. And who wanted them? All those nice people around. And why? Because they were so funny!!
This is the most sickest and most terrifying part of racism. Thanks to abagond for bringing this up.
hmmm…its possible this kind of thing happened…
Yes, it is.
What I don’t see it as is a vast, white sport.
Great post ‘Sam’. I agree, ‘Thaddeus’, if events like this happened, not a ‘vast, white sport; but that this is part and parcel, a remaining image of ‘white on black’ brutality, in addition to the thousands of lynchings, murders, rapes, Jim Crow based atrocities, and justice denied, for years, this speaks to the horror of what black Americans have had to
endure as American citizens. My grandmom, from Louisiana told a ‘story’ of how she and other classmates were warned to not walk a certain path to school, because of a lynched person, still hanging. Of course some of the more adventurous and daring disobeyed, went that path, and were horrified to see an actual victim, one being my grandmother. She told this to us, when we were children. A black American version, of ‘Stand By Me’, if you will. This is part of the black American psyche, children as possible ‘alligator bait’, is just a more recent discovery/addition.
Doen’t it seem kind of expensive though?
I mean, even the most morally derelict slave master would do much better allowing the baby to grow for a few years and then sell him to the highest bidder. It’s infinitely easier to bait alligators with chickens, or piglets. It’s not like alligators have some specific thing for black babies.
in addition to the thousands of lynchings, murders, rapes, Jim Crow based atrocities, and justice denied, for years, this speaks to the horror of what black Americans have had to endure as American citizens.
THIS, I agree with.
To me, it’s not really if it happened that horrifies me. It’s that all those people got the postcards, and looked at them in stores, even the little kids, and thought nothing of little babies being torn apart and eaten alive by alligators. Because to them, the babies weren’t even human. And if babies were killed by the alligators, it just shows how low human beings can go if they really, truly, don’t care about someone.
Personally, I don’t doubt that it has happened, if you can lynch innocent people for entertainment and keep body parts as souvenirs then you can kill their children without a thought, plain and simple…the bare fact that such a sick, low down, evil idea made onto postcards and nicknacks just turns my stomach and it speaks VOLUMES.
Sometimes I think aliens are playing a really sick joke on us and the punchline is waay overdue. Ugh!
@king… yes it seems very expensive, but it possibly could have been seen as a worthwhile expense… I would think, if it was done, even once, or even routinely threatened to be done in an atmosphere where people believed it might be… it could be a highly effective tool for gaining total and complete compliance from a population.
And I think most moms on here would agree, that we may put up with all kinds of intimidation aganst ourselves, but would certainly become defiant if we felt the need to protect our children, when a mother has a baby or a young child, is the very time she is most likely to tell others, no i cant work today, it is too hot for my baby… slave or not she would speak out to protect her offspring… hence the need for a VERY effective threat. And that is picture perfect evidence of the MOST effective threat. Git to work woman or I will feed your kid to the gators!
The amount of memorabilia here shocks me, from so many different sources, and of so many different types, even IF it was never done even once, the shocking scope of the rumour of it is bad enough. @Thaddeus, you are probably right, If it were commonly practiced, it probably would have made its way into the papers once or twice, but I have to say… by the same logic you use, IF it NEVER happened, nobody would have ever thought to make it such a ubiquitous collectible and advertising ploy.
I dont know the answer, i just think it is too sick for words.
White people and their sense of “humor”. Oh, sorry. I meant. SOME white people. You know. The ones that these cards and products were MASS produced for.
Just as funny as the postcards of lynching Black people on trees. Hardy har har. It’s not that bad see, because not ALL whites were doing it. so that negates the atrocity of this particular form of humor. Don’t you get it? So uptight.
…besides, if they were REALLY that bad, then they wouldn’t have been made. Besides, people had a DIFFERENT sense of humor back then. We can’t judge them by todays contemporary standards..ad infinitum ad naseaum…
I agree with Sam; while I seriously doubt that this was a widespread practice, I would guess that it happened once or twice. If that was the case, it would have been exaggerated and joked about by some whites, largely as a way of keeping black people fearful.
Even if it never happened, the fact that even some people would find this thing funny is bad enough in itself.
This post really made me cry.
I don’t know what to say here. I don’t think it’s “just” a racist humour- the details are too precise for that. On the other hand, I don’t think it was a widespread practice like lynchings or raping.
So maybe it happened somewhere and then passed around as a “funny” anecdote, or it happened more frequently but in a less organized manner- they let kids play near the water, for example, and didn’t care if alligators killed them.
In any case, even if it never happened, or if it happened once, what is interesting to observe the way alligator bait story gain its popularity among whites. I mean, they even made “funny” postcards and figurines depicting alligators hunting and eating human babies. Read this again: funny postcards of alligators eating babies.
As for naked toddlers as sexual objects: While there are certainly some people (read: paedophiles) who see naked children in sexual manner, I don’t think it’s true for majority of people.
What I’m saying is, seeing naked kids, especially toddlers, is not a big deal in many cultures. In my culture it’s perfectly ok for kids of that age to be naked on the beach, for example, and mothers don hesitate to undress their children if necessary (for an urgent diaper change, for example) in front of strangers. It’s really not seen as a big deal and nobody even dream to think about it in sexual context. I had no idea it’s different in America.
Sometimes I think aliens are playing a really sick joke on us and the punchline is waay overdue. Ugh!
LOL, i’ve always felt this way!
@ImNotSurprisedAnymore… Good point on the mass production thing. Even if most of these things were short run, low selling products (incidentally, the link abagond has put up leads me to think that no, they were not small run, but instead that this was an effectve, common and well selling marketing ploy for decades, like how you can’t walk into a gift shop in maine and not find 50 items with lobsters on them, or london with big ben) The sheer variety and breadth of this is stunning, even with the lynching postcards as an example, there were never lynching candies marketed, or lynching knick knacks. Looking at picture after picture of licorice tins, pencil sharpeners, figurines, etc. with manufacturing dates all the way up to the PRESENT time literally made me sick. This was obviously a common ‘humourous’ little joke, and even someone from another country for example, who was not consumed with hatred might pick up a candy tin without the words AB on it, or an obviously imperiled child(one who could still get away from the alligator, vs. one already in the alligators mouth) and think ,what an adorable baby! without FULLY processing or knowing the significance of ‘alligator bait’, or even being aware of it at all. By contrast, I am guessing that the lynching postcards were only made and marketed for the most hardcore of racists, And not marketed in the same manner. A shopkeeper or hotelier with a rack of lynching postcards, and, even at the time would surely expect to be told sometimes, even by white people… how disgusting they were. However that same shopkeeper might sell thatlicorice and be genuinely shocked if someone said something.
@Mira naked babies are not seen in a sexualized manner here, and emergency diaper changes or little kids running through sprinklers naked are not particularly shocking, the brazenness of this particular use of naked babies is shocking, I dont know if i would use the word sexualized, but i would definately say this is perverse.
It doesn’t get any worse than white people.
Personally, I believe that the images are based in reality. As a person who has lived in the South and offended other whites in a racial capacity, I have been threatened with being used as “alligator bait”. When I saw these images, I remembered that and finally realized the connection. I have other reasons for thinking they are based in reality, but I don’t want to go that deep.
Having said that, I also wonder if there isn’t a really creepy symbolism to those alligators. I think someone else already mentioned the alligators being symbolic of the white power structure devouring vulnerable black people, but I noticed something else.
In several of the pictures, the alligator is pictured biting or otherwise going for the child’s buttocks. In many of the pictures, the children appear to be males. I agree that in these particular pictures, the nakedness of the children does suggest a sexualization. I see this in the aspect of the alligators’ apparent fixation on the children’s posteriors. The most obvious one is the one which appears to be a photograph, with the boy kneeling, with his buttocks raised, and the alligator poised to bite.
I think these images, and the positioning of the children and the alligators are perhaps subconscious (or even conscious) references to the frequency of rapes of perpetrated against black children during slavery and Jim Crow. We tend to think more of white males raping black females, however, there have always been sexual predators who prey upon children. Would it be so hard to believe that such predators also preyed upon black children? After all, those children were particularly vulnerable since they were not seen as human, were the property of white men, and whose parents were unable to protect them. And it is the most vulnerable children who are targeted by sexual predators. Slavery and Jim Crow must have been a predator’s paradise.
In such a context, the alligator, which is a natural predator, takes on the symbolism of a potential sexual predator of children. So, I agree with those posters who think the images convey sexualization, only I think it has less to do with nudity.
Well why not.
The poised open-mouthed alligator with its concupiscent eyes may possibly be a symbol of hunger and lust.
After all, there is a disturbing wealth of evidences, that through history , white americans have continuously used their black neighbour’s sexual maturation as a reference for their own sexual maturation and identification.
I don’t see anything sexual in these pictures or stuff. Nude baby reminds of the innocence and vurnability, it is the most innocent of the blacks, and yeehaw, lets feed them to alligators!
If somebody sees something sexual in these very disturbing images, I recommend therapy for sometime. I mean, how the hell you can even read these images trough something as sexual?
Maybe it is over there, but over here nudity does not mean automatic sexuality nor alligators. They are just very small kids who are about to be used as alligator baits. I believe who ever the sick fuck who made these did not mean any sexual references nor hidden meanings; this is straight forward stuff. The message here is very simple: WE USE BLACK KIDS AS ALLIGATOR BAITS.
No amount of herr Freud or anybody else can twist my head around to this “Here is something sexual going on”. No matter how perverted. Maybe I’m a simple man, but in my head violence and sexuality do not mix. They are not the same, related nor anything else. The other is bad and the other is good. This is bad,
No, there is something terrible going on here. Something violent and brutal, something very evil. It is called racism. Not sexuality. Just racism.
Though I have heard the term before, I had no idea of it’s origins (whether true or not). I’m going to have to investigate this further.
Sam,
If nude baby=innocence and vulnerability, then what exactly do the alligators equal?
So much of racism is tinged (in some cases drenched) with sexualization of some kind that it is not a far reach that such images have dual meanings.
When you are on the topic of white racism and fear of blacks, you inevitably encounter the topic of sexuality intertwined with it. The lynching and mutilation of black males were undeniably sexual. How else would you explain the sexual mutilation? If such violent acts by whites against blacks had sexual overtones and undertones, is it such a stretch to conclude that feeding black children to alligators might have had some, too?
I’ve read a bit too much history and heard a bit too many white males express some truly bizarre, paranoid views of black males to totally disengage racism and racial violence from sexuality.
Sam, I do not know where you are from, but here in the U.S. violence, sexuality, and racism are Siamese triplets.
Americans tend to see sex in everything. It’s the number one national taboo! You can show people killing hundreds of other people on prime-time TV, no problem, but show one couple making love… Horrors!
Southern White Woman,
Thank you. Agreed, agreed, agreed.
Thaddeus,
If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck…. it is probably a duck.
I don’t “see sex in everything.” But I KNOW for a fact that when you see racism of some kind in THIS country (I can’t speak for your own), that some weird sexual aspect is not far behind it.
If you want to better understand what I am talking about with regards to sex and racism, perhaps you could do a google search on the issue. Read, research it, instead of dismissing it as “Americans see sex in everything.” That comment might be right on target in a different context, but in this one, I find it dismissive.
I live in the south and I have heard references from white males to “alligator bait” before, always in a “racial” context, and closely tied in to references to rape.
That’s reality as I have experienced it here and read in our history.
This is probably one of the touchiest, most uncomfortable aspects of racism for white people to admit and discuss, even harder than white privilage. You want to talk about “taboo.” Well…..when discussing the sexual aspects of racism and our sordid history of Jim Crow and slavery, the sexual part is the MOST taboo of all.
I mean really….how many white folks, especially in the south, want to admit that their great, great-granddaddy was playing hanky-panky (or FAR more likely…..raping) black women that he may or may not have owned….and that they have black relatives as a result? Better to just avoid the whole issue, right?
I was busted in the mouth by an adult when I was a teenager for making references to possible black ancestry and possible black relatives. And that by an adult who had never struck me before. And you certainly can’t have those black relatives without all that sex, can you?
But shhhh……..we can’t talk about THAT can we?
Interesting perspective, SouthernWHiteWoman.
The fact that you got pop in the mouth was perhaps from the interferences of two phenomenons, the passing phenomenon, and the one-drop-rule.
The suggestion of african ancestry could have disastrous consequences, and since no one could prove or disprove it , this assertion was basically a declaration of war among whites.
There has been moms who taught their children that under no circumstances , should they hint or suggest it.
Abagond
Shaming white people is just not going to work. Your site is informative but it’s a bit like a boxer getting in a boxing match saying “Hey !! Don’t punch me that hard …it hurts” They know that, that’s why they do it.
Attempting to make whites understand the damage that they do…haven’t we learned that that doesn’t work.
THEY WANT TO DAMAGE US !!
Your trying tell the person that shoots you, that it hurts.
“Look what your doing….I’m bleeding”
THEY KNOW THAT !!
Bro. Read this blod and the radio programs.
http://racism-notes.blogspot.com/
@African_Black_Militant,
I disagree. Abagond isn’t wasting his time. Some whites, once they understand the damage done, do NOT want to inflict further damage.
Besides, sometimes, whether anyone is listening, changing, et. is not even the point. Sometimes someone just has to say (for their OWN sake) “hey, that’s wrong!” Sometimes, people just have to “bear witness.” There are many reasons for Abagond to have such a blog and say the things he says. I for one, appreciate it.
It may be hard to believe, but there are some souls out there who want to know that truth, even if it hurts.
When I saw the first picture, I couldn’t help but think about my baby. He is 19 months, I know the babies on the picture are around the same age as he. It’s so sad to think of how we were made to suffer! Who does these types of cruel things? Who wants to see an alligator kill, and eat a baby?! This is sick. After reading this post, I was in tears! It really happened, you can’t put nothing past white terrorists!
This seems too far-fetched to me. However, considering the history of these United States with regard to people of African descent it doesn’t seem too outrageous that black children where used as gator bait.
Fact or fiction it’s clear the image of black babies and toddlers as bait for game was a source of amusement for white Americans.
I’m not surprised by these images knowing about the consistent use of racist imagery against people of more melanin around the world.
SouthernWhiteWomen
A devil can NEVER EVER be reformed. The white race is a race of devils. Abagond will probably ban me for this, because I’m just too black militant but I will never back down to anyone.
Only a person with a heart made of stone would find this funny or entertaining. This post is a true display of how sick and twisted some whites really are. Even if using children as gator bait wasn’t done by most whites, I do believe the majority of whites got a good laugh out of it, which again is sick.
to southerwhitewoman:
I too see an under current of sex in these pictures. i also noticed they were all boys and we know how much the white male LOVES having sex with boys. I agree with you.
and i also agree with you africanblackmilitant, the white race are devils, nothing can or will change them. the sooner black people learn that the better.
Yeah, until the next “race of devils” turns up.
Who will it be next time? Hmmm.
I do not agree with the last part of your post. If you think that is what I meant by my posts, then you are mistaken.
My last post was directed to Fatima. Sorry, I forgot to include that detail.
I believe that it happened but not very frequently otherwise there would lots of photos of this terrorist activity the way there have been many photos of lynchings.
It makes little sense to me why slave owners would waist potential money / investment this way. If we check with current slave owners in Africa I doubt they do things like this. It makes more sense that this would have been a campaign of suggestion.
“Gator bait” has two meanings. It’s used to either call someone worthless or to say that someone has no chance. As in, “if you mess with him you’ll end up gator bait”. It also became a bit of a crude insult kind of like watermelon and fried chicken. And then blacks looking for an excuse to hate whites started saying it was true. It’s the same kind of nonsense as “willie lynch” and saying whites “invented” AIDs.
Alligator hunters do use bait but it’s dead and rotten because alligators are attracted to the smell. They usually use dead chickens, road kill, etc because it’s cheap and it stinks. Alligator hunters don’t use live bait and never have.
@ destructure
Yeah because white people have been so kind to us that we need a reason to go looking for things to hate them for. It’s almost impossible given how wonderful they’ve been to us. Giving us a free ship ride over here, hooking us up with jobs, taking away pesky relatives so we never have to see them again.
whites have done nasty things and in light of them, alligator bait doesn’t sound farfetched at ALL. Only a sanctimonious white person would ignore evidence. Can you tell me why white people made so many postcards, dolls and whatnot pertaining to this? Not us. THEM.
I missed this post, I want to see some scholarly research on this, maybe it did happen.
@ Peanut
I put nothing past anyone anymore, especially white Southerners.
I’m here in Florida in search of the story behind Rosewood. I made a comment about gator bait today which is what sent me to this page. I just would like people to see so that they don’t think imagination is running away with me.
Thank you.
O.C. Irie
@darqbeauty:
You forgot setting us up with men like destructure.
@darqbeauty
Maybe. But the topic of discussion was “alligator bait”.
@Herneith
Don’t flatter yourself, sweetie.
@ destructure,
Stupid black people, I mean they ALL think white people invented aids and something *mumble* to do with Willie Lynch and all, lets just try to dismiss the topic and ALL of the evidence and pictures up there by portraying black people who agree with that as people “looking for an excuse to hate whites”.
I personally feel a lot more outrage for the poor gator hunters and their dead bait than the topic of how the term “gator bait” was used to dehumanize black children and black people in general during a period of time (and we should totally ignore the implications of using black kids as gator bait due to their “worthlessness”). Since black kids aren’t people and all, them being called “gator bait” is not offensive as insinuating that gator people used life bait…
Because white people have been lovely to black people. Black people never would have a reason to have a single inkling of dislike for any white person. And with all of the lynchings and such, we all know white people would never use black kids as “gator bait”.
Crime statistics and off topic here.
@ restructure
You have derailed two of my threads. Please stay on topic.
Seriously people, think about it for a minute. While yes, this country certainly did have a vile enough sense of racism as a whole to think that this sort of thing was hilarious, as is evident by all of postcards and other imagery. But remember that the ownership of slaves was strictly a 1%-er type activity. And slaves were very VERY valuable property. Something tells me that some poor white swamp dweller who tried to abscond with baby slaves would become priority numero uno for some enormously wealthy and exceedingly cruel men. there is probably a reason why we dont hear too much about slave poaching back then. And since slaves were worth around the equivalent in that era’s money of what a decent car would cost you today, I doubt if our larcenous swamp dwellers would waste such valuable spoils on alligator bait. Sounds like a boogeyman story. Just sayin.
@ Cora
Slaves were maimed and killed regularly.These are the same people who sold their own children from slaves into brutal chattel slavery. Why were they peddling these horrid things? The fact that people were buying them shows a ruthless pathology without empathy. I think some would be very capable of this act for sport.
This is the “HISTORY” hidden. The hate is still very much alive! Ever heard of the Willie Lynch letter, the making of a slave.
[...] background-position: 50% 0px ; background-color:#222222; background-repeat : no-repeat; } abagond.wordpress.com – Today, 7:34 [...]
Ive been seeing some things about this on fb so I googled it, and your blog came up. I was hoping it wasn’t true to be honest, but it must be or it would t be in so much literature, advertisements, postcards etc. the depth of cruelty we have perpetrated on Africans and African Americans never ceases to shock and enrage me. This horrible part of my white heritage hurts me too. I know collectively, if I could speak as one group of people, to another group of people, that is not enough, and won’t ever be…
I’m reading these comments and I’m shakin my head in disbelief at how the white commentors are doubting the truthfulness of this historic account! DISPITE the many many pictures, post cards, oral and written documentations!!! Dr. Joy Leary-DeGruy says that this type of dismissive disbelief is a form of “cognitive dissonance”. Gosh ppl! These horrific things really really DID happen! Just like the Jewish Holicost! Believe it! Most of YOUR American ancestors participated in these attrosities. (excuse my spelling)
[...] [...]
“Cognitive Dissonance” perhaps if We jump to modern day reports of Blackmen being fed to Lions might help with CLARITY!!!
A white farmer who threw the body of his fired black worker into a lions’ pen has been freed on parole after less than three years in prison.
The case drew worldwide attention and impassioned protests from demonstrators who saw the killing as another racial attack in a country still grappling with its apartheid past.
Mark Scott-Crossley was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2005 for assaulting Nelson Chisale, a former employee, and throwing his body to lions at his game farm who devoured him. The Supreme Court of Appeal reduced the sentence to five years, saying there was no proof Chisale had been alive when he was fed to the animals.
According to trial testimony, Chisale had been fired from Scott-Crossley’s construction business at the game farm and returned two months later to collect his belongings. When he did, he was attacked with machetes and tied to a stake, where he was left bleeding for six or seven hours before being thrown into a lion enclosure.
Only Chisale’s skull and some gnawed bones and bloody clothing were found.
Another farm worker was sentenced to 15 years for carrying out the assault, but the trial judge said Scott-Crossley was the mastermind.
The Confederation of South African Trade Unions slammed his release. “It is clear that those who are rich and white will continue to be treated differently to those who are poor,” it said.
COSATU criticized the fact that the Supreme Court had indicated that Chisale was dead before he was thrown to the lions, but did not rule on who killed him.
A prison official, Sarie Peens, was quoted as telling the South African Press Association that Scott-Crossley was moved from Baberton Prison and taken to a “reintegration” office where he was met by his family Thursday.
The report did not give a reason for his early release. It is common in South Africa for convicts to be freed early to ease prison overcrowding.
“He is now being placed under strict conditions on parole until completion of his sentence,” SAPA quoted Peens as saying.
I wish we had alligators here in Chicago
^You can find them in the dermatology offices on the White side of town. Comes from too many years lying in the sun.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/693048/thumbs/r-CRACKED-SKIN-large570.jpg
Ask you wife it she’s one?
@ King….Lol!!!
This is not funny and I cant see how leaving children as aligator bait could ever be funny in any culture. I hate to see any baby killed of any race or species. Its just sick.How some people think most people may have thought it was ok is way beyond my way of thinking.