“Color is only Skin Deep”: Black Pigs and the Rendering of Race in the Early American Republic

Shortly after the American Civil War, agricultural writer Joseph Harris implored his readers to remember that “Color is only skin deep!”[1] The phrase had regularly appeared in American abolitionist publications since the 1790s, but Harris’ use of it had little relation to this traditional context. Instead, his comment referred to black-haired pigs, and his audience was the many American farmers who stubbornly refused to raise or sell these often economically-advantageous breeds due to their dark skin. This paper explores the cultural aversion to black-haired pigs in relation to shifting conceptions of race from 1790 to 1830, particularly in the United States. By analyzing the textual and visual reception of popularly produced images of black swine, I demonstrate that these visualizations served as sites where Enlightenment interests in scientific and economic improvement came into conflict with simultaneously held notions of racial hierarchy. To resolve these tensions, agricultural advocates employed abolitionist rhetoric to frame black pigs as worthy components of the “proper American farm;” yet these sources often denied this same rationale to the enslaved African American body also on that farm. The examination of black pigs therefore frames race as a mutable and economically-dependent concept, and opens a larger discussion into the racialization of bodies (both African American and white, male and female, as well as porcine) and their intersection within the social ideology of early American racism.

1 Joseph Harris, “Walks and Talks on the Farm, No, 74 - Essex and Grades,” American Agriculturist 29, no. 2 (February 1870): 54-55.