Slavery and Emancipation

by Rick Halpern (Editor)

Slavery and Emancipation is a comprehensive collection of primary and secondary readings on the history of slaveholding in the American South combining recent historical research with period documents.

Genres: History, American History

436 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Wendelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of primary documents exploring the history of the 'slave society' of the American South. One can learn a lot of things just by browsing the header paragraphs that introduce each document. One common theme is the Southern plantation owners' development of a paternalistic doctrine or philosophy to justify slavery of captured Africans, a doctrine to which lawyers, preachers, and even doctors contributed. This range from the pronouncement that Africans were an inferior race (Thomas Jefferson's contribution), to the pronouncement that Africans were lazy and stupid and had to be whipped into civilization, to the pronouncement that Africans were better off in the South than in the north were they could be exploited by capitalist masters in an industrialized society. Of course that last defense is supremely laughable given the distressing state of 'care' Africans received in the hands of these paternalistic plantation owners: regular beating, whippings, brandings, torture, sexual abuse, and separation of families in the auction block. Furthermore, when the slaves ran away, doctors in the South said this was not because of mistreatment but becauseAfricans were infected with some disease that caused to run away without reason, in full subscription to the paternalistic doctrine.
This paternalistic doctrine grew like a stromatolite, with layers of crusty justifications piling atop each other like bacteria, until the concept of a Southern gentleman's 'honor' became attached, even founded, on how many slaves he had the grace to take 'care' of. Such was the level of entitled superiority among these members of the literal 'master' race that a few members, like William Byrd II, had the audacity to complain of the burdens of slaveholding on the maintenance of honor: he doesn't have expenses to keep, yes, he says, but he has to go to the trouble of housing and keeping all these slaves and they are a very real trouble!
This book is also good for its chapter bibliographies that expose the titles of the best academic books on features of Southern slaveholding history.