There are others on this board who have made the suggestion that such a program did in fact, exist.  your suggestion seems eminently reasonable and agrees with the facts that I am aware of.Scout if you mean me please show me a quote where I suggest such a thing. If I did say a large scale slave breeding project exsisted, I'll eat my hat.I suggest that a large scale program is not possible simply because most slave owners only held one or two slaves. We are talking about maybe 5% who held a couple hundred.Maybe some slaves were allowed to choose thier partners, from what I've read (see F. Douglass & Jefferson) most were not. "A quiet toungue was a wise head"-Douglass, What slave would openly critisize the master?Genetic traits can be passed in one generation, point in fact, sickle cell anemia, diabetes, congenital blindness, cystic fibrosis and others, why not skill, speed and height? I like the theory of animal husbandry, how about a hunter who can't throw a spear due to injury or genetic weakness? Will he observe that a plot of land can be planted and harvested to feed his family and trade for meat? His offspring may be less athletic but will eat and reproduce anyway.

It was a horrible thing to do take people from their homes ship them across the ocean and force them to work. However it did help the country grow by increasing the output of the plantations which increased trade with other nations. Back then slavery was all over the world not just in the USA. One of the reasons there are some really big black people is they used to breed the best of thier stock together to make stronger workers. Now a lot of professional sports players are black and this might just be because there was slavery in America.

Here is the quote.Cadremum it seems that you and I are arguing the same point from different sides.  I say the evidence poitns against a breeding program on a large scale.  You say that a small scale one undoubtedly existed.  Same argument, different presentation. 🙂

Genetic traits can be passed in one generation, point in fact, sickle cell anemia, diabetes, congenital blindness, cystic fibrosis and others, why not skill, speed and height?

Yes, cadremum, welcome to the forum. (sorry I didn't welcome you earlier  :-[)True, a disease or height can be passed in one generation, but how many earlier generations had the recessive gene for that disease/trait?I still think skill and speed are learned, not genetic.

True, a disease or height can be passed in one generation, but how many earlier generations had the recessive gene for that disease/trait?I still think skill and speed are learned, not genetic.

Now here is a great big ball of wax Scout and Skiguy, and all.Brian Sykes writes in "Seven Daughters of Eve", how important sickle cell anemia (effects Africans) and thalasseamia (effects Turkey, Mediterranean) was to understanding the migration of humans. Both diseases evolved to combat malaria, the sickle cell or elongated blood cell is more difficult for the malaria parasites to infect. If you are born of one parent carrying the mutated hemoglobin, you have a natural resistance to malaria. If both parents have mutation, you have sickle cell anemia or thalasseamia, most kids with either of these diseases die before age five, the disease persists because of the ressecive quality to the mutation.  Geneticists find markers in mutated genes, calculate (alas, a miracle occurs) and it can be determined how groups migrated by the frequency of markers in certain sequences.Physical prowess, like eye color, could be ressecive, no argument there.I know that there was a project to determine anscestry of a group of well known black entertainers and educators, Oprah, Chris Rock, and others. The focus was on origins, not specified attributes, I think  that it would be considered racist, not by me but being white I may be a poor judge of the sensitivity factor. 

Please ignore my chuckle headed-ness today, too many distractions!