The Black Prizefighter
...sole weapon, governed for almost 100 years by seven simple rules. These concise and direct rules, (see appendix B), and the observation of them, were the only barriers that separated prizefighting from the realm of the barbaric. Unlike boxing, where combatants are restricted to the use of gloved fists, prizefighting incorporated and allowed for a plethora of martial arts. Gouging, hair pulling, grappling, wrestling, choking and in some cases biting and scratching, were all acceptable during the early years of the prize ring. Hitting with the fist was the main choice of attack, but it was often times these other manners of assault that separated the victor from the vanquished. Men fought for hours on end, in open-ended, fight to the finish contests that in many cases balanced not on who was the most skilled man, but who was the greater glutton. This initial volume of the Caramel Colored Kings: Black Genesis is the story of the black prizefighter, from his entrance into the game up through the end of the true bare-knuckle era (1760-1870). Encompassing roughly 100 years, and several different nations, the tale of the black prizefighter is one of curious inclusion, systematic segregation, grand victory and harsh defeat. In 1897, Richard K. Fox published the first known history of the black prizefighter entitled “The Lives and Battles of Famous Black Pugilists”. This magazine style work, printed on Fox’s own Police Gazette press, was basically a collection of biographical sketches gleaned from Pierce Egan’s Boxiana, Henry Miles’ Pugilistica and the Police Gazette itself. Commendable in its intent, “The Lives and Battles of Famous Black Pugilists”, was little more than re-hash of old hat, hastily put together by an over ambitious editor. Its main focus was not historical accuracy but rather fanciful biography; Fox trying mainly to sell more of his “sheets” to the boxing crazy public. However, despite its shortcoming, Fox’s volume was the earliest of its kind and the first real attempt by anyone to detail the lives and careers of the sport’s black practitioners. The second attempt to chronicle the journey of the black pugilist was Nat Fleischer’s far more ambitious Black Dynamite series that began publication in 1938. Released in five volumes, Fleischer’s work was both heavily flawed and repetitious. Nat, using the same sources as Fox, and in some cases simply plagiarizing directly from The Lives and Battles of Famous Black Pugilists, brought little to the table in terms of historical research. His first volume, which covers the bare-knuckle period, is shameless in its un-credited reiteration of Fox’s work and in essence was a cheap re-write of The Lives and Battles of Famous Black Pugilists. Fleischer was also unabashed in his use of poetic license, making up sources and fictionalizing events when unable to unearth the true facts. Some of his conclusions are downright ludicrous and have done more to further mystify and confuse the history of several of these fighting men than to clarify their lives, careers and impact. (Examples of Fleischer’s lack of true research and dedication to his subject are glaring in some portions of his work. In his chapter on Sambo Sutton, he intertwines the career of Sutton with that of Young Sambo, in essence claiming that they were one in the same. Sambo Sutton and Thomas Welsh, alias,Young Sambo were two different fighters in two separate weight classes. In another chapter he lists Bob Travers birth name as Charley Jones, when in fact Travers was merely trained early on in his career by an old time pugilist named Charley Jones. These very same mistakes were found, verbatim, in Fox’s work, further illustrating Fleischer’s lack of real research..) Despite his supreme dedication to the sport of boxing and his reputation as one of the sport’s great historians, Fleischer’s work on volume one of the Black Dynamite series was less than adequate. Never the less, Black Dynamite rem...