ABSTRACT
H istorians have often observed that the black populations in the West Indies and Latin America, unlike those in North America, failed to reproduce themselves. 1 Indeed, the striking lack of population growth among blacks in the West Indies during the eighteenth century actually prompted the view that blacks were less fertile than whites. 2 The difference between North America and other plantation areas in this regard has caused scholars to reconsider previous theories about the nature of slavery in various New World societies, particularly those which posited the notion that slavery in North America was harsher than in Latin America. Clearly, if North American slavery were more stringent than any other, the evidence on slave reproduction was an inexplicable anomaly. Eugene D. Genovese has refined the argument on treatment, indicating that academic disputes often resulted because the word was used with divergent meanings, 3 and he and other scholars have discredited the hypothesis, advanced most cogently by Frank 200Tannenbaum, that varying types of slave institutions were preeminently a function of the culture of the master class. 4 Yet the reasons for the phenomenal growth of North America’s slave population, although receiving increasing attention, have not been adequately explained or explored. A host of factors have been considered, including the demographic configuration, family stability, nutrition, epidemiological conditions, the type and severity of work, and, most recently, lactation practices. 5 Many of these considerations are interrelated or bear upon still other important factors, such as the age of menarche, but none alone is sufficient explanation of the natural population growth on North American plantations and its failure elsewhere. This phenomenon is probably, however, an aspect of the character of the society as a whole and not one particular facet of it, a notion this essay seeks to advance. In addition, it will adduce a consideration that has not been adequately explored, the influence of economics in the shaping of a social attitude.
