Kolchin

Peter Kolchin, American Slavery

(x) “I believe that neither slaves nor slave owners can be understood in isolation from each other: a well-rounded study of slavery must come to grips with slaves as both subjects and objects and must consider slavery from the perspective of both the masters and the slaves while adopting the perspective of neither.”

 

 

CHAPTER 1 ORIGINS AND CONSOLIDATION

(5) new type of slavery in west in C16th/17th:
(i) a system of labor (ii) to meet labor shortages incurred in the growing of CASH CROPS (iii) in areas with low population density

WHY DIDN’T NATIVE AMERICAN SLAVERY WORK FOR EURO-AMERICANS?

(8) “Because it has traditionally been difficult to enslave people on their home turf, the English found it convenient to export Indians captured in battle rather than hold them locally…” ALSO DIFFICULT BECAUSE INDIANS WERE KILLED DURING CONTACT—NOT ENOUGH FOR A FULL LABOR FORCE

WHAT WAS INDENTURED SERVITUDE?

(11) 1680s: colonies underwent massive shift from indentured to slave labor (b/w 1680 & 1750: VA AA pop. 7% –> 44%, SC AA pop. 17% –> 61%)
HOW DO WE EXPLAIN THIS SHIFT?

>A< Portuguese and Dutch dominated African slave trade until the British triumph in the Anglo-Dutch war of 1664-67 (became less expensive)>B< influx of indentured servants dwindled, African slaves became more available>C< ADVANTAGES OF SLAVE LABOR–WHAT WERE THEY?

(14) “what we now know suggests that the most appropriate question is not whether slavery caused prejudice or prejudice caused slavery (a false choice, since the evidence sustains neither of these two conjectures) but rather how slavery and prejudice interacted to create the particular set of social relationships that existed in the English mainland colonies.”

Three preconceptions English had about Africans:

  • “black”
  • “savage”
  • “heathens”

PROCESS OF SEPARATION AND HOMOGENIZATION

(17) white servants had to be lured with incentives and good treatment—AA slaves did not (force separation from lower-class whites)(18) “most white Americans came to assume that blacks were so different from whites that slavery was their natural state”(19) “both the slave traders and their American customers were (unlike their C19 descendants) conscious of the slaves’ diverse ethnic origins, and showed marked preferences—stereotyping that could vary from place to place—for certain nationalities.”

(20) largest number of African slaves were POWs (some criminals, some kidnapped)

(22) 85% of African slaves went to Brazil and Caribbean, 6% went to American colonies, but America eventually had largest slave population in world
HOW DOES KOLCHIN EXPLAIN THAT?

(23) elsewhere—absence of NPG meant that slaves were mostly African-born; in America they were CREOLE

>>> GEOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN <<<

TOBACCO in upper South
RICE in lower South
TOBACCO/RICE/SUGAR in Louisiana
WHEAT in Northeast (didn’t need slavery for labor)

 

CHAPTER 2 THE COLONIAL ERA

(29) “Unlike much of the Caribbean…the South emerged as a slaveholding society in which whites constituted a significant proportion of the population—the majority in the South as a whole—and non-slaveholders made up a majority of the white population.”

(30) “by international standard, American slaves lived on small holdings, dispersed among many whites with whom they came into frequent contact.” (TOBACCO DIDN’T REQUIRE ECONOMIES OF SCALE)

(32) UPPER SOUTH was typical of slave living and working experiences (low country was not (master absenteeism –> task system))
(35) American-born MASTER CLASS were RESIDENTS (“most masters were unwilling to give up control”)

(34) “the large number of non-slaveholding whites undercut the opportunity for slaves to engage in various skilled jobs…and hardened the racial line between white and black. Non-slaveholding whites could be intensely jealous of those they perceived as haughty aristocrats, but they also were highly susceptible to racist appeals to white solidarity: they may have been poor, but at least they were white.”

(41) Americanization v. “African survival” debate misleading—have to think about it in terms of a new African American culture (AFRICAN IDENTITY was a product of forced importation to America)

(44) EXAMPLES OF CULTURAL ADAPTATION

  • dropped African custom of breastfeeding until 2 years
  • dropped strategy of running away in groups
  • African names became less common, biblical names became more common (what was the “strategy” here?)

(49) “Three essential developments marked the transition from African to African American and the growing complexity of slave society in America.”

  • emergence of Creole pop ——› growth of black families (due to increased black pop. and gender balance)
  • growth of occupational diversity (Creole pop. used to Euro-American ways, increased size of holdings; non-field labor typical for the very young and the very old)
  • infusion of Protestant Christianity in slave culture (interest among whites in converting slaves as a RELIGIOUS DUTY)

(58) over course of C18: gradual change in way in which masters dealt out violence and fear—whipping continued, but more brutal punishments declined as it became fashionable to speak of how humane one was toward slaves
(59) 2ND-GEN MASTERS adopted role of PATRIARCH
(60) “Most benevolent masters resorted to the whip—some quite frequently—and behind all the talk of love and protection lurked the master’s power to compel obedience, by whatever means were necessary. The application of that power, however, was less naked and less crude than it had been; needless violence was less frequently flaunted.”

CHAPTER 3 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

(64) “In the Revolutionary era, slavery for the first time became a serious social issue. Relatively few people called for its immediate abolition, but many, including some slave owners, expressed real concerns over its morality as well as its utility.” WHY THE QUESTIONING?

(65) Enlightenment thought
(66) growing intellectual belief in human malleability (environmentalism—status created mentality)
(67) capitalist theory: slavery violated FREE LABOR
(68) republicanism: slaves made masters lazy & inefficient
(69) evangelical religion stressed equality before God


(78) 1770s-1800s: emancipation in Northern states

VT: 1777, constitution prohibited
MA: 1781, courts interpreted const as prohibiting slavery
PA: 1780, freed at age of 28
NY: 1799, men free at 28, women free at 25
NJ: 1804, men free at 25, women free at 21

(79) 1803: Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery in present-day OH, IN, IL, MI, WI

(81) growth of FREE BLACK POPULATION

(85) OPPRESSIVE FREEDOM for most free blacks

(86) Southern reactions to abolitionism

  • protection of PROPERTY and ORDER
  • Baptism & Methodism dropped anti-slavery, pro-equality overtones
  • (87) “Ironically, ending the slave trade may have strengthened the commitment of S. whites to slavery, both by putting upward pressure on slave prices and by removing the most easily identifiable barbarity associated with the slave regime.”

(88-9) Thomas Jefferson’s shifting positions on slavery

(90) REV era saw first sustained attacks/defenses of slavery

Q: HOW CAN YOU HOLD MEN IN BONDAGE?

They’re so different than us, they are not men

(91) both sides used RIGHTS arguments

CHAPTER 4 ANTEBELLUM SLAVERY: ORGANIZATION, CONTROL, PATERNALISM

(94) massive expansion in slavery b/w REV & CW revolved around emergence of COTTON as viable cash crop
(96) cotton required massive labor—large migrations westward as owners invested in cotton cultivation

 

 

 

 

 

 

DOMINANT PATTERNS OF SLAVE EXPERIENCES

(101) lived on holdings of modest size
1/4 on holdings of 1-9
1/2 on holdings of 10-49
1/4 on holdings of 50+

(102) resident masters w/ little admin. hierarchy
(105) 75% slaves were field workers
(106) field work = long hours @ “less than frantic pace” COMPROMISE SCHEDULE: Sundays off, unsteady pace

(111) Slave-owner PATERNALISM: “a slavery in which masters took personal interest in the lives of their slaves”

(112) “Masters saw their slaves not just as their laborers but also as their “people,” inferior members of their extended households from whom they expected work and obedience but to whom they owed guidance and protection.”

(114) paternalism meant that antebellum slaves had generally better material conditions than colonial slaves (food, housing, clothing, medical care)

SURVEILLANCE and CONTROL

why did slave owners do the following?
suppressed independent religious activities
limited contact with slaves on neighboring holdings
interfered with the naming of children

(121) “convinced that their slaves were like children, these masters took it for granted that maintaining orderly behavior required the threat and at least the occasional application of “correction”
(122) MASTERS WANTED STABILITY (long marriages, no “abroad” marriages)

CHAPTER 5 ANTEBELLUM SLAVERY: SLAVE LIFE

(133) slaves created their own world

2 SCHOLARLY SCHOOLS ON ANTEBELLUM SLAVERY

Phillips School (Ulrich Phillips, American Negro Slavery (1918))

  1. slavery was benign
  2. civilizing project –> improved AA material conditions
  3. masters were concerned gentlemen

Stampp School (Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar Institution (1956))

  1. slavery was brutal
  2. increased returns from investment –> improved AA material conditions
  3. masters were coercive profit seekers

2 SCHOLARLY SCHOOLS ON SLAVE LIFE

Control School

  1. system imposed total economic, social, and physical limits on slaves’ lives
  2. slavery = politics and economics combined to form POWER/POWERLESSNESS

Resistance School

  1. system had cracks that slaves filled with acts of economic social, and physical resistance
  2. slavery = politics and economics combined to form DEGREES OF POWER

(141) children / (143) religion

(149-50) slave autonomy, community, leisure
“[Historians] have also come dangerously close to replacing a mythical world in which slaves were objects of total control with an equally mythical world in which slaves were hardly slaves at all.”

AUTONOMY: “the degree to which slaves were able to secure control of their own lives”
RESISTANCE: active use of autonomy to reject master’s control

(151) middle ground between autonomy and oppression

(152) slaves weren’t the bottom wrung of society—they were external to it

(157) absence of massive slave rebellions did not mean there was passive acceptance—instead, SILENT SABOTAGE, RUNNING AWAY, INDIVIDUAL RESISTANCE

Equiano’s narrative (1789)

Quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some black people about me, and I believe some were those who had brought me on board and had been receiving their pay. They talked to me in order to cheer me up, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces and long hair.

One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea. Immediately another quite dejected fellow, who on account of his illness was suffered to be out of irons, followed their example. I believe many more would very soon have done the same if they had not been prevented by the ship’s crew, who were instantly alarmed.

  • Slavery and Social Death
  • Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in 19th-Century America
  • Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South
  • Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery
The Bondage of Space and TimeWomen, Men, and TruancySecret Parties and the Politics of the BodyPrint Culture, the Home, and the Roots of ResistanceGender, Movement, and Freedom during the Civil War

THE WHITE SOUTH: SOCIETY, ECONOMY, IDEOLOGY

(170) The slave-system of the antebellum South was a bundle of contradictions.
Established in obscurity without substantial opposition, it generated intense controversy among contemporary Americans and subsequent scholars.
Rooted in the lust for profits, it fostered a paternalistic ideology that denigrated crude materialism as a “Yankee” vice.
Inextricably linked to the North—and the wider world—through international markets, it produced an intense attachment to section, state, and locality that belied the growing economic interdependence of the modern world.
A great success story in terms of economic growth, it left the South seriously underdeveloped both economically and socially.
Directed by men whose progenitors had been forward-looking innovators, it ended up on the hands of reactionaries who distrusted reform and feared the future.
Predicated upon denial of freedom to a substantial proportion of the population, it was defended by men who talked endlessly of their passionate commitment to “liberty.”

(172) ECONOMIC DUALISM—commercial economy based on non-capitalist production

(176) distinctive nature of slavery seen in LACK OF SOUTHERN URBANIZATION—WHY did slavery and urban life not mix?

(181) “Among those who lacked this investment, racist fear could act as a powerful deterrent to anti-slavery.” RACISM AND SOUTHERN PATRIOTISM KEPT NON-SLAVEHOLDING WHITES IN LINE

(186) “as representatives and exponents of a slave-based social order, Southern political, religious, and intellectual leaders had precious little room for social experimentation. Acutely conscious of the dangers to their world implicit in questioning established human relations, these leaders instinctively shied away from efforts to tinker with existing institutions, and increasingly came to see reform of any but the tamest sort as heresy that threatened time-tested traditions.”

ARGUMENTS ON BEHALF OF SLAVERY

(191) practical necessity —someone had to do work, couldn’t free millions
(192) religious necessity—Bible promoted it, Jesus didn’t condemn it, have to expose heathens to Christ
racist arguments —inferiority sanctioned enslavement
(193) benevolence argument—slavery took care of slaves who couldn’t take care of themselves
(194) economic comparison—slavery less brutal than free labor

17thlate 18th19th
preserving orderpractical necessity
saving heathensbiblical endorsement
inferiority
helping savagesbenevolence
economic comparison
 rights of property 

CHAPTER 7: THE END OF SLAVERY

(204) many slaves refused to act like slaves once Civil War began—everyday resistance

(210) Northern Republicans/editorialists dismayed by Black Codes

(214) “the alternative to segregation that blacks faced throughout the South was not integration but exclusion; segregated schools, for example, replaced not integrated schools but no schools at all. From this vantage point, segregation, which appears retrograde in the late twentieth century, represented a significant advance in the middle of the nineteenth.”

REMEMBER HIS ARGUMENT ABOUT SLAVES’ POSITION EXTERNAL TO SOCIETY

(217) “The unifying feature of the freedpeople’s behavior during the postwar years was their determination to get as far as possible from slave dependence, to demonstrate to themselves and others that they were really free.”

  • SOUGHT LAND
  • SETTLED FOR RENTING/SHARECROPPING OVER DEPENDENCE
  • REFUSED TO WORK IN GANGS

(219) SHARECROPPING as a small step up

Elements of freedom:(221) education
(222) churches
(223) political action

(233) 3 PROBLEMS THAT MADE POST-EMANCIPATION DIFFICULT FOR FREEDPEOPLE

  • severe agricultural depression
  • political counterrevolution
  • pervasive white racism (“Emancipation not only freed the slaves from direct slave-owner control; it also freed the masters from their protective role—and attitude.”)

(235) “The ease with which many paternalists adopted the tactics of thugs reveals the thin line that had always separated paternalism from thuggery (a point missed by those who see depiction of slave-owner paternalism as an effort to whitewash slavery).”