Board games have been a part of social life for generations, reflecting and sometimes shaping cultural values. The representation of African Americans in board games has undergone a significant evolution, mirroring broader shifts in American race relations.
The new tabletop-game craze arose in the 1990s. Gamers of my generation (born in the ‘60s) grew up on wargames (Avalon Hill, SPI), role-playing games (TSR), and wayward brands that remain unknown to most Americans (Battleline, Eon Games, Metagaming). We lived in a pocket of nerd-dom that rarely attracted attention, unless it was to blame Dungeons and Dragons for corrupting the youth and turning them into Satanists. After college, most of us dropped it. Jobs, spouses, and kids made it impracticable to convert the basement into the hills of Pennsylvania for a never-ending recreation of Pickett’s Charge. Then along came the German games, a new generation of board games that offered something for the whole family. Settlers of Catan is probably the best-known of these. The game required only a quick evening rather than a days-long marathon. Additionally, it favored elegant gameplay that could be learned quickly and could engage intellects at all levels. The older military simulations (think Advanced Squad Leader) could take months if not years to learn fully, while simple children’s games bored parents silly. Here were games truly for the entire family. A whole new generation of game-playing emerged, built on an educated and moneyed consumer base with an insatiable taste for new gaming experiences, and a desire to socialize the next generation to the hobby. They were the perfect family alternative to the atomizing computer.
Settlers of Catan, a popular Eurogame
Early Representations: Caricatures and Hostility
The most primitive period was by far the longest. Early games often reflected white hostility towards Blacks, presenting them through caricatures ranging from the benign to the aggressively violent. These depictions were common in various forms of entertainment, including literature, advertisements, theater, and games.
One example of racial aggression and sadism was blatantly obvious in target games. In 1878 the C.W.F. Co. manufactured a device attached to a delicately balanced plank upon which a Black person sat. The target, if hit squarely, caused the sitter to be dumped into the tank below. These games were common at resorts, fairs, and festivals, with small prizes awarded for a direct hit. Live targets were not always easy to come by, with protective wooden helmets covered with curly hair. Other target games of the era came in a wide variety of forms.
An example of an antique target game featuring caricatures
Bagatelle games, the precursor of pinball, were another form of target game. The "Gropper On. M. White," featured Black characters exclusively. Numerous other companies made and distributed variations of bowling games in the early 1920s.
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Card games also featured Black stereotypes which appealed to the American middle-class market. In the popular card game "Dr. Busby" (1843), cards featured names like "Jazzbo Jackson," and "Melon Moe". Around 1905 J.R. Carpenter Co. introduced "Nigger Baby," advertised as comical.
The Persistence of Stereotypes
Even seemingly innocuous games contained elements of ridicule. In 1940, All-Metals Products Co. produced a target for use with their toy pistol set, featuring caricatures with no hair. These stereotypes persisted since antebellum times.
The evolution that reflects three distinct eras in American race relations. The most primitive period was by far the longest. The blatant sadism of the name is clear.
The Civil Rights Era and Beyond: A Shift Towards Invisibility
African Americans remained invisible in the game genre long after they achieved de jure equality of their rights. The presence of Black people disappeared entirely from games during the turbulent civil rights years.
Significantly, the Eurogame explosion of the 1990s entirely changed boardgames’ themes. By “theme” I mean a game’s central metaphor, or ostensible subject of simulation - in short, what the game says it is about (in Monopoly, for instance, the game is about buying and trading real estate). This is in contrast to “mechanics,” which are the actual rules of a game (in Monopoly, a central mechanic is “roll and move”). Themes of war took a seat in the wayback. (It’s no surprise that the first and best of these new games emerged in Germany, a place unlikely to champion martial themes in entertainment products.) Out were battles and military conflict. Newly ascendant were trains, farms, medieval towns and cathedrals, and desert caravans. So the new Eurogames built their appeal on eliding military simulations and direct conflict. And yet, I want to suggest, these games have not entirely withstood some troubling representations, as I will shortly demonstrate. I am asking why this is.
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Modern Games: Embracing Black Pride and Achievements
More recent games have started to incorporate African Americans' accomplishments into their offerings as they revised games or created new ones, promoting Black pride. Among lesser-known manufacturers, the John N. Hansen Co. produced versions of "JUNIOR TRIVIA" (ca. 1985), highlighting contributions beyond sports heroes such as "Dr. J." (Julius Irving).
of Stamford, Connecticut, educator Deloris L., included African Americans in the arts, media, sports and history. Henry Zino, the Two Ira Aldridge, and the Ace Edward Kennedy (Duke) Ellington.
As boardgames move steadily toward the mainstream, the attention they draw has led publishers into increasingly deep considerations of the difficult issue of presenting slavery in games with historical themes. Freedom: The Underground Railroad, tackles the issue head on. Rather than asking players to identify with those who might enslave, the game asks you to take on the role of abolitionists helping fugitive slaves achieve their liberty. Interestingly, play is cooperative, meaning that players work together against the system rather than each other.
Freedom: The Underground Railroad
The representation of African Americans in board games has evolved from hostility to at least grudging respect. This evolution reflects broader shifts in American race relations, though challenges and complexities remain.
Undertaking this task for boardgames is far too monumental for a forum such as this. For now, let’s consider another illustrative instance: Puerto Rico, one of the most famous and important games of the last twenty years. The brainchild of a great designer (Andreas Seyfarth), it has won innumerable awards, sat near the top of the Boardgamegeek rankings for years, and has spawned a host of imitators and epigones. Players assume the role of colonial overlords on the island of Puerto Rico, presumably (though abstractly) from the beginning of its settlement. As a game, it’s a classic. As history, like many Euros, it leaves much to be desired. For example, tobacco, which the island never produced in quantity until the twentieth century, is far more valuable than the sugar that drove its economy for over a century. And one searches the scholarship in vain for evidence that the island ever produced indigo in quantity. Worst of all, though, the game requires “colonists” - in the form of small brown tokens - to be imported to occupy the plantations and buildings necessary to produce. The point here is not to censure the game, for its point was never to teach anyone the real history of Puerto Rico, or engage in moral discussions over the slavery. Rather, I merely wish to mark the interesting cultural space it occupies. How strange that a medium (Eurogames) that developed around “peaceful” themes wound up representing slavery so obtusely. Perhaps the narrow niche that modern boardgaming occupies has insulated it from the kinds of searing cultural criticisms impossible to avoid in, say, feature films with historical themes.
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To be fair, the questions I’m raising here have long been topics of conversation within the community of gamers. The forums on boardgamegeek are rife with such discussions (check out this one, which discusses the complete neglect of slavery in Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery). Indeed, the intense inter-textuality that characterizes boardgame design as a whole is evident in ongoing questions regarding the presentation of slavery in games. Puerto Rico may have missed it, but followers did not. Some games built on the expansion theme, such as Endeavor, treat slavery as a game element with benefits and pitfalls that players must weigh (using slaves might provide short-term benefits, but those slaves may revolt, or slavery might be abolished). Struggle of Empires takes this further, so fully incorporating slavery into its model of imperial expansion that one player thoughtfully reflected that in playing it he has “been part of countless virtual atrocities.” Other games, such as the more broadly themed Archipelago, avoid slaves altogether, but permit you to recruit native workers who may get angry and eventually revolt - a game-ending scenario.
The recent hue and cry over removing the Confederate battle flag from southern statehouses has raised similar concerns. In the wake of the Charleston tragedy, major online and storefront retailers have refused to sell Confederate flag merchandise (in much the same way that Ebay has a longstanding policy forbidding the sale of products promoting malevolent political ideologies such as National Socialism). (Here‘s the WSJ’s version of the announcement.) Since many games treat the Civil War, the issue has spilled into the gaming world. Apple has joined others in removing apps deemed to use the flag offensively, a move that has upset makers of Civil War-themed games. Gamers have noted that Battle Cry, a popular Civil War game, was removed from Amazon’s listings (though, if so, it was only temporary, as I found the game with no problem). We will see how it settles, but I sense considerable over-reaction on both sides. Amazon did not return my inquiry before this was published, but certainly it seems absurd to summarily remove from sale all Civil War-themed games. The Guns of Gettysburg was reportedly temporarily removed, despite that it doesn’t even feature a Confederate flag on the cover, only on some of its pieces. I suspect that in a panic online retailers simply purged their lists of anything that smacked of the Civil War, and then took the time to review many items and return them to the list. Over-reaction of risk-averse retailers? Surely. Government takeover? Of course not. But the kinds of questions such moments raise are unlikely to go away.
