Copyright by Jermaine Thibodeaux 2012 The Report Committee for Jermaine Thibodeaux Certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: Raising Cane, Raising Men: An Exploration of Southern Manhood and Masculinities on Louisiana Sugar Plantations, 1795-1865 APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Daina Ramey Berry Shirley E. Thompson Raising Cane, Raising Men: An Exploration of Southern Manhood and Masculinities on Louisiana Sugar Plantations, 1795-1865 by Jermaine Thibodeaux, A.B. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication For my family, friends, students and teachers (past and present). Each of you has enriched my life beyond measure. I remain grateful for all of your good deeds, kind words, and sage advice. May our paths continue to cross. I would also like to dedicate this work to my own Louisiana Lady, my grandmother—the feisty lady from Rapides Parish! And my beloved sister, Angela, deserves special recognition for all of her support these past two years. Your love (and bad hairstyles!) sustained me and kept me laughing at the right times. Lastly, my mom has been a remarkable parent. She’s given me the space, the freedom to grow and become the man that I am today. Acknowledgements My journey to become a professional historian began in sixth grade as a student at Edward L. Blackshear Elementary. There, my teacher, Ms. Edna P. Davis, instilled in me a love of civics and an ever-inquisitive mind about the past. For those things, I remain eternally grateful. I know she would be proud. Along my journey to graduate school and up to the very last minute of editing and re-writing this essay, I have been supported by a host of phenomenal people. My advisor, Dr. Daina Ramey Berry has consistently been a champion of my work and allows me to explore an ever-changing list of potential dissertation topics. She gives me the stage to whine and perform when I need to, but she always gently guides me back to reality. Thanks. Professor Thompson has pushed me to think outside of the sometimes-stifling disciplinary walls of history and to engage and even imagine a range of new source possibilities and ways of interpreting the past. Professors Stephen Marshall and Tiffany Gill have provided great scholarly and professional examples along the way. Dr. Marshall, alone, has forced me to think about the utility and relevance of my future scholarship. I would also like to thank Professor Juliet E.K. Walker for always being available to listen to my zany ideas and provide me with constant encouragement and professional wisdom. I know she has my back! Likewise, Professor Leonard Moore has been a sagacious mentor from afar. He’s given me some of the best, most practical advice for navigating the thorny roads of academia. And Dr. Jacqueline Jones never ceases to remind me not to take this journey too seriously. Breathe, chuckle less, and enjoy the experience, she insists. I would be remiss in not thanking Professor Jim Sidbury. He deserves high v praise for ultimately getting me to UT. He’s a real class act. He, along with my amazing history professors at Cornell, has my utmost respect and admiration. I would also like to thank the Mocha Anthro Crew (Nedra K. Lee, Chelsi West, and Janie Scott) for tolerating my anti-theoretical rants and for sharing their prized workspace. Nedra, especially, has been my saving grace and uber-reliable sounding board for all of my grad school and personal problems. What a wonderful friend! Daryl Harris, my Bennu/PCL buddy, has also made these past two years in Austin bearable. And Luritta Dubois, my lunch pal and pop culture guru, thanks for making me laugh and think…all the time. I only hope that we remain forever connected as we move through life’s unpredictability. And to the many colleagues, History Department staff members, and Briscoe staff, I can never repay my debt. Lastly, my labors in graduate school are ultimately to set an example for my two awesome nephews, Jamarcus and Jeremiah. I hope they realize that learning has many rewards. vi Abstract Raising Cane, Raising Men: An Exploration of Southern Manhood and Masculinities on Louisiana’s Sugar Plantations, 1795-1865 Jermaine Thibodeaux, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Daina Ramey Berry This paper examines masculine gender relations on Louisiana sugar plantations from 1795 to the end of the Civil War. It argues that the distinct, homosocial space of the sugar plantation provided a diverse cast of men numerous opportunities to conform, contest, or flout altogether elements of hegemonic masculinity in the antebellum South. By illuminating the various ways in which black men and poor white men in particular negotiated the terms of the southern manhood, this study also argues for a richer, more inclusive gender conversation within southern history—one that finally takes seriously the gendered histories of all male subjects. vii Table of Contents L'introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Making the Case for Men ................................................................................... 4 Why Dixie? .......................................................................................................... 9 Why Sugar Country? .......................................................................................... 21 'He Bound fer Lousy Anna' ............................................................................... 24 Manifold Masculinities ..................................................................................... 33 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 50 Vita ................................................................................................................... 60 viii L’introduction In a sweeping examination of American manhood, sociologist Michael Kimmel declares, “The history of American manhood is many histories at once.”1 Bearing this claim in mind, it becomes plausible then that the history of southern manhood in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also consisted of several complicated narratives, all of which were influenced in some way by intersecting notions of race, class, religion, sexuality, locality and a host of additional factors. The planter masculine ideal—one largely predicated on the concepts of honor and mastery—however, has long served as the hegemonic version of southern masculinity while the notion of the bourgeois, self-made man occupied the same dominant position in the North.2 Though in the southern context, this narrow conceptualization of manhood has woefully neglected the diversity of men and masculinities that have also simultaneously thrived in the antebellum South. In Louisiana, especially, several of these varied accounts of southern manhood converged in one particular space—the sugar plantation. And since men largely define themselves in relation to each other, then such sites where men 1 Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America : A Cultural History (New York: Free Press, 1996), 8. 2 See Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History; Mark C. Carnes and Clyde Griffen, Meanings for Manhood: Constructions of Masculinity in Victorian America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); E. Anthony. Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York: BasicBooks, 1993). 1 predominate arguably provide ideal environments in which to explore masculine gender relations.3 As a largely homosocial, male-dominated work and living space, the Louisiana sugar plantation was one of the few places in the American South where a diverse male majority (black, white, Chinese and Irish) consistently crossed paths and were consequently forced to contend with their own internal understandings and external projections of manhood.4 Hence, it was in this distinctive world of sugarcane farming that men in Louisiana daily (re)constructed and expressed the numerous configurations and possibilities of southern masculinity. So, rather than examine notions of manhood among separate races and classes of men, or rather than attempt to execute a macro-history of masculine gender relations for the entire southern region—as numerous scholars have done—this paper, instead, uncovers the varied iterations of southern manliness found primarily on the Louisiana sugar plantation. It also examines how the mostly male sugar workforce negotiated that bricolage of masculine identities. Ultimately, attending to life on 3 In Manhood in America, Michael Kimmel argues: “In large part, it’s other men who are important to American men; American men define their masculinity, not so much in relation to women, but in relation to each other. Masculinity is a largely homosocial enactment,” 7. 4 This paper will focus mainly on black and white manhood narratives in sugar country. For a discussion of Chinese cane laborers, and to a lesser extent, German and Irish workers in Louisiana sugar parishes, see Moon-Ho Jung, Coolies and Cane : Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006); Richard J. Follett, The Sugar Masters : Planters and Slaves in Louisiana’s Cane World, 1820-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005), 85–86, 91. 2 Louisiana sugar