Weathering different storms : regional agriculture and slave families in the non-cotton South, 1800-1860 Pargas, D.A. Citation Pargas, D. A. (2009, March 12). Weathering different storms : regional agriculture and slave families in the non-cotton South, 1800-1860. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/13609 Version: Not Applicable (or Unknown) Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the License: Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden Downloaded from: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/13609 Note: To cite this publication please use the final published version (if applicable). Weathering Different Storms Regional Agriculture and Slave Families in the Non-Cotton South, 1800-1860 Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof. mr. P.F. van der Heijden, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op donderdag 12 maart 2009 klokke 15.00 uur door Damian Alan Pargas geboren te Alexandria, Virginia, USA in 1978 2 Promotiecommissie Promotor: Prof. dr. P.C. Emmer Copromotor: Dr. G.C. Quispel Referent: Prof. dr. S. Engerman (University of Rochester) Overige leden: Prof. dr. A. Fairclough Prof. dr. L.A.C.J. Lucassen Dr. E.F. van der Bilt 3 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 5 Part I RETHINKING THE EXPERIENCES OF SLAVE FAMILIES Introduction Agency, Diversity, and Slave Families 11 Chapter One Three Slave Societies of the Non-Cotton South 25 Part II THE BALANCING ACT: WORK AND FAMILIES Chapter Two The Nature of Agricultural Labor 59 Chapter Three Family Contact during Working Hours 89 Chapter Four Family-Based Internal Economies 115 Part III SOCIAL LANDSCAPES: FAMILY STRUCTURE AND STABILITY Chapter Five 4 Slaveholding Across Time and Space 147 Chapter Six Marriage Strategies and Family Formation 177 Chapter Seven Forced Separation 209 Part IV CONCLUSIONS Chapter Eight Weathering Different Storms 247 Notes 251 Bibliography 307 Summary 327 Samenvatting 333 Curriculum vitae 341 5 Acknowledgements Researching and writing this book took me, all told, about five years. Along the way—as I developed a vague idea about American slave families and turned it into a master‘s thesis, then expanded it into a dissertation—I was fortunate enough to have ample support from family, professors, colleagues, friends and institutions. Without their help this dissertation would never have gotten off the ground and as an idea would have probably remained little more than a hunch. I extend my thanks first and foremost to my family members in all three geographic clusters of the Atlantic world. My family in the United States—Fernando, Denise, Gabriel, Alexandra, Charlie and Elizabeth (Nanny)—provided me with invaluable advice, encouragement, and luxurious accommodation during my research trips to northern Virginia and Washington. My parents also provided me with financial assistance for my research at the master‘s level. My family in Uruguay—Héctor and Ester (Tata & Abuelita), Diana, Mariana, Daniela, Néstor, Ana and little Lucia—has always been a lasting source of emotional support and generously provided me with a sunny and beautiful destination for several much-needed vacations. Finally, my family in the Netherlands—Peter, Janny, Maya and Marloes—provided me with encouragement and literally hundreds of free meals (i.e., brain food), without which I would have been unfit to perform my duties. During my undergraduate and graduate studies at Leiden University two professors in particular believed in me and in my ideas long before I did, and therefore share disproportionate 6 credit for this dissertation, namely Chris Quispel and Piet Emmer. Both offered invaluable advice and both guided me through the treacherous waters of academia during the past few years. For their support and wisdom I am infinitely grateful. My other colleagues at Leiden University also provided me with feedback, advice, coffee, and every now and again a free lunch, especially: Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, Chris Nierstrasz, Jessica Roitman, Catia Antunes, Hans Wilbrink, Jorrit van den Berk, Andreas Weber, Alicia Schrikker, Job Weststrate, Marijke Wissen-van Standen, Leonard Blussé, Henk Kern, Joost Augusteijn, Leo Lucassen, Peter Meel, Gert Oostindie, Ed van der Bilt, and Adam Fairclough. There are many others, too numerous to mention here, who also deserve my sincere thanks. My colleagues at Itinerario—Frans-Paul van der Putten, Alicia Schrikker, Annelieke Dirks, Gijs Kruijtzer, and Lincoln Paine—provided me with invaluable editing experience and a welcome diversion from writing. I extend my warm thanks across the ocean to Professor Stanley Engerman at the University of Rochester for his advice and cooperation. Finally, my friends Alexander Hoorn and Johan Kwantes forced me on numerous occasions to get out of the office and relax for the sake of my own sanity. Several institutions provided me with financial assistance as well as helpful feedback on this manuscript, none more so than Leiden University, which funded most of my research trips to the United States, paid me a generous salary, and provided me with a pleasant workplace. The Leids Universitair Fonds (LUF) financed my research trip to Louisiana in the summer of 2006. The N.W. Posthumus Institute for Social and Economic History provided me with an excellent opportunity to present my research at various stages and offered me constructive criticism, most of which I have applied to the obvious improvement of this manuscript. Special thanks to Ben Gales for his advice and help. The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin also provided me with a luxurious forum at which to present my research in the winter of 2006 and offered constructive criticism. The numerous institutions which I visited in the United States provided me with pleasant workplaces away from home, and their librarians and assistants were usually quite helpful and accommodating. Especially the staff at the Library of Congress and National Archives in Washington, and at Louisiana State University‘s Hill Memorial Library, were particularly friendly and well-informed, and deserve special mention here. Finally, the editors and peer reviewers at Journal of Family History and American Nineteenth Century History provided me with excellent comments and tips, and a platform to present earlier versions of some of the chapters in this book. Most of all, however, I thank my loving wife, Tamara, who has been a source of inspiration and encouragement to me during these past nine years, who accompanied me during 7 several research trips, who edited portions of this manuscript, and to whom I dedicate the finished product. 8 9 Part I Rethinking the Experiences of Slave Families 10 11 Introduction Agency, Diversity, and Slave Families Almost a century and a half have passed since the fiery collapse of slavery and the emancipation of over four million African Americans held in bondage in the American South. In recent years a vast outpouring of research has rightfully salvaged slavery from the margins of American history and thrust it into the spotlight; yet despite the publication of hundreds of books and articles on the subject, our understanding of many aspects of enslaved people‘s culture remains clouded by disagreement among contemporary scholars. The nature of slaves‘ family lives has proved to be an especially thorny issue, and a general consensus among historians regarding the daily experiences, structure, and stability of families in bondage has been slow in coming. A perusal of the historical literature suggests that two broad issues lay at the root of this disagreement. First, scholars have long disagreed over the extent to which slave family life was shaped by the external factors of slavery, or rather by slave agency. Was family life among the enslaved most strongly influenced from above, promoted or thwarted by slaveholders, the slave- based economy, and the institution of bondage? Or was it the cornerstone of a semi-autonomous slave culture, the product of enslaved people‘s own negotiation and resilient determination to reassert their humanity and dignity in the face of oppression?1 Second, scholars appear reluctant to abandon their singular views of slave family life. Until recently, historians rarely considered the diversity of slave culture across time and space, and the experiences of the family unit have in the past too often been generalized. Studies of antebellum slavery in particular have tended to 12 magnify the experiences of slaves living in the southern interior (where cotton prevailed) and present them as the norm. This overemphasis on the cotton South has certainly not gone unnoticed, and the past generation of scholars has produced a myriad of regional studies which illuminate slave culture in various communities of the non-cotton South, but none of these studies have employed a comparative approach, and indeed many also claim to present the norm, thereby simply rejecting the conclusions of earlier research. In other words, few historians have taken an inclusive — rather than exclusive — approach to slave family life. The generalizations of past studies severely underestimate the social and economic diversity of the antebellum South, which was far more varied and complex.2 This book offers a reinterpretation of enslaved people‘s family lives in the nineteenth- century South, namely by formulating a middle ground in the historical debate over slave agency and by redefining slave family life in plural form. A comparative study which examines the importance