The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within U.S. Slave Culture

by Vincent Woodard, E. Patrick Johnson (Foreword), Dwight McBride (Editor)

Winner of the 2015 LGBT Studies Award presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation

Unearths connections between homoeroticism, cannibalism, and cultures of consumption in the context of American literature and US slave culture that has largely been ignored until now

Scholars of US and transatlantic slavery have largely ignored or dismissed accusations that Black Americans were cannibalized. Vincent Woodard takes the enslaved person’s claims of human consumption seriously, focusing on both the literal starvation of the slave and the tropes of cannibalism on the part of the slaveholder, and further draws attention to the ways in which Blacks experienced their consumption as a fundamentally homoerotic occurrence. The Delectable Negro explores these connections between homoeroticism, cannibalism, and cultures of consumption in the context of American literature and US slave culture.

Utilizing many staples of African American literature and culture, such as the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Harriet Jacobs, and Frederick Douglass, as well as other less circulated materials like James L. Smith’s slave narrative, runaway slave advertisements, and numerous articles from Black newspapers published in the nineteenth century, Woodard traces the racial assumptions, political aspirations, gender codes, and philosophical frameworks that dictated both European and white American arousal towards Black males and hunger for Black male flesh. Woodard uses these texts to unpack how slaves struggled not only against social consumption, but also against endemic mechanisms of starvation and hunger designed to break them. He concludes with an examination of the controversial chain gang oral sex scene in Toni Morrison’s Beloved, suggesting that even at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first century, we are still at a loss for language with which to describe Black male hunger within a plantation culture of consumption.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Race, Politics, LGBT, Sociology, Social Justice

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 27, 2014

About the author

Vincent Woodard (1971–2008) was Assistant Professor of English at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He received his PhD in English from the University of Texas, Austin in 2002.

Reviews

[Erica Elise Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a hard read to say the least. It took me a while to read this because to see how depraved and degenerate these WS were and still are is not easy to read. I suggest listening to the COWS w/ Gus T Renegade podcast review on YouTube and reading on this book. My review won't do it justice.

[Ayanna Dozier · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within U.S. Slave Culture masterfully analyzes slave narratives to trace how the act of human ownership is akin to sexual and physical consumption of the flesh. Indeed, the act of cannibalism is both metaphorical and literal in Woodard’s book. In analyzing the ultimate crime against the flesh (that of eating another person), The Delectable Negro uncovers how sexual encounters during and after slavery were deeply entwined with the act of human consumption. This is to say, that the act of owning another body (that is considered your property) may have produced erotic pleasures when enacting violence against those bodies. In a gruesome narrative, Woodard analyzes how a slave master apparently roasted an “unruly” slave and forced his other slaves to consume its flesh. Woodard focuses on the pleasure of the slave master and his statement that he had the “biggest ball” while conducting the act as testament to homoerotic nature that slavery produced. What Woodard’s book allows scholars to do is to see how sexual trauma affected all slaves amidst the lack of male slave voices who would have been open to sharing their sexual abuse. Additionally, The Delectable Negro also throws the question of gender during slavery into a necessary turmoil as well. Scholars of race, slavery studies, gender, queer, and cultural studies will find this book of high importance for their scholarship.

[Dna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update: Incredible read!


Really good book, but I’ve stalled on it since starting it in February, simply because it is SO dark and disturbing. I will slow-read this throughout the year, just to make a point of finishing it. This book deserves to be read.

[maya ☆ (aced her finals!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

after almost a month, i have finally tame this thick and tenacious beast of a book with less than 250. yes, it took me almost a month to read less than 250 pages. but it was a gratifying read. a clear 4.5 stars for me.

this is a dense nonfiction. if you hit someone with this, you could be sued for battery. in its subject, it is long and heavy but it is also layered, nuanced and thorough. it is one of these nonfictions you absolutely have to be prepared to read and must be interested in the subject matter bcs if you doubt it, you’re not going to make it. look at me — it was arduous but i made it (out alive). cannibalism was always a thing that was rumored and i had never found any substantial evidence or anything to back it up. but as a black person, it just wasn’t a coincidence that almost all the compliments specifically targeted black women have to do with food - “chocolate queen” “caramel goddess” . and i had heard etymological tales of which the word “picnic” actually stemmed from this activity where white people would lynch a black person as if it were a show and in some communities, eat the black person as a delicacy- that activity would be “pick-a-nigger”. of course i know now that the word ‘picnic’ doesn’t stem from that activity (it's from 17th century french) but the word was co-opted in some instances in the american antebellum south. it feels validating to hear scholars like vincent woodard took slaves’ cries seriously and proved them with vigor and vehemence. he also went the extra mile and prove that the eating of black people still continues metaphorically in literature - bcs you know, literally eating black people and their genitalia wasn’t enough, we also have to eat their memories and legacy (i’m looking at william styron and his construction of black revolutionary and insurrectionist slave and martyr nat turner — btw this is one of my argument in my essay but it’s in french so it’s okay… i think…)

while woodard was thorough in his research, i do have to admit that it was a drag and at times, really depressing to read this essay. i lead myself to believe it would flow similarly to sherronda j brown’s refusing compulsory sexuality, but this stuff is much heavier and truly requires your entire focus and brain power to understand what he’s saying. like this is ACADEMIC acedemic. it was whooping my ass so hard, i got dizzy often.

overall, i recommend it to the folks who know they will enjoy this and the black folks in academia. heavy stuff but its importance in african-american studies is undisputable.

[Aaron Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof. This has so many problems. It contains provocative ideas, sure, but I rarely read a book in which the author so frequently produces readings that are specifically at odds with the objects of analysis. Most of Woodard's texts resist the readings he does of them. Sometimes he acknowledges that, but other times he tells us that a text says something it clearly does not say. Reading this was a very strange experience.

[Jai · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book already knowing and understanding the subject matter so I mentally prepared myself. Unfortunately I’m not surprised at the atrocities we were subjected to. This book was a lot to digest. To really think of slavery as black people being consumed made me see things differently.

Our bodies were being literally being used to fuel white people. Our labor got them food, shelter and all the amenities that that desired. Our bodies were broken and used for their enjoyment. Then I learned not just about Nat turner being consumed after he was executed but also other examples of slaves being lynched and murdered to feed white people, because they thought we were expendable and just a commodity like a cow or pig.

Delving into the homoerotism wasn’t anymore eye opening than it is now. Black bodies are highly sought after in certain spaces. So many myths and stereotypes persist about us.

[Monique Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only in chewing and swallowing others human flesh,but the consumption of energy,and souls. Consumption of energy,the slaver girl got deathly ill when her personal slave was sold but became instantly well when the doctor wrote her a prescription for the personal slave too come back. A consumption of souls, the young child Equiano was turned into a soulless monster by soulless Europeans. The author or the editors or both even attempts too make Fredrick Douglas a voyeur rapist when he witnessed his aunt getting violated by a white man. I maintain homosexuality is a European concept and always has been

[Jess Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was… something.

To be clear, I’m not critiquing the fact of consumption in the trans atlantic slave trade, whether socially, capitally, or by literal cannibalism, slaves were exploited and consumed.

My issue begins with the idea of rape being erotic. Rape, regardless of how it comes about, is always about power. The idea that eroticism plays a part in the rape of male slaves comes across as demeaning, especially when combined with Vincent’s argument of “Black Hunger.” From where I’m standing, it almost sounds like he’s arguing that slaves took part in, and even sometimes enjoyed, their own rape and mutilation.

In addition, I understand cannibalism is often used in literature and other media to portray an uncontrollable passion and desire, but it feels disingenuous to apply that symbol to reality. Did slave masters have an unyielding passion for their slaves while dismembering them and treating them as cattle? Perhaps, but only in so much as that passion was founded in the enjoyment of other’s suffering.

Finally, I feel that the author filled in historical blanks to suit his own needs, making assumptions with a lack of evidence based on historical documents.

I have a lot of thoughts on this, but it genuinely took everything in me not to DNF. Maybe I just need to read more on the subject, maybe I’m not fully understanding, but as it stands, this book did not convince me of the homo eroticism in slave culture, and actually repelled me from looking further into it.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - Great writing, great content, but I felt like a lot of the information just repeated itself on loop and felt like it was jumping around as a result. It could've been more funneled. I still definitely appreciate the research and work that went into this book though, because this not something we generally hear or have the opportunity to learn about.

[Thokozani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. It highlights though, that black history especially the slavery period has been masked by the very same black historians to hide certain aspects of humiliation bestowed by the slavers (whites) on blacks. This has served as detriment to the forthcoming generations to know the actual past, essential truth which hinders moving forward for blacks. Although, the author’s emphasis was to prove that homosexual has existed for centuries, perhaps with its origins from Central Africa. The book provides insight that homoeroticism was used as a tool to effeminate black people.

[Gay City LGBTQ Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deep comprehensive discussion and accounts of the US Slave Culture described in 21st century interpretation and language of today. Woodard socially contextualizes US slave institution from the post-Freudian psychology of the sexualization of all the players in the plantation culture.

[kristyn ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ · Rating 5 out of 5]

i am sick and tired of learning about american history 8+ years after taking a history course. this is why history needs to be taught, and in detail, to know how depraved and despicable our ancestors were and how we can learn and grow from it. slavery is a stain on our country that we are still repairing from, coming from a white woman. i am truly ashamed that we put many though something so horrific.

[Daniel Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

it was a difficult read, talking about the literal and figurative (emotional and labor) consumption of Black bodies. It is important for folks to understand that slavery is much more than what we get taught in school. I would strongly recommend it.

[Courtney Kruzan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vincent Woodward really did the scholarly labor for this piece. At times, I knew I did not have the intelligence or experience to fully understand, but damn I still learned so much.

[Degenerate Chemist]

I am not going to rate this even though I did finish reading this for two reasons. 1) the topic is a bit outside my wheelhouse 2) the book requires deeper knowledge of texts I am only passingly familiar with.

The topics discussed in this book are provocative and ones I think that deserve attention. The consumption of Black bodies is still an issue today so the topics discussed are very relevant.

All that being said, this book is very disturbing (as you might guess from the title) and well worth the read.

[Isha Salcido · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not one to leave reviews, but I would like others to understand that this book would be a difficult read for those who haven’t read in some time or a beginner. I’ve been reading all my life and I could genuinely say this book is more complex and difficult. I just think the author could’ve written it for a broader audience.

[Constance Hollie-Jawaid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book as part of my doctoral research. It is one of the most difficult books I've ever had to read. It is very disturbing, upsetting, but a very necessary read that should be read by every descendant of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

[iris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very worthwhile read.

[bigreader · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see this book everywhere I go and will be sitting with the various theories on Black consumption for a while.

Ultimately, this is a brave and ambitious project that insists we reconsider discomforts and assumptions historically cast on Black homoeroticism and same-sex incidents. I am thankful woodward’s work was made public and am further saddened by his untimely passing.

I would love to know what he thinks about how far our ability to articulate the consumptive nature of our current society and explore (and accept) Black homoerotic experience has (or hasn’t) come nearly two decades later. I am sure he would’ve had a field day with sl*ve pl*y.

[Nadia L. Hohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough and, at times, difficult to listen to and too graphic. I learned about this book in a Instagram video. I had never heard about cannibalism of enslaved people but it all made sense in the literal and metaphorical sense. The research around homoeroticism in literature and documents was detailed. It got me asking questions about the conditions of slavery and enslaved peoples. I appreciated that it went beyond the US into Cuba and Africa. I learned a lot.

[Rin]

feels wrong to rate this. it was very interesting!

[roach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I genuinely think the people who rated this poorly and do not think he fulfilled his claims don’t know what citations are. I don’t think I have much to add in terms of a review but I do think that this is somewhat of a must read for anyone in the realms of politics or social sciences

[ariana · Rating 5 out of 5]

TL;DR: A great read. Intense. Deep. Fascinating. Challenging. Ambitious. Woodard provides a fresh opening into understanding the complex nature of fluid identities on the American plantation.

___

“Our new and first priority should be the mapping and excavating of the interior. Where we have feared to expose our deepest hungers and libidinal drives, we should now see these energies and domains of experience as guideposts and indicators of a new and vital terrain of black experience.”

___


The Delectable Negro is a challenging — often times, offensive to every sense — book, one which requires a slow, patient, considerate and disarmed read. I can definitely see it as an important reference work. I have sticky notes on every other page; my worldview has been stretched.

Woodard dealt very openly and boldly — some of his fellow scholars and peers might say, dishonorably — with the perversions of love, desire, intimacy and romance on the American slave plantation. He puts forth very plausible, even if sometimes disagreeable, arguments about the complex, malleable nature of erotica on the plantation.

Some of the most fascinating moments for me were:
1. Mother Hunger
2. Codes of Honor / Dishonor (and how that affected/s slave narratives)
3. Identity Fluidity under Pressure (and the purposes it served)
4. Black Male Interiority

I was prepared to give this four stars, until the end when Woodard addressed a question that had been lingering in my mind throughout this book, as well as The Isis Papers: What is the African precedent / legacy by which enslaved Africans in the U.S. could reclaim the fluidity of their identities separate and apart from tragic circumstance? Had he not in some way addressed that, his whole perspective would have been, for me, lacking.

That said, Woodard was incredibly ambitious, perhaps too ambitious, as the depth and complexity of the subject was probably worth another 1-200 pages; however, given the thoroughness with which his editors were able to recover citations, this work could be considered “continued” and “complete” within the larger scholarly canon around related topics. The editors did a great job of holding to Woodard’s wish.

My primary critique is that, in the last two chapters, especially “Eating Nat Turner” (I assume this is inspired by bell hooks’ chapter, as I have not yet gone through the Notes), the clarity of Woodard’s perspective on the emergence and origins of the modern homosexual Black male gets muddled in counterarguments. I had a hard time keeping track of what he thought, and when he did interject, it seemed to be counterproductive to the picture he had painted in the early part of the book. The insight about African cultural traditions in the very end, however, was a bit of a saving grace.

Typos are excusable given the quality of the overall book.

[Tyler Hal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Woodard has some bold ideas and broad claims, likening brutality against black male bodies to rape, peering into different works of literature and personal letters for homoerotic subtexts, and later focusing on the idea of the kind of masculinity modern black gay men are entitled to on the fringes of a black society that feels betrayed by their existence. I learned a lot from this book; I had no idea that Fredrick Douglass was about that life or that Nat Turner was reduced to grease after his death?! Every new thing I learn about slavery disturbs and boggles my mind. The bald cruelty of it— no wonder racism in America hasn’t been solved yet.

Like with most of the academic texts I read, I plan to comb back through it with a highlighter and read those texts mentioned that interest me. I’m inspired to read Douglass’s books. There’s a narrative about a father and a daughter, there’s a “Black Men Discuss” round table, there’s a “tight space” to be researched and so much more. Although I found some of the parallels drawn to be unsubstantiated, others were spot on. The parasitic relationship between master and slave, how the slave must soothe the master’s tantrums when they paradoxically hold all the power, and how there was and still in a culture of human consumption around the slave system in the U.S., over the years it’s only shifted from slaves, to prison inmates that happen to be mostly black and brown.

[Traci Navarrette · Rating 1 out of 5]

It just wasn’t for me. Lots of assertions and pontificating about how white people loved to “consume” slaves, but not that many actual examples by chapter 3 so I had to give up on it.

[counter-hegemonicon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Redundant, critical theory mumbo jumbo, too much of the spectacular character of Black suffering, obscene and perverse conclusions about Black and white homoeroticism in the antebellum US

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think the cannibalism and the homoeroticism should have been separate books. i understand the way the author links them but it didn’t work for me.

[Jewel Magadán Gonzales · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, the reason I picked this book up is because I had just finished The Fires of Jubilee and was kind of enamored with Nat Turner and his remarkable childhood. Then, I saw some random TikTok where this girl was like “White people literally ate Nat Turner.” And I was like “wtf?” I went into the comments section and people were arguing about it, so I googled “White people ate Nat Turner” and this book came up. So, I bought it. Dude, this book is heavy af. This is the first time I have ever stopped to literally vomit after reading, due to the graphic content in this book. However, I felt that I owed it to the people whose narratives were discussed in the book to continue reading and hear their truths. Vincent Woodard analyzes a shit ton of African American literature, including many slave narratives, and he decodes the stories behind their language to reveal a disturbing (to say the absolute least) truth about the consumption of slaves in the antebellum south. He describes how the slave was consumed in every way imaginable, from spiritually, to sexually, to literally physically and more. I don’t think I could even explain every aspect of what Woodard discusses in the book. I know I will definitely reread it at some point. (Can I say I think I may have dissociated a couple of times while reading?) There was so much that he uncovered- excavated, really- and my brain definitely did not grasp it all the first time around. I appreciated that he gave a voice to Sojourner Truth in a way that she couldn’t do for herself too directly for fear of not being believed. There was a line that was too risky to cross. She knew people were willing to believe that slaves were treated cruelly and that women were raped by men, but they would likely not be willing to believe that women raped women, men raped men, and women raped men. In addition to this, Woodard tells us how slave narratives describe the literal cannibalism and consumption of slaves, yet people read those words and brushed them off as exaggerations, figurative language, or even mocked them and thought their stories to be fantastical. Anyway, The Delectable Negro is a tough read but I feel like everyone should read it… twice. Vincent Woodard discusses the intersecting themes of race, gender, and sexuality in the context of US Slave Culture. As such, the topics discussed in the book may seem abstract or overly academic to some, but Woodard writes his book in such a conversational tone that even someone like me could keep up. During the book, the thought that kept coming to mind was “what’s done in the dark, will eventually come to light.” I appreciate Vincent Woodard for shining that light before his passing in 2008. (His book was published posthumously). It’s important that we look at ourselves as a nation and face the realities of our past in order to more deeply understand our present. Oh, and yeah… they totally ate Nat Turner.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I *devoured* this book—mostly out of eagerness to understand a premise that felt completely overlooked in how I was taught history. The idea that slavery involved not just labor and violence, but also emotional, spiritual, and erotic consumption was one of the most eye-opening frameworks I’ve encountered. Woodard forces the reader to sit with how hunger and domination shaped daily life—not just for the enslaved, but for the white people whose power depended on consuming them in every sense.

His perspective as a Black gay academic is a clear strength, especially in how he centers homoeroticism and psychosexual power dynamics. While the book doesn’t claim to offer a full gender analysis, the absence of Black women still limits its scope. Some readings lean heavily on psychoanalysis, and I occasionally wished for more focus on resistance or community. But considering it was published posthumously and ahead of its time, it remains one of the most unsettling, rethinking of history I’ve read.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a fun beach read, but massively important and an incredibly daring achievement. I read, admired and appreciated this impassioned and deeply disturbing book and would almost insist it be an essential addition in both history and human sexuality studies, but the subject matter would aggressively repel and discourage a lot of students and professors alike.

Which is exactly why the book is honorable and brilliant for daring to engage with what generations of writers and historians have purposefully avoided: analyzing the presence of homosexuality, male-on-male rape, incest, cannibalism and masochism during slavery. Having never before considered the questions Vincent Woodard interrogates (and answers) here, I've realized entire libraries of information have been negated and purposely avoided. What other stories and truths from history have been glossed over and neglected due only to a researcher or readers 'discomfort'?