Slave Culture Resistance to Slavery

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Slave Culture the family: Because of constant sales, the slave community had a significantly higher number of female-headed households than among whites (Foner 415). “cult of domesticity”: Men could not protect their wives from physical or sexual abuse by owners and overseers (Foner 417). religion: slaves and the Bible (90% illiteracy) The Books of Exodus, Jonah, Samuel, and Daniel Resistance To Slavery “day-to-day resistance” and “silent sabotage” (Foner 420) fugitive slaves: Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad 1822 (South Carolina): Denmark Vesey 1831 (Virginia): Nat Turner / Southampton Uprising Abolition in the Americas: 1804: Haitian Revolution 1829: abolished in Mexico 1833-38: Slavery abolished in British colonies 1848: abolished in French and Danish colonies The Peculiar Institution: the Antebellum South 1793: cotton gin invented (700,000 slaves) 1808: international slave trade abolished 1.2 million slaves 1860: 4 million slaves Cotton is King: “New York City’s rise to commercial prominence depended as much on the establishment of shipping lines that gathered the South’s cotton and transported it to Europe, as on the Erie Canal” (Foner 396). “slaveocracy”: planter class (20+ slaves) - less than 5% small slaveholders (1 to 20 slaves) - 20% yeoman/poor whites - owned no slaves “paternalism”: race and gender (Ibid., 400-411) Gender and the Proslavery Argument Sex between white women and black men became a highly charged political issue, spurring whites to a level of public violence unknown under slavery. It was then that the Democratic party coined the pejorative term "miscegenation" (from the Latin miscere, "to mix"; and genus, race)... ...The Democrats] also wrote about the desire of black men for white women, contending: "Our police courts give painful evidence that the passion of the colored race for the white is often so uncontrollable as to overcome the terror of the law.” Catherine Clinton. Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War. (Foner A-12) The following are a list of some of the conditions which give rise to mental and/or emotional traumas that justify the diagnosis of PTSD: - A serious threat or harm to one’s life or physical integrity. - A threat or harm to one’s children, spouse, or close relative. - Sudden destruction of one’s home or community. - Seeing another person injured or killed as a result of accident or physical violence. - Learning about a serious threat to a relative or a close friend being kidnapped, tortured, or killed. - Stressor is experienced with intense fear, terror and helplessness. - Stressor and disorder is considered to be more serious and will last longer when the stressor is of human design. Leary, Joy Degruy. Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. Milwaukie, OR: Uptone Press, 2005. Print..

Copy Link

Recommended publications

The Woman-Slave Analogy: Rhetorical Foundations in American
The Woman-Slave Analogy: Rhetorical Foundations in American Culture, 1830-1900 Ana Lucette Stevenson BComm (dist.), BA (HonsI) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2014 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics I Abstract During the 1830s, Sarah Grimké, the abolitionist and women’s rights reformer from South Carolina, stated: “It was when my soul was deeply moved at the wrongs of the slave that I first perceived distinctly the subject condition of women.” This rhetorical comparison between women and slaves – the woman-slave analogy – emerged in Europe during the seventeenth century, but gained peculiar significance in the United States during the nineteenth century. This rhetoric was inspired by the Revolutionary Era language of liberty versus tyranny, and discourses of slavery gained prominence in the reform culture that was dominated by the American antislavery movement and shared among the sisterhood of reforms. The woman-slave analogy functioned on the idea that the position of women was no better – nor any freer – than slaves. It was used to critique the exclusion of women from a national body politic based on the concept that “all men are created equal.” From the 1830s onwards, this analogy came to permeate the rhetorical practices of social reformers, especially those involved in the antislavery, women’s rights, dress reform, suffrage and labour movements. Sarah’s sister, Angelina, asked: “Can you not see that women could do, and would do a hundred times more for the slave if she were not fettered?” My thesis explores manifestations of the woman-slave analogy through the themes of marriage, fashion, politics, labour, and sex.
[Show full text]
Sarah G. Humphreys: Antebellum Belle to Equal Rights Activist, 1830-1907
SARAH G. HUMPHREYS: ANTEBELLUM BELLE TO EQUAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST, 1830-1907 MARY G. McBRIDE AND ANN M. MCLAURIN Although the biography of Sarah Thompson Gibson Hum- phreys seems to illustrate the development of a daughter of the planter class from antebellum belle to equal rights activist, by her own account Sarah was never intended by circumstances of heredity or education to be a conventional belle. Descended from a distinguished Southern family, Sarah was the daughter of Tobias Gibson of Mississippi and Louisiana Breckinridge Hart of Kentucky. In an undated autobiographical fragment written late in her life, Sarah described her mother, daughter of Na- thaniel Hart and Susan Preston of "Spring Hill," Woodford County, Kentucky, as a woman of "masculine intellect, great force of character and strength of will." Of Tobias Gibson, Sarah wrote: My father Tobias Gibson came of a long line of clergymen who were the pioneers of Methodism in the South. My father was a man of accurate education, of unusual culture and of broad ideas, far in advance of his time. Although by inheritance a large slave owner he was at heart opposed to slavery. He was also that anomaly amongst Southern men a "Woman Suffragist." He believed and taught me to believe that "taxation without representation" was as unjust to women as to men and he educated me up to the idea that our ad- vancing civilizaioff would sooner or later demand not only the political enfranchisement of women but their equal share in the control of the government. The family divided its time between its Louisiana sugar planta- tions and its l•ome in Lexington, Kentucky.
[Show full text]
Thomas Jefferson's World: a Resource for Middle and High
Thomas Jefferson’s World: A Resource for Middle and High School Classrooms Thomas Jefferson’s World introduces audiences to key notions regarding Jefferson's ideas and accomplishments, especially his core concepts about liberty that have reached far beyond his place and time in history to the present day. Thomas Jefferson's World illustrates how Jefferson's vision for America and his optimism about the future were driven by his fundamental beliefs in human rights, personal freedom, and democratic values. Jefferson's crucial role in America's revolutionary struggle for independence, his political career, his varied interests, and the conflict in his championing liberty while owning slaves are all explored. The film also acquaints viewers with the other people - both enslaved and free - who lived and worked on Jefferson's mountaintop, the activities of the plantation, the main house, and to the extraordinary landscapes of Monticello for which Jefferson had such deep affection. http://www.monticello.org/site/visit/film-thomas-jeffersons-world Curriculum Links: Thomas Jefferson’s World would be an excellent addition to any middle school or high school class on American History. It fulfills the following themes of Social Studies from the National Council for Social Studies: (1) Culture, (2) Time, Continuity, and Change, (3) People, Places, and Environments, (4) Individual Development and Identity, (5) Individuals, Groups, and Institutions, (6) Power, Authority, and Governance, (10) Civic Ideals and Practices It fulfills the following Virginia standards (SOLs): Revolution and the New Nation: 1770s to the Early 1800s USI 6, USI 7, Expansion and Reform: 1801 to 1861 USI 8, Revolution and the New Nation VUS 4, VUS 5, Expansion and Reform: 1788 to 1860 VUS 6 I.
[Show full text]
Slave Traders and Planters in the Expanding South: Entrepreneurial Strategies, Business Networks, and Western Migration in the Atlantic World, 1787-1859
SLAVE TRADERS AND PLANTERS IN THE EXPANDING SOUTH: ENTREPRENEURIAL STRATEGIES, BUSINESS NETWORKS, AND WESTERN MIGRATION IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD, 1787-1859 Tomoko Yagyu A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2006 Approved by Advisor: Peter A. Coclanis Reader: William L. Barney Reader: Paul W. Rhode Reader: W. Fitzhugh Brundage Reader: Lisa Lindsay © 2006 Tomoko Yagyu ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Tomoko Yagyu: Slave Traders and Planters in the Expanding South: Entrepreneurial Strategies, Business Networks, and Western Migration in the Atlantic World, 1787-1859 (Under the direction of Peter A. Coclanis) This study attempts to analyze the economic effects of the domestic slave trade and the slave traders on the American South in a broader Atlantic context. In so doing, it interprets the trade as a sophisticated business and traders as speculative, entrepreneurial businessmen. The majority of southern planters were involved in the slave trade and relied on it to balance their financial security. They evaluated their slaves in cash terms, and made strategic decisions regarding buying and selling their property to enhance the overall productivity of their plantations in the long run. Slave traders acquired business skills in the same manner as did merchants in other trades, utilizing new forms of financial options in order to maximize their profit and taking advantage of the market revolution in transportation and communication methods in the same ways that contemporary northern entrepreneurs did. They were capable of making rational moves according to the signals of global commodity markets and financial movements.
[Show full text]
Fall of the Planter Class
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Atlantic Studies in 2012, available online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2012.636991 It was part funded by the AHRC (Grant Ref. AH/I027290/1) Rethinking the fall of the planter class Christer Petley University of Southampton Abstract: This edition of Atlantic Studies began life as a one-day conference held at Chawton House Library in Hampshire, England, funded by the University of Southampton. The conference aimed, like this volume, to bring together scholars currently working on the history of the British West-Indian planter class in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and to discuss how, when, and why the fortunes of the planters went into decline. As this introduction notes, the difficulties faced by the planter class in the British West Indies from the 1780s onwards were an early episode in a wider drama of decline for New World plantation economies. The American historian Lowell Ragatz published the first detailed historical account of their fall. His work helped to inform the influential arguments of Eric Williams, which were later challenged by Seymour Drescher. Recent research has begun to offer fresh perspectives on the debate about the decline of the planters, and this collection brings together articles taking a variety of new approaches to the topic, encompassing economic, political, cultural and social history. Keywords: planters; slavery; Caribbean; abolitionism; decline theory Email: [email protected] The fall of the British-Caribbean planter class was an important part of what Philip Curtin has termed “the rise and fall of the plantation complex”, the broad outlines of which are well known.1 The rise entailed the development between the sixteenth and eighteenth century of New World sugar plantations as the engines of an Atlantic economy, worked by enslaved laborers imported from Africa, transforming societies on all sides of the Atlantic.
[Show full text]
The Inner Workings of Slavery Ava I
__________________________________________________________________ The Inner Workings of Slavery Ava I. Gillespie Ava Gillespie is a h istory major from Tonica, Illinois. She wrote her paper for Historical Research Writing, HIS 2500, with Dr. Bonnie Laughlin - Shultz. ______________________________________________________________________________ I suffered much more during the second winter than I did during the first. My limbs were benumbed by inactions, and the cold filled them with cramp. I had a very painful sensation of coldness in my head; even my face and tongue stiffened, and I lost the power of speech. Of course it was impossible, under the circumstances, to summon any physician. My brother William came and did all he could for me. Unc le Phillip also watched tenderly over me; and poor grandmother crept up and down to inquire whether there was any signs of returning life. I was restored to consciousness by the dashing of cold water in my face, and found myself leaning against my brother’ s arm, while he bent over me with streaming eyes. He afterwards told me he thought I was dying, for I had been in an unconscious state sixteen hours. I next beca me delirious, and was in great danger of betraying myself and my friends. To prevent this, they stupefied me with drugs. I remained in bed six weeks, weary in body and sick at heart…I asked why the curse of slavery was permitted to exist, and why I had been so persecuted and wronged from youth upward. These things took the shape of mystery, which is to this day not so clear to my soul as I trust it will be hereafter.
[Show full text]
Unionism in Antebellum Era Kentucky, 1849-1861
University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 5-2012 "The greatest evil that can befall us" : Unionism in antebellum era Kentucky, 1849-1861. Curtis Lushawn Parmley 1975- University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Parmley, Curtis Lushawn 1975-, ""The greatest evil that can befall us" : Unionism in antebellum era Kentucky, 1849-1861." (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1096. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1096 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. "THE GREATEST EVIL THAT CAN BEFALL US": UNIONISM IN ANTEBELLUM ERA KENTUCKY, 1849-1861 By Curtis Lushawn Parmley B.A., University of Louisville, 2008 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Louisville In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of History University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky May 2012 “THE GREATEST EVIL THAT CAN BEFALL US”: UNIONISM IN ANTEBELLUM ERA KENTUCKY, 1849-1861 By Curtis Lushawn Parmley B.A, University of Louisville, 2008 A Thesis Approved on April 05, 2012 by the following Thesis Committee: Thomas C. Mackey (Thesis Director) Benjamin Harrison Jasmine Farrier ii DEDICATION This master's thesis is dedicated to all those who offered encouragement through the years.
[Show full text]
The Persistence of De Facto Power: Elites and Economic Development in the US South, 1840-1960
The Persistence of de Facto Power: Elites and Economic Development in the US South, 1840-1960 Philipp Ager∗ Abstract Wealthy elites may end up retarding economic development for their own interests. This paper examines how the historical planter elite of the Southern US affected eco- nomic development at the county level between 1840 and 1960. To capture the planter elite’s potential to exercise de facto power, I construct a new dataset on the personal wealth of the richest Southern planters before the American Civil War. I find that counties with a relatively wealthier planter elite before the Civil War performed signif- icantly worse in the post-war decades and even after World War II. I argue that this is the likely consequence of the planter elite’s lack of support for mass schooling. My results suggest that when during Reconstruction the US government abolished slavery and enfranchised the freedmen, the planter elite used their de facto power to maintain their influence over the political system and preserve a plantation economy based on low-skilled labor. In fact, I find that the planter elite was better able to sustain land prices and the production of plantation crops during Reconstruction in counties where they had more de facto power. Keywords: Long-Run Economic Development, Wealth Inequality, Elites and Devel- opment, de Facto and de Jure Power, US South ∗Philipp Ager, University of Southern Denmark; [email protected]. I am grateful to Thomas Barnebeck Andersen, Sascha Becker, Graziella Bertocchi, Alessandra Bonfiglioli, Antonio Ciccone, Kerstin Enflo, Gabrielle Fack, Albrecht Glitz, Casper Worm Hansen, Rosella Nicolini, Luigi Pascali, Giacomo Ponzetto, Marta Reynal-Querol, Peter Sandholt Jensen, Alessandro Tarozzi, Joachim Voth, Daniel Waldenström, Niko Wolf, Yanos Zylberberg and seminar participants at UPF, UAB, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia and the University of Southern Denmark for their generous feedback and suggestions.
[Show full text]
MODULE 1: ABOLITION Lesson 1: Abolishing the Peculiar Institution: the Slavery Debate in the United States and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
MODULE 1: ABOLITION Lesson 1: Abolishing the Peculiar Institution: The Slavery Debate in the United States and in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Discipline: U.S. History I (grades 9-12) Lesson Type: Independent work using technology. Rationale: This lesson will provide students with an appropriate background to the slavery debate in both the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The information on the slavery debate should be mostly review, but the information on the movement’s origins in the Commonwealth will probably be mostly new material for students. Instructional Objectives: 1) Students will be able to list key events that took place during the founding period that related to the slavery debate by reading the timeline and answering the corresponding questions. 2) Students will be able to compare and contrast the slavery debate in the United States and within the Commonwealth by completing an analytical written response. MA Curriculum Framework: - USI.17: Explain the major components of Massachusetts’ state government, including the roles and functions of the governor, state legislature, and other constitutional officers (H, C). - USI.23: Analyze the rising levels of political participation and the expansion of suffrage in antebellum America (C, H). - USI.31: Describe the formation of the abolitionist movement, the roles of various abolitionists, and the response of southerners and northerners to abolitionism (H). C3 Framework: - D2.His.1.9-12: Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts. - D2.His.2.9-12: Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.
[Show full text]
Slavery and the Sectional Crisis
World Class Education www.kean.edu 1 2 1. The Antebellum South 2. Slavery and the “Cotton Kingdom” 3. Compromise of 1820 4. The Abolitionist movement 5. Slavery and the Mexican Cession 6. Compromise of 1850 7. Fugitive Slave Act (1850) 8. Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) 9. “Bleeding Kansas” 10. The Republican Party 11. Election of 1856 12. Dred Scott Case (1857) 13. Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) 14. John Brown’s Raid (1859) 15. Election of 1860 3 Large Slaveholders Small Slaveholders Yeomen Farmers Poor Whites Slaves 4 The Stono Rebellion (1739, South Carolina) Gabriel’s Rebellion(1800, Virginia) Louisiana Territory Slave Rebellion, led by Denmark Vessey Plot (1822, South Carolina) Nat Turner’s (1831, Virginia) 5 6 Henry Clay fashions an agreement Maine enters union as free state Missouri enters union as slave state All territory north of 36 30 closed to slavery in Louisiana Purchase region Thomas Jefferson: “Fire Bell in the Night” 7 Abolitionist - a vocal minority Demand end to the institution Violation of the Bible Emphasis on cruel and inhuman treatment Degraded both slave and master Uncle Tom’s Cabin – best seller 8 Wendell Phillips: orator Frederick Douglass: former slave and journalist William Lloyd Garrison: journalist (The Liberator) Harriet Tubman: former slave, underground railroad Sara and Angelina Grimké: educators Owen Lovejoy: journalist 9 Territorial division formula: Missouri Compromise (1820);Compromise of 1850; Crittenden Compromise (proposed 1860) Free-Soil formula: Wilmot Proviso (proposed 1846)
[Show full text]
43 Exploitative Systems Slavery, Commerce, and Industry Richard B
43 Exploitative Systems Slavery, Commerce, and Industry Richard B. Sheridan Scholarship in Caribbean history in recent decades has been concentrated heavily upon the exploitation of the region. The last quarter century has seen the production of a number of important monographs, new method- ological approaches, impressive quantitative studies, general syntheses, and growing interest in scholarly interpretation. Issues and debates have focused attention on the nature and profitability of the slave trade and slavery, the rise and fall of the planter class, the changing structure and methods of trade, shipping, and finance, the role of the West Indies in the growth of metropolitan economies, the relative importance of economic and humanitarian factors in slave abolition and emancipation, and labor and other problems in the transition from slavery to freedom. Reasons for the heightened interest in Caribbean economic history include the need to understand the background of the gap between rich and poor nations, the need for a new consciousness of the region's history and culture in an age of national independence, and the growing ability to meet these needs on the part of universities, libraries, archives, and local history societies in the region. Notwithstanding the substantial body of scholarly publication, rich fields of research materials have been overlooked o'r underutilized, and much scope remains for synthesis and interpretation. Eric Williams' seminal study, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill, 1944), has had a continuing influence on West Indian historiography. Wil- liams attacks the notion that the abolition o( the slave trade and slavery had been due to the humanitarian agitation and propaganda of the British abolitionists.
[Show full text]
Download PDF 560.34 KB
Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2007 18th Century Transformations of the Jamaican Plantocracy: Edward Long and Bryan Edwards Robert Braxton Bird Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 18TH CENTURY TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE JAMAICAN PLANTOCRACY: EDWARD LONG AND BRYAN EDWARDS By ROBERT BRAXTON BIRD A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2007 The members of the Committee approve the Thesis of Robert B. Bird defended on July 31, 2007. Matt Childs Professor Directing Thesis Rodney Anderson Committee Member Maxine D. Jones Committee Member The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii For my friend, my hero, and my father, Ralph B. Bird, Jr.. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to first thank Dr. Matt Childs. Without his advice and direction, a Masters Degree would not have been possible. Thank you for opening up a world of possibilities. I would also like to thank my committee, Dr. Maxine Jones and Dr. Rodney Anderson, your flexibility and input has been both indispensable and much appreciated. Also deserving much thanks are: Dr. Gordon Harvey, from whom I learned an appreciation of History and whose encouragement and belief in me will never be forgotten; Dr. Sean Chenoweth, a friend and confidant who is responsible for turning me onto the study of Jamaica; Dr.
[Show full text]