# Were fights between enslaved people (and their enslavers betting on them) ever a thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 29, 2025, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312 "2025-03-29T16:41:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/1 "2025-03-29T16:41:45Z")
In [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-story-about-an-enslaved-man-who-earns-his-freedom-through-fighting-other-enslaved-men/1016311), I ask about a book I heard about years ago, in which an enslaved man makes money for the man who enslaved him by bare-knuckle fighting other enslaved men (and being unbeatable). Was this a thing in the Antebellum South in the US (or, really I suppose, at any point in human history)? ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/2 "2025-03-29T16:48:42Z")
Tom Molineaux, a formerly enslaved prize fighter, claims he learned his craft fighting for his enslaver. > **[» A Fighter Abroad](https://grantland.com/features/brian-phillips-boxing-career-freed-american-slave-tom-molineaux/)** Although this historian claims there were no such fights, or at least very rare. > **[Was There Really “Mandingo Fighting,” Like in Django Unchained?](https://slate.com/culture/2012/12/django-unchained-mandingo-fighting-were-any-slaves-really-forced-to-fight-each-other-to-the-death.html)** > > Much of Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s blaxploitation Western about an ex-slave’s revenge against plantation owners, centers on a practice... ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/3 "2025-03-29T20:52:09Z")
Weren’t most Roman gladiators slaves, and didn’t the people bet on them? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/4 "2025-03-30T00:30:52Z")
That article said that fights _to the death_ were unknown. > Slaves were sometimes sent to fight for their owners; it just wasn’t to the death. Tom Molineaux was a Virginia slave who won his freedom—and, for his owner, $100,000—after winning a match against another slave. He went on to become the first black American to compete for the heavyweight championship when he fought the white champion Tom Cribb in England in 1810. (He lost.) According to Frederick Douglass, wrestling and boxing for sport, like festivals around holidays, were “among the most effective means in the hands of the slaveholder in keeping down the spirit of insurrection.” Fights themselves were very common. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/5 "2025-03-30T01:03:58Z")
For that matter, fights to the death were quite rare in the gladiator era, too. A gladiator was way too valuable to waste in that way. It did happen occasionally, as well as the occasional accidental death in the arena, but it was far from the norm. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/6 "2025-03-30T02:13:38Z")
My fault, I had read that article when it first posted and didn’t reread it before posting. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-fights-between-enslaved-people-and-their-enslavers-betting-on-them-ever-a-thing/1016312/7 "2025-03-30T20:59:15Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > He went on to become the first black American to compete for the heavyweight championship (This is something that @Exapno_Mapcase quoted, not their words.) I _believe_ the fight preceded the introduction weight divisions, and that the fight was simply for the world championship of boxing. j