Florida Teaches 'Natural Increase' Instead of Forced Breeding and Rape

The teaching of Black History in Florida is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. Florida has approved its 2023 State Standards for Social Studies, which includes African American History. Others have correctly called Florida out for its insistence that “some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught useful skills” and requiring instruction about acts of violence committed by Black people while they were being attacked by whites, like during the Ocoee Massacre and Rosewood Massacre that they also refer to as riots.

As bad as those are, the worst thing Florida teaches, in my opinion, is that the undeniable increase in the number of enslaved people in America was due to “natural reproduction” and the inability to curtail the smuggling of enslaved Africans despite their best efforts.

The 216-page document defining the standards for instruction contains multiple sections with benchmark clarifications to make clear what is to be taught. One such section describes the intent of the Constitution regarding the word it never mentions explicitly; slavery.

SS.912.AA.2.6 Analyze the provisions under the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution regarding slavery.

The first benchmark clarification demands students be taught natural increase is responsible for the growth in numbers, whitewashing the real cause being forced breeding and rape.

Benchmark Clarifications: Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slavery increased through natural reproduction and the smuggling of human contraband, in spite of the desire of the Continental Congress to end the importation of slaves.

Natural increase sounds so much better than forcing enslaved people to have children at a steady rate to meet production needs. These matings were often due to forced pairings of bucks and breeders to create larger children of greater value. Black children were often the product of rape by their white owners or friends. Their light-skinned offspring assumed specialized roles as house servants; the girls might be turned into “fancies,” a nice word for prostitutes working in brothels.

Florida didn’t invent “natural increase ” or “natural reproduction.” Some historians and the U.S. Government have perpetrated this myth for years, suggesting it’s simply a coincidence that enslaved people had all those children, despite that time’s high infant and maternal mortality rate.

Thomas Jefferson made it clear that the growth rate was no accident. He described the profitability of breeding slaves in a letter to George Washington, suggesting George put his money into enslaved people. Jefferson promised a 4% return for those who bred slaves, above and beyond those who died while giving birth.

“I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm; what she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption.” Thomas Jefferson

“I allow nothing for losses by death, but, on the contrary, shall presently take credit four percent. Per annum, for their increase over and above keeping up their numbers.” — Thomas Jefferson.

Another part Florida doesn’t emphasize is that many children were ripped away from their families and sold to meet the needs of other plantations. States like Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware had excess enslaved people because they failed to adhere to known farming techniques like rotating crops and a decrease in British demand after the Revolutionary War. Plantation owners made up their losses by breeding and selling enslaved people to work on cotton, sugar, indigo, and rice plantations further South. Slavery became Virginia’s leading export surpassing tobacco. Virginia’s plantations became as much breeding farms as agricultural ones, with enslaved people providing the labor on both ends.

Another presumption in what Florida teaches is that there was a master plan to someday end enslavement by including the provision in the Constitution that allowed for the end of the International Slave Trade after twenty years, in 1808. History is rewritten to assume such a plan; the actual goal was to institute a protectionist measure to make the price of domestic-bred slaves high by eliminating competition. It took another fifty years to end slavery in America, and except as a means to win the Civil War, many, including Abraham Lincoln, had no strong desire to do so then.

“What next? Free them, and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound judgment, is not the sole question, if, indeed, it is any part of it. A universal feeling, whether well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded. We cannot, then, make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this, I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South.

I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.

I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects-certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment.” — Abraham Lincoln

The Emancipation Proclamation aimed to upset the Southern economy and prevent Britain and France from siding with the Confederacy based on moral grounds. The only enslaved people freed were those living in states that seceded from the Union and could make their way to free territory in the North. I’ll bet Florida doesn’t explain it that way.

Florida goes out of its way to ensure students learn about Black entertainers and artists.

SS.1.AA.1.1 Identify African American artists (i.e., Aretha Franklin, Charles White [Abraham Lincoln portrait], James Earl Jones, Maya Angelou)

Those that they consider demonstrated civil service.

SS.2.AA.1.1 Identify African Americans who demonstrated civic service (i.e., Secretary of State Colin Powell, Civil Air Patrol [CAP] Lt. Willa Beatrice Brown, Carter G. Woodson, Senator Hiram Revels)

Florida says it will examine key figures.

Clarification 2: Instruction includes early examples of African American playwrights, novelists, poets, actors, politicians, and merchants (e.g., Jonathan C. Gibbs, Josiah Walls, Robert Meacham, Blanche Armwood, Mary McLeod Bethune, Harry T. Moore, Harriet Moore, James Weldon Johnson). Clarification 3: Instruction includes the settlements of forts, towns, and communities by African Americans and its impact on the state of Florida post-Civil War (e.g., Fort Pickens, Eatonville, Lincolnville).

When they discuss Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette (they spelled her name wrong), they may tell you they served as NAACP leaders in Brevard County. Will they tell you they were killed due to a bomb placed under their bedroom that went off Christmas Day? Will they say that Harry had to be driven from his home in Mims to Sanford, which was 30 miles away, because the hospital five miles away didn’t accept Black people? Harriette died of her wounds a few days later.

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Florida’s Board of Education unanimously approved the new standards; Governor Ron DeSantis appointed all the board members. During the public comments portion of the board meeting held in Orlando. Several speakers asked the board to hold off implementing their standards to make changes, but they were not listened to.

“Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for. It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history.” — Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP

The State of Florida got the last word.

“It’s sad to see critics attempt to discredit what any unbiased observer would conclude to be in-depth and comprehensive African American History standards. They incorporate all components of African American History: the good, the bad, and the ugly. These standards will further cement Florida as a national leader in education, as we continue to provide true and accurate instruction in African American History,” — Alex Lanfranconi, director of communications for the Florida Department of Education

As long as they teach natural increase, they are avoiding the bad and the ugly, teaching the nice version of that which could not withstand public scrutiny. Natural increase is a lie. A lie being taught to Florida children. #Shame

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This post was previously published on AfroSapiophile.

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