Misplaced Pages

Alligator bait: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 18:45, 13 September 2022 editDavid Fuchs (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Administrators44,903 edits tagging; at present, article's entire existence is based on a single academic whose work has been criticized by others in the field; seems undue weight to have it, especially since the other sources do not discuss literal alligator bait.← Previous edit Latest revision as of 13:03, 30 November 2024 edit undoGawaon (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users8,148 edits →top: Let's stick to no "meaningful evidence", like in the "Historicity debate" (there's evidence in the form of newspapers articles and such, but its RELIABILITY is doubted) 
(473 intermediate revisions by 65 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{primary|date=July 2023}}
{{notability}}
{{Short description|American urban legend and racist trope}}
{{POV}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2023|cs1-dates=ly}}
{{short description|Purported historical practice}}
{{use American English|date=February 2023}}
]
{{use shortened footnotes|date=May 2023}}
Both during and after the period of ] in the United States, ] were purportedly used as ] for ]s. In a wide array of media – including newspaper reports, songs, ], and visual art – black children were frequently depicted luring alligators, though the practice's existence has not been proven. In contemporary American ], '''''alligator bait''''' is a ], and the practice remains in the cultural consciousness.
]


Depicting ] children as '''alligator bait''' was a common ] in American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The motif was present in a wide array of media, including newspaper reports, songs, sheet music, and visual art. There is an ] claiming that black children or ] were in fact used as ] to lure ], although there is no meaningful evidence that children of any race were ever used for this purpose. In American ], ''alligator bait'' is a ] for African-Americans.
== Origins ==
The reasons for first identifying black children as alligator bait are unknown, but the identification may be a consequence of earlier associations of African ]s – a relative of American alligators – with Africa and ].{{sfn|Dean|2000|p=33}} American alligators largely live in the ]lands of the ], which were one place ] hid to evade capture.{{sfn|Dean|2000|p=33}} According to popular legend, enslaved people who disappeared in swamps may have been killed by alligators; children were understood as particularly vulnerable to attacks by alligators, and that identification may have evolved into the bait image.{{sfn|Dean|2000|p=33}}


== Popular culture ==
The image is a subtype of the racist ] caricature and ], where they were represented as ], filthy, and unlovable.{{sfn|Fulton|2006|pp=127–128}}
In the American popular imagination, black children were commonly used as bait for ],{{sfnp|Dean|2000|p=22}} which are one of the central ] of the ], along with ], ]s and ].{{sfnp|Mechling|1987|p=75}} The reasons for dubbing black babies "alligator bait" are unknown, but the identification may be a consequence of earlier associations of ]s{{mdash}}a relative of ]s{{mdash}}with Africa and ].{{sfnp|Dean|2000|p=33}} Gators largely live in the ]lands of the ], which were one place ] hid to evade capture.{{sfnp|Dean|2000|p=33}} According to popular legend, enslaved people who disappeared in swamps may have been killed by alligators; children were understood as particularly vulnerable to attacks by alligators, and that identification may have evolved into the bait image.{{sfnp|Dean|2000|p=33}} Alligator lore draws from "a shared dread of these reptilian creatures that come out of the water to eat dogs and children."{{sfnp|Mechling|1987|p=73}}


The alligator bait image is a subtype of the racist ] caricature and ], where they were represented as ], filthy, unlovable,{{sfnp|Fulton|2006|pp=127–128}} unkempt,{{sfnp|King|2005|p=123}} "unsupervised and dispensible."{{sfnp|Slate|2009|p=93}} In 19th and 20th century American popular media, stereotyped depictions of black children were common:
== Popular imagination ==
In the American popular, both during and after ], black children were commonly used as bait for alligators, the apex predator of American cultural life.{{sfn|Dean|2000|p=22}} Drawings of black children luring alligators were printed by companies like ]{{sfn|Finley|2019|p=18}} on ]s, ]es, ] covers,{{sfn|Dean|2000|pp=22–23}} and in paintings.{{sfn|Tuck|2009|p=417}} Several stories were printed in American newspapers about black children being used to lure alligators.{{sfn|Hughes|2013}} Due to the popularity of the idea, ]s were manufactured in designs resembling alligators, some of which came equipped with small replicas of black children's heads to be placed in the alligator's mouth.{{sfn|Dean|2000|p=23}} The sheet music drawings were almost purely symbolic; the images of black children being hunted by alligators were not represented in almost any corresponding music, though some songs (without the iconography) did have alligator bait as a component.{{sfn|Pearson|2021|pp=32–33}} In general, the drawings reinforced the racist belief that black people were victims to nature.{{sfn|Cox|2010|p=207}}


{{blockquote | wide toothy grins, rolling white eyes, shiny dark faces, and uncontrollably kinky hair...Supportive props ], bales of cotton, and alligators...The more vicious scenes devalued black children's lives to the extent that entrepreneurs claimed they were 'dainty morsel,' 'free lunches' or 'gator bait' for carnivorous reptiles. |author=Wilma King |title=''African American Childhoods''{{sfnp|King|2005|p=123}} }}
The concept also existed during the ] over ]; Sri Lankan children were said to have been used as bait for crocodiles, and several newspapers published stories and drawings of the purported practice.{{sfn|de Silva|Somaweera|2015|p=6806}}


Drawings of black babies luring alligators were printed by companies like ]{{sfnp|Finley|2019|p=18}} on ]s,{{sfnp|''Journal of Blacks in Higher Education''|1999}} ]es, and ] covers,{{sfnp|Dean|2000|pp=22–23}} The trope also appeared in films{{sfnp|Leab|1973|pp=61}} and in paintings.{{sfnp|Tuck|2009|p=417}} The sheet music drawings were almost purely symbolic; the images of black children being hunted by alligators were not represented in almost any corresponding music, though other songs (without the iconography) did have alligator bait as a component.{{sfnp|Pearson|2021|pp=32–33}} In general, the drawings reinforced the racist belief that black people were victims to nature,{{sfnp|Cox|2010|p=207}} and that their race made it reasonable to assume they should die terribly.{{sfnp|Hatfield|2018|p=124}} Alligator-bait-themed postcards and greeting cards were part of a larger genre of anti-black racist ephemera known as '']s''.{{sfnp|''Journal of Blacks in Higher Education'' (2)|1999}} ] produced a pair of short films in 1900{{sfnp|"The 'Gator and the Pickaninny (1900)"}} called ''The 'Gator and the Pickaninny'' and ''Alligator Bait''. In the former, "a black man with an ax unhesitatingly attacks an alligator that has swallowed a small black boy; as a result, the boy, ]-like, is restored."{{sfnp|Leab|1973|pp=61}} In the latter, according to the film-company catalog, "A little colored baby is tied to a post on a tropical shore. A huge 'gator comes out of the water, and is about to devour the little pickaninny, when a hunter appears and shoots the reptile."{{sfnp|"Alligator Bait (1900)"}} Due to the popularity of the idea, ]s were manufactured in designs resembling alligators, some of which came equipped with small replicas of black children's heads to be placed in the alligator's mouth.<ref>{{harvp|Dean|2000|p=23}}; {{harvp|Dubin|1987|pp=}}</ref>
== Historical accuracy and contemporary culture ==
In May 2013, Franklin Hughes of the ] determined that due to the number of periodicals which mention the use of black children as bait for alligators, it likely occurred, though it was not widespread or became a normal practice.{{sfn|Hughes|2013}} Four years later, Hughes revisited the subject and analyzed the sources he used – stories from the '']'' (1890), '']'' (1908), and '']'' (1923) – and located others, including newspaper accounts and books.{{sfn|Hughes|2017}} Though he found that '']'' magazine issued a rebuttal to the ''Oakland Tribune'' article, for example, he did not believe the rebuttal disproved the story.{{sfn|Hughes|2017}} He reiterated his earlier conclusion that the practice, though rare, occurred.{{sfn|Hughes|2017}} A ] article from 2017 was unable to prove or disprove that the practice occurred; Patricia Turner, a historian on black ] and the alligator bait cultural phenomenon, told Snopes it likely did not happen.{{sfn|Emery|2017}}


], 1897 (])|alt=Nine dark-skinned African-American children, all naked, several with exposed male genitalia, all appearing to be toddlers between ages one and three, sit or stand in a variety of body positions; original caption reads Alligator bait with a copyright notice by McCrary & Branson of Knoxville, Tennessee dated 1897]]
In American ], ''alligator bait'' (or ''{{'}}gator bait'') is a chiefly Southern slur aimed at black people, particularly children, though it also has currency in the North; the term implies that the target is worthless and expendable.{{sfn|Herbst|1997|p=8}} The image of black children being put in peril to lure alligators remains in popular culture.{{sfn|Hinton|2009|pp=101, 103}} In 2020, the ] ended the "Gator Bait" chant during athletic events; university historian ] said the chant likely started after the 1950s, and though it may not have originated from the racial slur, the two were connected.{{sfn|Van Ness|2020}}


The title "Alligator Bait" for an 1897 collage of nine African-American babies posed "on a sandy ]" was supposedly suggested by a hardware-store employee in Knoxville, Tennessee as part of a naming contest with a cash prize. By 1900, the photo had sold 11,000 copies and brought in {{USD|5000|1900|link=yes|round=-1|about=yes}} for ].{{sfnp|Moser|1900}}{{sfnp|Knoxville ''Journal and Tribune''|1900}} In 1964, a New Jersey editorial writer recalled a copy of the photo—meant to "elicit an amused appreciation"—that had once hung in a local shop. The newspaper editor described the image as "immoral" and equivalent to "viciously pornographic pictures."{{sfnp|''Madison Eagle''|1964}} ] professor Jay Mechling concludes his essay (about how alligators are used in cultural messaging) on a similar note:
== References ==
{{clear}}
===Citations===
{{Blockquote|text=To discover the ways in which these symbols and stories carry anti-female and anti-black meanings is to see the ideology packed into our most taken-for-granted attitudes toward the world. Thinking anew about the symbolic alligator becomes a moral act, perhaps a moral duty, as we resist the power of the 'myths that think themselves in our minds.'|author=Jay Mechling|title=''American Wildlife in Symbol and Story''{{sfnp|Mechling|1987|p=92}} }}

])]]

Adult black males{{sfnp|Slate|2009|p=94}} were presented in a similar manner as the babies: A 2003 ] exhibit called ''The Art of Hatred: Images of Intolerance in Florida Culture'' included postcards that "depict black people getting eaten by alligators as a joke. 'Free lunch in the Everglades, Florida' reads one."{{sfnp|Hauserman|2003}} Such postcards were common well into the 1950s.{{sfnp|Slate|2009|p=95}} The image of black children being put in peril to lure alligators remains present in popular culture in the 21st century.{{sfnp|Hinton|2009|pp=101, 103}}

In her 1994 book ''Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture'', ], an ] professor who has researched the alligator bait cultural phenomenon, notes that stories of "alligator bait" are invariably narrated by whites, sometimes grouping "Negroes and dogs" together as similarly overawed with fear of alligators. There are no equivalent stories in 19th and 20th century black folklore collections.{{sfnp|Turner|1994|pp=32–35}}

Turner argues that the repetitive, insistent "alligator bait" iconography of partially clothed young children placed in danger of predation by large reptiles is not so much a stereotype or an urban legend as wishcasting: "They implicitly advocate...aggression in eliminating an unwanted people{{sfnp|Turner|1994|pp=36}}...the alligator is an accomplice in an effort to eradicate, or at least intimidate, the black."{{sfnp|Turner|1994|pp=38}} Mechling is more sexually explicit, arguing that white storytellers use the culturally constructed idea of "alligator-ness" in these images and stories to symbolically ] African American and ] men alike.{{sfnp|Mechling|1987|pp=78–84}} Claudia Slate, a professor of English at Florida Southern College, makes an analogy to the ] practice of ] and argues "Containment of African Americans was a top priority for southern whites, and instilling fear, whether by actual ropes or imagined reptile attacks, served this purpose."{{sfnp|Slate|2009|p=91}}

== Historicity debate ==
The idea that anyone was intentionally using children for alligator hunting was debunked in print as early as 1918; a Florida guidebook reassured potential tourists that "upon reliable authority will not attack a human, regardless of the fiction that pickaninnies are good alligator bait."{{sfnp|Winter|1918}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}} In 1919 a ] newspaper column complained, "Many years ago this serious error was perpetrated on Florida by an advertising agent of a railroad running through the South...Florida's portion was pictures of ] swamps, ], alligators, and negro babies labelled 'alligator bait'... this harmful psychology became very popular..doubtless many foreigners believing that these babies were actually used for alligator bait."{{sfnp|''St. Lucie News Tribune''|1919}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}} In 1926 a columnist for '']'' called it "a piece of Florida fiction going the rounds which ancient spinsters in snowbound lands delighted to repeat as truth. It gave them a feeling of virtuous superiority over the denizens of the pleasant land of Florida."{{sfnp|''Eustis Lake Region''|1926}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}}
In May 2013, Franklin Hughes of the ] at ] in Michigan argued that due to the number of periodicals which mention the use of black children as bait for alligators, it likely occurred, though it was not widespread or became a normal practice. Hughes essentially argues that since there was no discernible limit to the dehumanization and degradation of African Americans in the U.S. national history, feeding children to animals for sport cannot be precluded as a possible reality.{{sfnp|Hughes|2013}} Four years later, Hughes argued again that it likely occurred, though he also found an article from '']'' magazine, contemporaneous to one alleged incident printed in newspapers, which denied that the practice ever occurred and that the report was a "silly lie, false and absurd".{{sfnp|Hughes|2017}} In the 19th and early 20th century several stories were printed in American newspapers about the alleged practice.{{sfnp|Hughes|2013}} Academics have not assessed the authorship and likely veracity of these scattered news items, but ] article from 2017 was unable to find any meaningful evidence that the practice occurred; Patricia Turner told Snopes it likely never did.{{sfnp|Emery|2017}} The Snopes writer said it was impossible to ], and that no proponents of the historicity of the practice have met their ] by providing any evidence of the practice, although the trope of black children being the favorite food of alligators was already widespread in the ].{{sfnp|Emery|2017}} Jay Mechling's study of the American folklore of the alligator notes that "A common folk idea among whites is that alligators have a preference for blacks as a food source."{{sfnp|Mechling|1987|pp=85–87}} For example, a 1850 article in '']'' reported that alligators "prefer the flesh of a negro to any other delicacy".<ref>{{harvp|Emery|2017}}; {{harvp|''Fraser's Magazine''|1850}}</ref> Per Mechling, the earliest instance of this lore is in a 1565 ]'s account, and as late as the mid-20th century, in a story by Florida writer ], a gator forgoes a group of naked white guys for the opportunity to gorge itself on an individual black man instead.{{sfnp|Mechling|1987|pp=85–87}}

])|alt=Alligator with black man in his jaws; card caption is "Free lunch in the Fla. Everglades"; full text of "The Florida Gator" poem is "Have you met the Florida Gator? He is the champion negro hater Although he finds many things to eat his favorite morsel is Negro meat"]]

== Linguistic use ==
In American ], ''alligator bait'' (or ''{{'}}gator bait'') is a chiefly ] slur aimed at black people, particularly children; the term implies that the target is worthless and expendable.{{sfnp|Herbst|1997|p=8}} A variant use, albeit also expressing distaste, was ''alligator bait'' as World War II-era U.S. military slang for prepared meals featuring ].{{sfnp|Dickson|2014|p=117}} The use of ''alligator bait'' to mean ''poor food'' (poor in senses of both flavor and socioeconomic class) had fallen out of use in the military by 1954.{{sfnp|Wallrich|1954}}

The derogatory use of ''alligator bait'' is likely ] in origin.{{sfnp|Spears|1981|p=7}}{{sfnp|Calt|2010|p=4}} In 1905 a ] paper reported high ] prices and wrote "The bench-legged pickaninny, once so attractive as alligator bait, is now tenderly nurtured and gets three 'squares' a day, for on him hangs the future hopes of big crops."{{sfnp|''Vienna News''|1905}} In 1905 a postcard with no alligator imagery but picture of a crying black baby was sent to one Delia with the message "this is great alligator bait."{{sfnp|Baldwin|1988|pp=}} In 1923 the ] sports page reported "The ] used a wee hunk of alligator bait as ] yesterday, but the luck turned the other way. At any rate it must be admitted that the little fellow's presence added color."{{sfnp|Anderson|1923}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}} ] fans were using the "uncomplimentary phrase" against ] players in 1939.{{sfnp|Bradberry|1939}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}}

''Alligator bait'' appears in the lyrics of a 1940s ] jazz song called "Ugly Chile" (originally published 1917 as "Pretty Doll" by ]). The song, which ends with a joke shared between performer and audience, is described as a "exorcism of an unacceptable fact" that is "funny and cogent in even the most unprivileged of readings.{{sfnp|Adams|Park|1956|pp=18–19}} The version recorded by ] goes:
{{poem quote|
text=Oh how I hate you
You alligator bait you
You knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, box-ankled too,
There's a curse on your family and a spell on you.}}

In 1968 ] pitcher ] recalled the slur being used against him while playing in ]: "There was a particular fan there who used to ride me. He called me ''alligator bait''. But then I found out just for kicks local folks would tie Negro youngsters to the end of a rope and drag them through swamps, trying to lure the alligators...That's where Negroes stood in Columbus."{{sfnp|Chapin|1968}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}} The Columbus ] editor wrote a column castigating Gibson for bringing it up: "All local citizens, white and Negro, have already recognized for the myth that it is...I wouldn't be naive enough to deny that there were probably some rough things hurled at Gibson...but swamps and alligators? Really, Bob?"{{sfnp|Darby|1968}}{{Primary source inline|date=February 2023}} In 2020, the University of Florida ended the ] during athletic events; university historian ] said the chant likely started after the 1950s, and though it may not have originated from the racial slur, the two were connected.{{sfnp|Van Ness|2020}} In the late 1990s African-American UF player ] popularized the phrase "If you ain't a Gator, you must be Gator Bait."{{sfnp|Staples|2020}}

== Similar tropes ==
The concept of children luring predators separately existed in ] (today's ]). Sri Lankan children were said to have been used as bait for crocodiles, and several newspapers published stories and drawings of the purported practice.{{sfnp|de Silva|Somaweera|2015|p=6806}}

== Image gallery ==
{{gallery | title =Alligator bait | mode = packed
| File:1909 Postcard Quincy Florida-Alligator.jpg|Alligator bait postcard from Quincy, Florida, 1909
|File:Haiti revolution United States alligator bait editorial cartoon.jpg|] about ] in Haiti (Cartoonist: May, Detroit ''Journal'', reprinted in '']'', Jan. 1909)
|File:1911 Postcard-Alligator Bait 01.jpg|Alligator bait postcard, 1911
|File:"Fooled dis time, Cully. Dis cotton aint gwine to break". Merrick Thread Co. Best Six Cord 8 (front).jpg|"Fooled dis time, Cully. Dis cotton aint gwine to break" (Merrick Thread Co. advertisement, late 1800s)
|File:Alligator bait 1878 Cox Palmer That Stanley.jpg|"The usual bait could not be found, But pickaninnies played around" (], '' That Stanley!'', 1878)
| File:AAMS22AfricanAmericanPostcard_Side_1.jpg|Later "alligator bait" postcards ] the Knoxville lithograph{{sfnp|Slate|2009|p=92}} (])
}}

== See also ==
* ]
* {{slink|Alligator wrestling#Native American historical origins}}
* {{anl|Ethnic Notions|''Ethnic Notions''}}
* {{anl|Nadir of American race relations}}

== Notes ==
{{reflist}} {{reflist}}


===Bibliography=== == Bibliography ==
{{refbegin}} {{refbegin|indent=yes}}
===References===
* {{cite journal |last=Cox |first=Nicole C. |title=Selling seduction: Women and feminine nature in 1920s Florida advertising |journal=] |volume=89 |issue=2 |date=2010 |pages=186–209 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29765166}}
* {{cite journal |last=Dean |first=Carolyn |author-link=Carolyn Dean |title=Boys and girls and 'boys': Popular depictions of African-American children and childlike adults in the United States, 1850–1930 |journal=] |volume=23 |issue=3 |date=2000 |pages=17–35 |doi=10.1111/j.1537-4726.2000.2303_17.x}} * {{Cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=Hazard |last2=Park |first2=Bruce R. |date=1956 |title=The State of the Jazz Lyric |journal=Chicago Review |language=en |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=5–20 |doi=10.2307/25293241 |jstor=25293241}}
* {{cite journal |last=Finley |first=Cheryl |author-link=Cheryl Finley |title=Photography and the archive |journal=] |volume=33 |issue=6 |date=2019 |pages=8–23 |doi=10.1080/02560046.2019.1695868}} * {{cite journal |author1=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |title=Alligator Bait |journal=The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education |date=1999 |issue=24 |page=22 |jstor=2999048 |ref={{harvid|''Journal of Blacks in Higher Education''|1999}} |issn=1077-3711}}
* {{Cite journal |author1=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |title="Coon Cards": Racist Postcards Have Become Collectors' Items |date=Autumn 1999 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2999393 |journal=The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education |issue=25 |pages=72–73 |doi=10.2307/2999393 |jstor=2999393 |issn=1077-3711 |ref={{harvid|''Journal of Blacks in Higher Education'' (2)|1999}} |access-date=2023-03-08 |archive-date=2023-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230308234956/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2999393 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Fulton |first=DoVeanna S. |title=Speaking power: Black feminist orality in women's narratives of slavery |publisher=] |date=2006}}
* {{cite web |ref={{harvid|"Alligator Bait (1900)"}} |title=Alligator Bait (1900) |website=AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The First 100 Years 1893–1993 |publisher=American Film Institute |location=Los Angeles |date=n.d. |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/43108 |access-date=8 March 2023 |archive-date=2023-03-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230308220618/https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/43108 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |last=Emery |first=David |title=Were black children used as alligator bait in the American South? |website=] |date=June 9, 2017 |url=https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/09/black-children-alligator-bait/ |access-date=September 2, 2022}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Baldwin |first=Brooke |date=1988 |title=On the Verso: Postcard Messages as a Key to Popular Prejudices |journal=The Journal of Popular Culture |language=en |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=15–28 |doi=10.1111/j.0022-3840.1988.2203_15.x}}
* {{cite encyclopedia |last=Herbst |first=Philip H. |title=Alligator bait |encyclopedia=The color of words: An encyclopedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States |publisher=] |page=8 |date=1997}}
* {{cite book |last=Hinton |first=KaaVonia |title=Sharon M. Draper: Embracing literacy |publisher=] |date=2009}} * {{Cite book |last=Calt |first=Stephen |title=Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary |date=2010-10-01 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-09071-4}}
* {{cite journal |last=Cox |first=Nicole C. |title=Selling seduction: Women and feminine nature in 1920s Florida advertising |journal=Florida Historical Quarterly |volume=89 |issue=2 |date=2010 |pages=186–209 |jstor=29765166 |issn=0015-4113 |url=https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol89/iss2/4/ |format=PDF |access-date=2022-12-14 |archive-date=2022-12-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221214225105/https://stars.library.ucf.edu/fhq/vol89/iss2/4/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |last=Hughes |first=Franklin |title=Alligator bait |website=] |publisher=] |date=May 2013 |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2013/may.htm |access-date=September 2, 2022}}
* {{cite journal |last1=de Silva |first1=Anslem |author-link1=Anslem de Silva |last2=Somaweera |first2=Ruchira |title=Were human babies used as bait in crocodile hunts in colonial Sri Lanka? |journal=Journal of Threatened Taxa |volume=7 |issue=1 |date=26 January 2015 |pages=6805–6809 |doi=10.11609/jott.o4161.6805-9 |issn=0974-7907 |url=https://www.threatenedtaxa.org/JoTT/article/view/1790 |format=PDF |doi-access=free |access-date=2022-12-14 |archive-date=2022-12-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221214225102/https://www.threatenedtaxa.org/JoTT/article/view/1790 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |last=Hughes |first=Franklin |title=Alligator bait revisited |website=] |publisher=] |date=June 2017 |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2017/junejuly.htm |access-date=September 2, 2022}}
* {{cite journal |last=Pearson |first=Erin |title=Consuming monsters: Hungry animals in the discourse on slavery |journal=] |volume=77 |issue=2 |date=2021 |pages=25–53 |doi=10.1353/arq.2021.0009}} * {{cite journal |last=Dean |first=Carolyn |author-link=Carolyn Dean |title=Boys and girls and 'boys': Popular depictions of African-American children and childlike adults in the United States, 1850–1930 |journal=Journal of American and Comparative Cultures |volume=23 |issue=3 |date=2000 |pages=17–35 |doi=10.1111/j.1537-4726.2000.2303_17.x |issn=1542-7331}}
* {{Cite book |last=Dickson |first=Paul |title=War Slang: American Fighting Words & Phrases Since the Civil War |publisher=Courier Corporation |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-486-79716-8 |edition=3rd |pages=117 |language=en |author-link=Paul Dickson (writer)}}
* {{cite journal |last1=de Silva |first1=Anslem |author-link1=Anslem de Silva |last2=Somaweera |first2=Ruchira |title=Were human babies used as bait in crocodile hunts in colonial Sri Lanka? |journal=] |volume=7 |issue=1 |date=26 January 2015 |pages=6805–6809 |doi=10.11609/jott.o4161.6805-9}}
* {{cite journal |last=Tuck |first=Eve |author-link=Eve Tuck |title=Suspending damage: A letter to communities |journal=] |volume=79 |issue=3 |date=2009 |pages=409–428 |doi=10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15}} * {{cite journal |last=Dubin |first=Steven C. |title=Symbolic Slavery: Black Representations in Popular Culture |journal=Social Problems |year=1987 |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=122–140 |jstor=800711 |doi=10.2307/800711 |issn=0037-7791}}
* {{cite journal |last=Finley |first=Cheryl |author-link=Cheryl Finley |title=Photography and the archive |journal=Critical Arts |volume=33 |issue=6 |date=2019 |pages=8–23 |doi=10.1080/02560046.2019.1695868 |s2cid=219415308 |issn=0256-0046}}
* {{cite news |last=Van Ness |first=Carl |title=Here’s what UF's historian says about the 'Gator Bait' history and controversy |work=] |date=June 27, 2020 |url=https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/06/27/heres-what-ufs-historian-says-about-the-gator-bait-history-and-controversy-column/ |access-date=September 2, 2022 |department=Opinion}}
* {{cite web |last=Emery |first=David |title=Were black children used as alligator bait in the American South? |website=Snopes |date=June 9, 2017 |url=https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/09/black-children-alligator-bait/ |access-date=2022-09-02 |archive-date=2021-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130080621/https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/09/black-children-alligator-bait/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Fulton |first=DoVeanna S. |title=Speaking power: Black feminist orality in women's narratives of slavery |publisher=State University of New York Press |date=2006 |isbn=978-0-7914-8231-5}}
* {{cite web |ref={{harvid|"The 'Gator and the Pickaninny (1900)"}} |title=The 'Gator and the Pickanniny (1900) |website=AFI Catalog of Feature Films: The First 100 Years 1893–1993 |publisher=American Film Institute |location=Los Angeles |date=n.d. |url=https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/31814 |access-date=8 March 2023 |archive-date=2022-12-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225023009/https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/31814 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Hatfield |first=Philip J. |chapter=A collection of people: migration, settlement and frontiers |title=Canada in the Frame: Copyright, Collections and the Image of Canada, 1895-1924 |publisher=UCL Press |year=2018 |pages=106–132 |isbn=978-1-78735-301-5 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv3hvc7m.9 |doi-access=free |jstor=j.ctv3hvc7m.9 |jstor-access=free}}
* {{cite book |last1=Herbst |first1=Philip |title=The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States |date=1997 |publisher=Intercultural Press |location=Yarmouth, Maine |isbn=978-1-877864-42-1 |page=8 |url=https://archive.org/details/colorofwordsency0000herb/page/8/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |via=] }}
* {{cite book |last=Hinton |first=KaaVonia |title=Sharon M. Draper: Embracing literacy |publisher=Scarecrow Press |location=Lanham, Md. |date=2009 |isbn=978-0-8108-5985-2}}
* {{cite web |last=Hughes |first=Franklin |title=Alligator bait |publisher=Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, Ferris State University |date=May 2013 |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2013/may.htm |access-date=September 2, 2022 |archive-date=2020-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810192438/https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2013/may.htm |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |last=Hughes |first=Franklin |title=Alligator bait revisited |publisher=Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia |date=June 2017 |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2017/junejuly.htm |access-date=September 2, 2022 |archive-date=2019-05-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190524114619/https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/question/2017/junejuly.htm |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=King |first=Wilma |chapter=The Long Way from the Gold Dust Twins to the Williams Sisters: Images of African American Children in Selected Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Print Media |date=2005 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/africanamericanc0000king/page/119/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration |title=African American Childhoods |pages=119–136 |place=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-73165-7_8 |doi-broken-date=November 13, 2024 |isbn=978-1-4039-6251-5 |via=Internet Archive }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Leab |first=Daniel J. |date=1973 |title=The Gamut from A to B: The Image of the Black in Pre-1915 Movies |jstor=2148648 |journal=Political Science Quarterly |volume=88 |issue=1 |pages=53–70 |doi=10.2307/2148648 |issn=0032-3195}}
* {{Cite book |last=Mechling |first=Jay |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americanwildlife0000unse/page/73/mode/2up |title=American wildlife in symbol and story |date=1987 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |isbn=0-87049-522-4 |editor-last=Gillespie |editor-first=Angus K. |location=Knoxville, Tenn. |pages=73–98 |chapter=The Alligator |oclc=14165533 |editor-last2=Mechling |editor-first2=Jay |via=Internet Archive }}&nbsp;{{limited access}}
* {{cite journal |last=Pearson |first=Erin |title=Consuming monsters: Hungry animals in the discourse on slavery |journal=Arizona Quarterly |volume=77 |issue=2 |date=2021 |pages=25–53 |doi=10.1353/arq.2021.0009 |s2cid=235717975 |issn=0004-1610}}
* {{cite web |last1=Reitan |first1=Peter |date=2020 |title=Letter to the Jim Crow Museum |url=https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/letters/2020/alligatorbaitESPN.htm |publisher=Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia |access-date=3 December 2022 |archive-date=2023-04-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413043748/https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/letters/2020/alligatorbaitESPN.htm |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book |last=Slate |first=Claudia |date=2009 |editor-last=Slate |editor-first=Claudia |editor-last2=Van Camp |editor-first2=April |chapter=Wish You Weren't Here: African American Portrayal in Vintage Florida Postcards |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EytJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA91 |title=Florida Studies: Proceedings of the 2008 Annual General Meeting of the Florida College English Association |location=Newcastle upon Tyne |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |pages=91–100 |isbn=978-1-4438-1171-2 |oclc=667048214 |access-date=2023-03-09 |archive-date=2023-03-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230309005342/https://books.google.com/books?id=EytJDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA91 |url-status=live }}&nbsp;{{free access|via=Google Books}}
* {{cite book |last1=Spears |first1=Richard A. |title=Slang and Euphemism: A Dictionary of Oaths, Curses, Insults, Sexual Slang and Metaphor, Racial Slurs, Drug Talk, Homosexual Lingo, and Related Matters |date=1981 |publisher=David Publishers |location=Middle Village, N.Y. |page=7 |isbn=978-0-8246-0259-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/slangeuphemismdi0000spea/page/7/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive }}
* {{cite journal |last=Tuck |first=Eve |author-link=Eve Tuck |title=Suspending damage: A letter to communities |journal=Harvard Educational Review |volume=79 |issue=3 |date=2009 |pages=409–428 |doi=10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15 |issn=0017-8055 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268000737 |format=PDF |via=] }}
* {{cite book |last1=Turner |first1=Patricia A. |author-link=Patricia Turner |title=Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture |date=1994 |publisher=Anchor Books |isbn=978-0-385-46784-1 |edition=1st |location=New York |pages=31–40 |chapter=Alligator Bait |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/ceramicunclescel00turn/page/31/mode/1up?view=theater |chapter-url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive }}

===Primary sources===
* {{Cite news |last=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |date=1919-11-28 |title=Advertising Psychology |language=en |page=10 |newspaper=St. Lucie News Tribune |location=Port St. Lucie, Fla. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/884627108/?clipping_id=119787160 |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=] |ref={{harvid|''St. Lucie News Tribune''|1919}} |archive-date=2023-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227012936/https://www.newspapers.com/image/884627108/?clipping_id=119787160 |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |date=1900-11-25 |last=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |title=Alligator Bait |language=en |page=5 |newspaper=The Journal and Tribune |location=Knoxville, Tenn. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/584225903/?clipping_id=89726944 |url-access=registration |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=Newspapers.com |ref={{harvid|Knoxville ''Journal and Tribune''|1900}} |archive-date=2023-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227010023/https://www.newspapers.com/image/584225903/?clipping_id=89726944 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite news |date=1964-02-13 |title=Alligator Bait |page=4 |newspaper=The Madison Eagle |department=Editorial |location=Madison, N.J. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/244363218/?&clipping_id=119785112 |url-access=registration |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=Newspapers.com |ref={{harvid|''Madison Eagle''|1964}} |archive-date=2023-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227010224/https://www.newspapers.com/image/244363218/?&clipping_id=119785112 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite news |last=Anderson |first=Curley |title=The Sports Spotlight |newspaper=Moline Daily Dispatch |location=Moline, Ill. |date=1923-07-11 |page=13 |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-02-28 |url=http://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-jul-11-1923-3756011/ |via=] |archive-date=2023-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228231447/https://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-jul-11-1923-3756011/ |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Bradberry |first=Johnny |date=1939-11-27 |title=Jacket Cripples Better, May Start Saturday |pages=15 |work=The Atlanta Constitution |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/397814857/?&clipping_id=116643652 |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-date=2023-01-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117054737/https://www.newspapers.com/image/397814857/?&clipping_id=116643652 |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Chapin |first=Dwight |date=1968-07-05 |title='Respect or Hypocrisy?' Bob Gibson: Black Man Nobody Wanted—Until He Was a Hero |pages=III1, III10 |work=Los Angeles Times |department=Part III: Sports |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/383157478/?&clipping_id=116643564 |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-date=2023-01-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117054736/https://www.newspapers.com/image/383157478/?&clipping_id=116643564 |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Darby |first=Cecil |date=1968-07-12 |title=Alligator Bait |page=3 |work=The Columbus Ledger |location=Columbus, Ga. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/856884517/?&clipping_id=116643214 |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-date=2023-01-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117054737/https://www.newspapers.com/image/856884517/?&clipping_id=116643214 |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite news |last=Hauserman |first=Julie |date=2003-03-07 |title="No dogs, no blacks, no Jews' |newspaper=Tampa Bay Times |url=https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2003/03/07/no-dogs-no-blacks-no-jews/ |url-status=live |access-date=2023-02-26 |archive-date=2021-09-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210902130840/https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2003/03/07/no-dogs-no-blacks-no-jews/ }}
* {{Cite news |last=Moser<!--this article is unbylined but identical text appears elsewhere with Moser credit line--> |first=James Henry |date=1900-04-02 |title=Branson, of Knoxville, an American Artist Who Really Enjoys His Obscurity |language=en |page=6 |newspaper=The Journal and Tribune |location=Knoxville, Tenn. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/584104560/?clipping_id=119732265 |url-access=registration |access-date=2023-01-08 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-date=2023-02-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230226100149/https://www.newspapers.com/image/584104560/?clipping_id=119732265 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite news |last=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |title=Interesting Letter on Cotton Crop |newspaper=Vienna News |location=Vienna, Ga. |date=1905-12-15 |page=1 |url=http://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-dec-15-1905-3756027/ |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-02-28 |via=NewspaperArchive.com |ref={{harvid|''Vienna News''|1905}} |archive-date=2023-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228232222/https://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-dec-15-1905-3756027/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite magazine |last=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |title=Leaves From the Note-Book of a Naturalist, Part VII |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MmAyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA629 |magazine=Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country |date=December 1850 |volume=42 |page=629 |ref={{harvid|''Fraser's Magazine''|1850}} |oclc=5899443 |via=Google Books |access-date=2022-12-12 |archive-date=2022-12-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221212032058/https://books.google.com/books?id=MmAyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA629 |url-status=live }} {{free access}}
* {{Cite news |last=<!--anonymous author, no byline--> |date=1926-09-02 |title=The Observer, For to Admire and to See—Kipling, Alligator Bait |page=2 |volume=45 |issue=5 |url=http://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-sep-02-1926-3752710/ |newspaper=The Eustis Lake Region |via=NewspaperArchive.com |url-access=limited |access-date=2023-02-26 |ref={{harvid|''Eustis Lake Region''|1926}} |archive-date=2023-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227065447/https://www.newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-sep-02-1926-3752710/ |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite web |last=Staples |first=Andy |date=2020-06-18 |title=Staples: 'Gator Bait' and the collision of history we don't know with history we do |url=https://theathletic.com/1881140/2020/06/18/staples-gator-bait-and-the-collision-of-history-we-dont-know-with-history-we-do/ |access-date=2023-02-27 |website=The Athletic |language=en |archive-date=2021-11-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211120012550/https://theathletic.com/1881140/2020/06/18/staples-gator-bait-and-the-collision-of-history-we-dont-know-with-history-we-do/ |url-status=live }}
* {{cite news |last=Van Ness |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Van Ness |title=Here's what UF's historian says about the 'Gator Bait' history and controversy |work=Tampa Bay Times |date=June 27, 2020 |url=https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/06/27/heres-what-ufs-historian-says-about-the-gator-bait-history-and-controversy-column/ |access-date=September 2, 2022 |department=Opinion |archive-date=2022-09-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220902130413/https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/06/27/heres-what-ufs-historian-says-about-the-gator-bait-history-and-controversy-column/ |url-status=live }}
* {{Cite magazine |last=Wallrich |first=Bill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I1jdZ3m2uFgC&dq=%22Alligator+bait%22+slang&pg=RA9-PP138 |title=Where the Air Force Gets Its Slang |magazine=Air Force: The Magazine of American Air Power |volume=37 |issue=9 |pages=118–126 |date=September 1954 |publisher=Air Force Association |language=en |via=Google Books |access-date=2023-02-27 |archive-date=2023-02-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230228223051/https://books.google.com/books?id=I1jdZ3m2uFgC&dq=%22Alligator+bait%22+slang&pg=RA9-PP138 |url-status=live }} {{free access}}
* {{Cite book |last=Winter |first=Nevin O. |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t7hq4js21&view=1up&seq=442 |title=Florida, the land of enchantment |publisher=The Page Company |year=1918 |series="See America first" series |location=Boston, Mass. |pages=310 |language=en-us |lccn=18002916 |oclc=1511192 |via=] |access-date=2023-02-27 |archive-date=2023-02-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230227013458/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=loc.ark:/13960/t7hq4js21&view=1up&seq=442 |url-status=live }}&nbsp;{{free access}}
{{refend}} {{refend}}

]
==Further reading==
]
* {{Cite book |title=Ethnic notions : Black images in the white mind : an exhibition of Afro-American stereotype and caricature from the collection of Janette Faulkner : September 12-November 4, 1982 |date=1982 |publisher=Berkeley Art Center |others=Janette Faulkner, Robbin Henderson, Pamela Fabry, Adam David Miller |isbn=0942744004 | location=Berkeley, Calif. |lccn=82001314 | oclc=8219750 | quote=This collection contains a large number of functional items dating from 1847 to the present...The stereotyping, style, composition, and line of the items reflects society's responses to slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, World Wars I and II, and the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties as experiences in this country and as these events were perceived abroad. This collection focuses on caricatures of blacks which have been used to convey fear, support, or rejection of assigned roles. In America, caricature was used to maintain the right to exclude black people, and thus insure a total separation of the races. European caricatures supported America's need to legislate exclusion of Afro-Americans. }}

== External links ==
* {{YouTube|CQ5LIC2IqwE|"Ugly Chile" by George Brunis and his Jazz Band}}
* {{cite web |first=Will |last=Shetterly |date=2021-11-16 |url=https://medium.com/history-and-identity/why-anti-racists-believe-the-gator-baby-myth-and-more-about-the-history-of-this-racist-folklore-25949ab6b8ed |website=medium.com |title=Why Anti-racists believe the Gator Baby Myth, and More about the History of this Racist Folklore}}
* {{cite web |url=https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2020/04/live-human-alligator-bait-fact-or.html?m=1 |title=Live Human "Alligator Bait" - Fact or Fiction |last=Brown |first=Peter Jensen |date=2020-04-09 |website=Early Sports and Pop Culture History Blog}} - list of "alligator bait" newspaper reports, analysis of authorship, etc.

{{commons category|Alligator bait}}
{{African American caricatures and stereotypes}}
{{Urban legends}}

]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
]
] ]
]

Latest revision as of 13:03, 30 November 2024

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources.
Find sources: "Alligator bait" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
American urban legend and racist trope

Illustration of a swampy scene in Florida; three young black children are seated on a log across a small pool of water from an alligator displaying its open mouth. The middle child wears a broad-brimmed hat. In the background are palm trees and a cabin next to open fields. The top of the postcard reads "Alligator Bait, Florida".
Early 20th century postcard depicting black children as "alligator bait"

Depicting African-American children as alligator bait was a common trope in American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The motif was present in a wide array of media, including newspaper reports, songs, sheet music, and visual art. There is an urban legend claiming that black children or infants were in fact used as bait to lure alligators, although there is no meaningful evidence that children of any race were ever used for this purpose. In American slang, alligator bait is a racial slur for African-Americans.

Popular culture

In the American popular imagination, black children were commonly used as bait for hunting alligators, which are one of the central apex predators of the folklore of the United States, along with cougars, bears and wolves. The reasons for dubbing black babies "alligator bait" are unknown, but the identification may be a consequence of earlier associations of African crocodiles—a relative of American alligators—with Africa and its people. Gators largely live in the swamplands of the Southern United States, which were one place people escaping enslavement hid to evade capture. According to popular legend, enslaved people who disappeared in swamps may have been killed by alligators; children were understood as particularly vulnerable to attacks by alligators, and that identification may have evolved into the bait image. Alligator lore draws from "a shared dread of these reptilian creatures that come out of the water to eat dogs and children."

The alligator bait image is a subtype of the racist pickaninny caricature and stereotype of black children, where they were represented as almost unhuman, filthy, unlovable, unkempt, "unsupervised and dispensible." In 19th and 20th century American popular media, stereotyped depictions of black children were common:

wide toothy grins, rolling white eyes, shiny dark faces, and uncontrollably kinky hair...Supportive props watermelon, bales of cotton, and alligators...The more vicious scenes devalued black children's lives to the extent that entrepreneurs claimed they were 'dainty morsel,' 'free lunches' or 'gator bait' for carnivorous reptiles.

— Wilma King, African American Childhoods

Drawings of black babies luring alligators were printed by companies like Underwood & Underwood on postcards, cigar boxes, and sheet music covers, The trope also appeared in films and in paintings. The sheet music drawings were almost purely symbolic; the images of black children being hunted by alligators were not represented in almost any corresponding music, though other songs (without the iconography) did have alligator bait as a component. In general, the drawings reinforced the racist belief that black people were victims to nature, and that their race made it reasonable to assume they should die terribly. Alligator-bait-themed postcards and greeting cards were part of a larger genre of anti-black racist ephemera known as coon cards. American Mutoscope and Biograph Company produced a pair of short films in 1900 called The 'Gator and the Pickaninny and Alligator Bait. In the former, "a black man with an ax unhesitatingly attacks an alligator that has swallowed a small black boy; as a result, the boy, Jonah-like, is restored." In the latter, according to the film-company catalog, "A little colored baby is tied to a post on a tropical shore. A huge 'gator comes out of the water, and is about to devour the little pickaninny, when a hunter appears and shoots the reptile." Due to the popularity of the idea, letter openers were manufactured in designs resembling alligators, some of which came equipped with small replicas of black children's heads to be placed in the alligator's mouth.

Nine dark-skinned African-American children, all naked, several with exposed male genitalia, all appearing to be toddlers between ages one and three, sit or stand in a variety of body positions; original caption reads Alligator bait with a copyright notice by McCrary & Branson of Knoxville, Tennessee dated 1897
"Alligator Bait" photograph published by McCrary & Branson, 1897 (British Library)

The title "Alligator Bait" for an 1897 collage of nine African-American babies posed "on a sandy bayou" was supposedly suggested by a hardware-store employee in Knoxville, Tennessee as part of a naming contest with a cash prize. By 1900, the photo had sold 11,000 copies and brought in US$5,000 (equivalent to about $183,120 in 2023) for McCrary & Branson. In 1964, a New Jersey editorial writer recalled a copy of the photo—meant to "elicit an amused appreciation"—that had once hung in a local shop. The newspaper editor described the image as "immoral" and equivalent to "viciously pornographic pictures." American studies professor Jay Mechling concludes his essay (about how alligators are used in cultural messaging) on a similar note:

To discover the ways in which these symbols and stories carry anti-female and anti-black meanings is to see the ideology packed into our most taken-for-granted attitudes toward the world. Thinking anew about the symbolic alligator becomes a moral act, perhaps a moral duty, as we resist the power of the 'myths that think themselves in our minds.'

— Jay Mechling, American Wildlife in Symbol and Story
Two alligators menace a stereotyped black man clambering into a stereotyped palm tree, a woman in colorful dress runs away comically screaming; original caption: "Honey come down we are waiting for you in Florida"
"Topics: Racism, ethnic wit and humor, 1898-1920" (National Museum of American History)

Adult black males were presented in a similar manner as the babies: A 2003 Museum of Florida History exhibit called The Art of Hatred: Images of Intolerance in Florida Culture included postcards that "depict black people getting eaten by alligators as a joke. 'Free lunch in the Everglades, Florida' reads one." Such postcards were common well into the 1950s. The image of black children being put in peril to lure alligators remains present in popular culture in the 21st century.

In her 1994 book Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture, Patricia Turner, an African American studies professor who has researched the alligator bait cultural phenomenon, notes that stories of "alligator bait" are invariably narrated by whites, sometimes grouping "Negroes and dogs" together as similarly overawed with fear of alligators. There are no equivalent stories in 19th and 20th century black folklore collections.

Turner argues that the repetitive, insistent "alligator bait" iconography of partially clothed young children placed in danger of predation by large reptiles is not so much a stereotype or an urban legend as wishcasting: "They implicitly advocate...aggression in eliminating an unwanted people...the alligator is an accomplice in an effort to eradicate, or at least intimidate, the black." Mechling is more sexually explicit, arguing that white storytellers use the culturally constructed idea of "alligator-ness" in these images and stories to symbolically emasculate African American and Native American men alike. Claudia Slate, a professor of English at Florida Southern College, makes an analogy to the terroristic practice of lynching in the United States and argues "Containment of African Americans was a top priority for southern whites, and instilling fear, whether by actual ropes or imagined reptile attacks, served this purpose."

Historicity debate

The idea that anyone was intentionally using children for alligator hunting was debunked in print as early as 1918; a Florida guidebook reassured potential tourists that "upon reliable authority will not attack a human, regardless of the fiction that pickaninnies are good alligator bait." In 1919 a Port St. Lucie newspaper column complained, "Many years ago this serious error was perpetrated on Florida by an advertising agent of a railroad running through the South...Florida's portion was pictures of moss hung swamps, rattlesnakes, alligators, and negro babies labelled 'alligator bait'... this harmful psychology became very popular..doubtless many foreigners believing that these babies were actually used for alligator bait." In 1926 a columnist for The Eustis Lake Region called it "a piece of Florida fiction going the rounds which ancient spinsters in snowbound lands delighted to repeat as truth. It gave them a feeling of virtuous superiority over the denizens of the pleasant land of Florida."

In May 2013, Franklin Hughes of the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia at Ferris State University in Michigan argued that due to the number of periodicals which mention the use of black children as bait for alligators, it likely occurred, though it was not widespread or became a normal practice. Hughes essentially argues that since there was no discernible limit to the dehumanization and degradation of African Americans in the U.S. national history, feeding children to animals for sport cannot be precluded as a possible reality. Four years later, Hughes argued again that it likely occurred, though he also found an article from Time magazine, contemporaneous to one alleged incident printed in newspapers, which denied that the practice ever occurred and that the report was a "silly lie, false and absurd". In the 19th and early 20th century several stories were printed in American newspapers about the alleged practice. Academics have not assessed the authorship and likely veracity of these scattered news items, but Snopes article from 2017 was unable to find any meaningful evidence that the practice occurred; Patricia Turner told Snopes it likely never did. The Snopes writer said it was impossible to prove a negative claim, and that no proponents of the historicity of the practice have met their burden of proof by providing any evidence of the practice, although the trope of black children being the favorite food of alligators was already widespread in the antebellum United States. Jay Mechling's study of the American folklore of the alligator notes that "A common folk idea among whites is that alligators have a preference for blacks as a food source." For example, a 1850 article in Fraser's Magazine reported that alligators "prefer the flesh of a negro to any other delicacy". Per Mechling, the earliest instance of this lore is in a 1565 slave trader's account, and as late as the mid-20th century, in a story by Florida writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, a gator forgoes a group of naked white guys for the opportunity to gorge itself on an individual black man instead.

Alligator with black man in his jaws; card caption is "Free lunch in the Fla. Everglades"; full text of "The Florida Gator" poem is "Have you met the Florida Gator? He is the champion negro hater Although he finds many things to eat his favorite morsel is Negro meat"
Have you met the Florida Gator? He is the champion negro hater; this postcard image and lyric first appeared in the 1930s (Florida International University Libraries)

Linguistic use

In American slang, alligator bait (or 'gator bait) is a chiefly Southern slur aimed at black people, particularly children; the term implies that the target is worthless and expendable. A variant use, albeit also expressing distaste, was alligator bait as World War II-era U.S. military slang for prepared meals featuring chopped liver. The use of alligator bait to mean poor food (poor in senses of both flavor and socioeconomic class) had fallen out of use in the military by 1954.

The derogatory use of alligator bait is likely pre-Civil War in origin. In 1905 a Vienna, Georgia paper reported high cotton prices and wrote "The bench-legged pickaninny, once so attractive as alligator bait, is now tenderly nurtured and gets three 'squares' a day, for on him hangs the future hopes of big crops." In 1905 a postcard with no alligator imagery but picture of a crying black baby was sent to one Delia with the message "this is great alligator bait." In 1923 the Moline, Illinois sports page reported "The Plows used a wee hunk of alligator bait as bat boy yesterday, but the luck turned the other way. At any rate it must be admitted that the little fellow's presence added color." University of Florida fans were using the "uncomplimentary phrase" against Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets players in 1939.

Alligator bait appears in the lyrics of a 1940s swing-era jazz song called "Ugly Chile" (originally published 1917 as "Pretty Doll" by Clarence Williams). The song, which ends with a joke shared between performer and audience, is described as a "exorcism of an unacceptable fact" that is "funny and cogent in even the most unprivileged of readings. The version recorded by George Brunies goes:

Oh how I hate you
You alligator bait you
You knock-kneed, pigeon-toed, box-ankled too,
There's a curse on your family and a spell on you.

In 1968 Major League Baseball pitcher Bob Gibson recalled the slur being used against him while playing in Columbus, Georgia: "There was a particular fan there who used to ride me. He called me alligator bait. But then I found out just for kicks local folks would tie Negro youngsters to the end of a rope and drag them through swamps, trying to lure the alligators...That's where Negroes stood in Columbus." The Columbus sports page editor wrote a column castigating Gibson for bringing it up: "All local citizens, white and Negro, have already recognized for the myth that it is...I wouldn't be naive enough to deny that there were probably some rough things hurled at Gibson...but swamps and alligators? Really, Bob?" In 2020, the University of Florida ended the "Gator Bait" chant during athletic events; university historian Carl Van Ness said the chant likely started after the 1950s, and though it may not have originated from the racial slur, the two were connected. In the late 1990s African-American UF player Lawrence Wright popularized the phrase "If you ain't a Gator, you must be Gator Bait."

Similar tropes

The concept of children luring predators separately existed in colonial Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka). Sri Lankan children were said to have been used as bait for crocodiles, and several newspapers published stories and drawings of the purported practice.

Image gallery

Alligator bait

See also

Notes

  1. Dean (2000), p. 22.
  2. Mechling (1987), p. 75.
  3. ^ Dean (2000), p. 33.
  4. Mechling (1987), p. 73.
  5. Fulton (2006), pp. 127–128.
  6. ^ King (2005), p. 123.
  7. Slate (2009), p. 93.
  8. Finley (2019), p. 18.
  9. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (1999).
  10. Dean (2000), pp. 22–23.
  11. ^ Leab (1973), pp. 61.
  12. Tuck (2009), p. 417.
  13. Pearson (2021), pp. 32–33.
  14. Cox (2010), p. 207.
  15. Hatfield (2018), p. 124.
  16. Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (2) (1999).
  17. "The 'Gator and the Pickaninny (1900)".
  18. "Alligator Bait (1900)".
  19. Dean (2000), p. 23; Dubin (1987)
  20. Moser (1900).
  21. Knoxville Journal and Tribune (1900).
  22. Madison Eagle (1964).
  23. Mechling (1987), p. 92.
  24. ^ Slate (2009), p. 94.
  25. Hauserman (2003).
  26. Slate (2009), p. 95.
  27. Hinton (2009), pp. 101, 103.
  28. Turner (1994), pp. 32–35.
  29. Turner (1994), pp. 36.
  30. Turner (1994), pp. 38.
  31. Mechling (1987), pp. 78–84.
  32. Slate (2009), p. 91.
  33. Winter (1918).
  34. St. Lucie News Tribune (1919).
  35. Eustis Lake Region (1926).
  36. ^ Hughes (2013).
  37. Hughes (2017).
  38. ^ Emery (2017).
  39. ^ Mechling (1987), pp. 85–87.
  40. Emery (2017); Fraser's Magazine (1850)
  41. Herbst (1997), p. 8.
  42. Dickson (2014), p. 117.
  43. Wallrich (1954).
  44. Spears (1981), p. 7.
  45. Calt (2010), p. 4.
  46. Vienna News (1905).
  47. Baldwin (1988).
  48. Anderson (1923).
  49. Bradberry (1939).
  50. Adams & Park (1956), pp. 18–19.
  51. Chapin (1968).
  52. Darby (1968).
  53. Van Ness (2020).
  54. Staples (2020).
  55. de Silva & Somaweera (2015), p. 6806.
  56. Slate (2009), p. 92.

Bibliography

References

Primary sources

Further reading

  • Ethnic notions : Black images in the white mind : an exhibition of Afro-American stereotype and caricature from the collection of Janette Faulkner : September 12-November 4, 1982. Janette Faulkner, Robbin Henderson, Pamela Fabry, Adam David Miller. Berkeley, Calif.: Berkeley Art Center. 1982. ISBN 0942744004. LCCN 82001314. OCLC 8219750. This collection contains a large number of functional items dating from 1847 to the present...The stereotyping, style, composition, and line of the items reflects society's responses to slavery, the Emancipation Proclamation, World Wars I and II, and the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties as experiences in this country and as these events were perceived abroad. This collection focuses on caricatures of blacks which have been used to convey fear, support, or rejection of assigned roles. In America, caricature was used to maintain the right to exclude black people, and thus insure a total separation of the races. European caricatures supported America's need to legislate exclusion of Afro-Americans.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

External links

African-American caricatures and stereotypes
Stereotypes
Caricatures
Other
Urban legends
By region
North America
Canada
United
States
Continental and
mainland Asia
India
Japan
Philippines
Continental
Europe
France
Germany
Poland
Soviet Union/Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
England
Africa
Oceania
Australia
New Zealand
South America
Topic articles
Theorists
and analysis
TV series
In fiction
Related
Categories: