Gender Race and Politics in the New Nation

Race and Revolution is a voluminous examination of the revolutionary generation's early efforts to rectify the apparent contradiction of slavery and of their ultimate compromises that not only left the institution intact, but provided it with the protection of a vastly strengthened government after 1788. "Race and Revolution" by Gary Nash describes the free black community's response to this failure of the revolution's promise, its vigorous and articulate pleas for justice, and the community's successes in building its own African-American institutions within the hostile environment of early nineteenth-century America.

The North and upper South were, as we know, the main theaters of abolitionism. Gradual legislated emancipation characterized northern attempts at eradicating chattel bondage while private (and limited) manumission characterized southern discomfort with the peculiar institution. We today need to understand how white economic interest and white abhorrence of the notion of freed slaves mingling on an equal standing with whites dashed revolutionary idealism, thus leaving the issue of slavery to another generation. This lesson of ideology facing off against economic interest and entrenched attitudes provides a weighty lesson for modern day students of history to consider. The first two essays of this author's Race and Revolution discuss this and provide primary documents for discussion on the rise and decline of abolitionism.

Gary Nash's careful interweaving of the primary documents with his secondary analysis is one of the most successful ventures of "Race and Revolution." The primary documents lend a lively and personal aspect to what is generally more antiseptic critical review of history during the remainder of his work.

Although voluminous and all-encompassing, the actual historical survey in "Race and Revolution" does not provide an absolutely unique perspective. However, the primary documents do -- there, Nash gives readers a first-rate opportunity to gaze into the lives of both the abolitionists and those who opposed them. Unfortunately, there is largely lacking any primary documents of worth describing the slaves' perspectives on the movement.

Two aspects of abolition ought to stick in readers' minds through examining Gary Nash's "Race and Revolution." First, the freeing of slaves was not always benevolent, a simple case of morality transcending economic interest. Moreover, freedom came by degrees for emancipated slaves. They did not move from abject slavery to the light of freedom as if moving across the dark side of a river to the bright side. Legal emancipation did not confer full political rights, equal economic opportunity, or social recognition. All of that was denied and contested. Second, abolition was not engineered solely by high-minded whites. It was also produced, especially in the North, by slaves who made it their business to run away and perfect insolence to the point that their masters found slavery more trouble than it was worth.

All of this is very well established and well documented in Nash's work. The primary documents truly establish that economics was, to a large degree, at the root of the abolitionist movement, not just morality or superior and more progressive understandings of humanity. Nash's secondary research does not thoroughly explore this concept, but that is unnecessary as his primary documentation performs the task more than adequately -- it performs it beautifully.

Liberty's Daughters

'Liberty's Daughters" is really the conflated collection of two books. Part I: The Constant Patterns of Women's Lives, sets the reader up for Part II: The Changing Patterns of Women's Lives. In one conceptualization, Part I explains the life of the prewar colonial woman. Part II ranges through the changes that would occur for women during and immediately following the revolutionary war.

Mary Beth Norton renders an eloquent argument that women's lives were forever changed by the Revolutionary War. In fact, by way of a critique, Chapter 1 was extremely interesting as Norton explains the differences between rural women of the colonies with urban women.

Here, Norton paints the lives of rural women of the North in comparison to women of the rural South. Indeed, there are many similarities between the two, a realization that is quite eye-opening to the first-time reader. In addition, Norton explains the even harsher life of the female slave, as compared to the male slave, yet another eye-opening observation.

In a way, there is an underlying sentiment that life was very difficult for both men and women during this period of time. A reader can easily appreciate Norton's realization that men also experienced plenty of toil during this time in history. In other words, there was plenty of hardship to go around. One main theme that the reader quickly notices is how important spinning was to the women of colonial America. The first chapters detail how women would have to spin to make clothes for themselves and their families (and sometimes very large families).

According to Norton, to pass the time, women would often spin in groups. This domestic activity gave these female slaves a sense of companionship. This community would lay the important groundwork for their support of the men during the Revolutionary War.

The second part of the Norton's work educates the reader on how women formed formal spinning groups that actively worked to help the patriots. In a way, women now took up spinning as a part of the campaign for freedom against the British -- very similarly to the Indian revolutionary movement of homespun.