Slavery and Social Control in Antebellum Richmond, Virginia

James M. Campbell. Slavery on Trial: Race, Class, and Criminal Justice in Antebellum Richmond, Virginia. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. xiii + 264 pp. $59.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8130-3091-3.

Reviewed by D. L. Turner

Published on H-Law (August, 2011)

Commissioned by Christopher R. Waldrep (San Francisco State University)

As a thriving manufacturing center in the eforts to merge elite interests with the city’s daily South, Richmond, Virginia was an anomaly legal proceedings, criminal justice in theory and among the nation’s leading cities due to its under‐ criminal justice in practice did not always recon‐ pinnings as an urban-industrial slave society on cile with their best interests. Rather, in an urban the eve of the Civil War.[1] Drawing from substan‐ context, race, class, and gender tensions often tial numbers of slaves, free blacks, lower-class worked to subvert slaveholders’ aims rather than whites, and immigrants to meet its expanding la‐ to support them, as race, not status, increasingly bor demands, tensions created by Richmond’s came to determine one’s legal experience. burgeoning and diverse population presented the Campbell is an American history lecturer at city with a number of dilemmas. Among those of the University of Leicester who specializes in an‐ utmost importance were those related to crime, tebellum crime and punishment. As part of this the maintenance of order, and traditional hierar‐ investigation, he examined government records chical racial divides. As one of a number of histo‐ ranging in dates from 1830 to 1860 to illustrate rians who focus on the discriminatory practices of the notion that by the 1850s escalating preoccupa‐ Southern legal systems during the nation’s ante‐ tion with black crime and violence led to increas‐ bellum period, James M. Campbell centers his re‐ ingly restrictive legislation for Richmond’s black search on a single jurisdiction. Slavery on Trial: society. These actions greatly impacted the every‐ Race, Class, and Criminal Justice in Antebellum day lives of this segment of the population as they Richmond, Virginia examines the development of were increasingly denied procedural rights and Richmond’s criminal justice institution as it received crueler sentences than their white coun‐ evolved specifcally to “support notions of white terparts. egalitarianism and herrenvolk democracy” (p. 3). Campbell argues that despite Virginia’s best legal H-Net Reviews

As a bottom-up history, this volume ofers fve As a result, city government became increasingly thematic chapters that highlight various aspects intrusive into the private lives of this segment of of Richmond’s criminal justice system. Campbell society. This tactic backfred, however, ultimately begins with a brief introduction that discusses the strengthening the infuence of black social institu‐ city’s history and the efects of urbanization and tions like Richmond’s African Baptist churches industrialization on the development of unusual among the lower classes. cultural practices. Early chapters detail the Slavery on Trial features various tables of process through which slave masters gradually criminal cases from Richmond’s Hustings Court lost or relinquished the responsibility for control throughout the text and in the appendix. It also of their slaves to city fathers due to these labor includes endnotes, and a bibliography. Additional‐ and housing traditions, including slaves’ self-hir‐ ly, Campbell’s study dovetails neatly with broader, ing and ability to make independent living ar‐ regional, criminal justice historical studies that rangements. As these practices became cultural also focus on race and nineteenth-century legal norms, city police and court systems assumed in‐ systems. Some of these works include Glenn M. creasing responsibilities for maintaining racial di‐ McNair’s Criminal Injustice: Slaves and Free visions and a hierarchical society. Blacks in Georgia’s Criminal Justice System Eventually allowed to travel to the city unsu‐ (2009), and Christopher Waldrep’s Roots of Disor‐ pervised in order to seek employment, many Rich‐ der: Race and Criminal Justice in the American mond slaves enjoyed the ability to select their South, 1817-80 (1998). Campbell’s argument that own surrogate masters and thereby dictate wages, “The stereotype of a lawless Old South where which drew much criticism from detractors. crime was controlled by informal mechanisms Many claimed that these practices encouraged ex‐ ranging from lynch mobs to slave patrols does not cessive independence, contributed to black crime, ft antebellum Richmond” (p. 9), also opens his and eroded paternalistic relations between mas‐ work for further discussion and comparison re‐ ter and slave. Despite this, cultural practices per‐ garding urban and rural slave experiences and sisted throughout the city’s antebellum years that police law. For example, Salley Hadder’s Slave Pa‐ fostered personal autonomy as slaves learned to trols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Caroli‐ bargain for better working conditions and higher nas (2001) illustrates that slaveholders’ authority, wages. Because many made their own living ar‐ whether rural or urban, was never complete but rangements, Richmond’s slaves also enjoyed always problematic due to legal challenges posed greater privacy and social mobility in their per‐ by third parties.[2] sonal lives. This small liberty often translated into Although Campbell should be commended for expanded educational opportunities, the ability to his work, this study is drawn from fragmentary build community/social support institutions such criminal court records, an unavoidable faw as black churches, and ofered greater opportuni‐ which the author points out early in the book (p. ties for escape or resistance. 14). Readers should bear in mind that the tabula‐ Subsequent chapters highlight the social in‐ tion of these types of documents over several teractions that occurred between lower-class decades often leaves numbers statistically ques‐ whites, immigrants, women, and free blacks in tionable due to unknown variables and change Richmond. Fear that these associations would over time. Even today, experts caution re‐ lead to collusion or the encouragement of dissatis‐ searchers in the use of statistical sources consid‐ faction among slaves regarding their own condi‐ ered reliable, such as the Federal Bureau of Inves‐ tion was a major concern among city leadership. tigation’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), for crime-

2 H-Net Reviews ranking purposes or as indications of trends in (p. 187) law enforcement.[3] Despite this, scholars will still equivalent value the anecdotal importance of Campbell’s (p. 27) work and gain a greater sense of the disparity found between white and black defendants dur‐ or ing this era. Also, because Richmond’s unique his‐ the toric criminal justice system is sometimes confus‐ (p. 12) ing to students of modern criminal justice, the in‐ (p. 16-17) clusion of brief defnitions of the city’s various courts and enforcement organizations in the in‐ Because of troduction might have helped to clarify the devel‐ , the fear of opment and duties of each agency over time. possible Though questions regarding relationships be‐ the tween racism, slavery, and legal notions remain created much concern unsettled, Slavery on Trial argues convincingly that Virginia’s criminal justice system functioned (p. 144) in an urban context as a tool of its slaveholding regime. Unveiling the problematic aspects of crime control and racial tensions in an urban-in‐ dustrial setting, Campbell also successfully em‐ phasizes the fact that these attempts at social con‐ trol sometimes met with failure due to resistance created by interracial and class tensions. As a po‐ litical, social, and cultural case study of the city during a critical phase of its development, Slavery on Trial will appeal to a variety of scholars and readers interested in the manner in which an ur‐ ban-industrial setting afected the slave experi‐ ence. Notes [1]. Edward L. Ayers, Vengeance and Justice: Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth-Century American South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 75. [2]. Sally E. Hadden, Slave Patrols: Law and Violence in Virginia and the Carolinas (Cam‐ bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 2. [3]. See Uniform Crime Reports on the Web site of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, http:// www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/word.

crime

3 H-Net Reviews

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-law

Citation: D. L. Turner. Review of Campbell, James M. Slavery on Trial: Race, Class, and Criminal Justice in Antebellum Richmond, Virginia. H-Law, H-Net Reviews. August, 2011.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32890

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

4