WENDELL, yes, I understand standard deviations, probability distributions, regression to/ward the mean, etc, but the sheer disparity (a height differential of 12, 14, possible even 16 inches, in some cases) is striking.
To your second point about people in the 18th and 19th centuries being largely indifferent to the subject at hand, people back then (as today) had an insatiable appetite for the odd, the lurid, the bizarre, and would gather and gawk at (and sometimes mock, tease and, yes, write about) all manner of unusual people and things. Witness the freak shows of that era and the lurid fascination in “human oddities.” Many southern families kept detailed journals about the most mundane topics. Now, did many write about their slaves? Probably not. Perhaps it was considered ill-bred to do so, I say ironically, but surely a few would have done so. Question is, would early newspapers in the south have commented about the 6 foot 8 inch field hand, even in passing? Perhaps writing about slaves in any way regarded as sympathetic or as underscoring their humanity was verboten, as the idea was to dehumanize the slave, thus removing any moral considerations re: their enslavement.
I should think her height is independent of anyone standing next to her.
Sherlock Homes moment: Judging by the man’s lapels, I’d put her at 6 feet 11.25 inches. Had she signed with Barnum & Bailey, they’d have placed her a crate.
Why? Are there many records of unenslaved people who were unusually tall? Sure, we all know that Abraham Lincoln was tall and gangly, but he was famous for other reasons.
Yes, Puzzlegal, I am confident that some diaries, journals, and newspapers from 1716 through (1808 or 1865) did take note of uncommonly tall white Americans, at least as intriguing outliers or curiosities or simply as a point of pride to the family scribe. I also readily concede most of southern society had no interest in the people they enslaved – short, tall, fit or fat – as they were chattel. As late as the 1860 Census, the Slave Schedules referenced southern slaves by first name only, mainly because so few slaves possessed last names until the conclusion of the Civil War.
One mistake I’m making is that of scale. My vision of a hundred or more slaves working a field, and among them, several “uncommonly tall” male slaves standing perhaps a half-foot above the others, is wrong. On the typically much-smaller plantations and farms of that era, these individuals might have numbered at most just one or two persons on even the largest farms, which clearly escaped the attention of sharp-eyed social observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville. In other words, exceptionally tall slaves were far and few between – maybe one in this county, two in that county, etc. Given their poor diets (and likely arthritic spines, causing stooping), even the tallest of the tall may have topped out at 6 foot 5 inches, rather than six to twelve inches taller among their descendants today.
Is it my imagination, or is there a strong likelihood that the lady in the picture is standing on a box or something under that dress? Otherwise she has abnormally long legs?
Very tall men have a lot of opportunities to pass on their genes, maybe a small sampling of very tall men multiplied quicker than they would in a normal social structure.
There’s a lot of information online about the diet of slaves, such as this:
The slaves’ diet was probably dominated by plant foods. Especially on coastal plantations broken and dirty rice was plentiful and may have been the staple of the slave diet. Meat was probably a relatively uncommon luxury and, when available, almost certainly represented the least meaty cuts of the animal such as the legs, feet, jaw, and skull. Better cuts were probably reserved for the planter’s table.
In the eighteenth century slaves mostly ate stews or other “one-pot” meals. These might consist of small quantities of meat, especially hog fat, used as seasoning combined with large quantities of plant foods. Allowed to simmer, or stew, on a low fire during the day, the meal would be ready by nightfall when the slaves were finally finished with their daily tasks. The presence of these “one-pot” meals is not only supported by the food remains found by the archaeologist, but also by the presence of small clay cooking pots and small clay bowls. Rarely are plate forms found. In fact, it is even uncommon to find eating utensils at these early slave sites.
