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¶ … Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the South
According to the historical excerpt, "A Planter Instructs his Son," the Southern attitude towards slavery was considerably more complex than a modern reader might hope to believe. Rather than simple hatred of African-Americans, the author of this treatise evidently viewed his slaves, not as the subjects of simple racist vehemence, but as economic entities that were necessary for his survival and the survival of his plantation. This set of instructions is emblematic of the fact that many antebellum Southerners viewed slavery as not only an institution, but as an integral aspect of their way of life. The author of the letter is passing down instructions to his son, not simply out of malice, but out of a desire to see the boy govern his property in an effective manner, according to the Southern tradition.
Governing property in an effective and even a traditional manner, of course, can be something to be commended. However, when property is viewed not only in terms of land but also in terms of human chattel, the relationship between reader and historical author becomes considerably more complex. If one were to search for an analogy from modern life to describe how slave owners viewed their human property, the most available one might be how farmers view their livestock. This is also seen in the work of J.H Hammonds. His writing is entitled "Instructions to His Overseer 1840-1850."...
The author is not placed in a position of beleaguered defense, as Hammonds might be if he was writing an essay in the defense of slavery to an individual outside of the Southern states. Instead, he merely wishes to counsel the overseer in the best way he knows how, to effectively manage slaves and estate.
The author does not counsel cruelty nor condone malice on the part of the overseer. However, every instruction he bids to his overseer is designed to extract the maximum amount of labor from slaves. Much like an owner of an animal might wish to extract the maximum amount of labor from an individual beast of burden, so did the owner wish his overseer to treat his slaves. However, the owner is not unaware of the fact that slaves, unlike animals, have the reasoning capability of a human being. With this awareness, the owner counsels the overseer to engage in acts of subtle torture of psychological reasoning as well as brute force. This is done to enable the overseer to encourage slaves to work hard, with little complaint and with as little damage to the owner's physical property, the slave's body, as possible.
Always, this document suggests, in the back of Southerner's minds, was the fear of a slave rebellion, or that plantation…
Thus, there was always awareness, even in owner's minds, that slaves had human feelings, thoughts, and agency, however hard owners tried to treat slaves like property or animals. As contemporary accounts of slavery from the 1820s and 30s suggest, furthermore, there was not a complete and utter absence of feeling between masters and slaves, even on the part of the slaves. The slaves recognized that their masters were human, and particularly those slaves who lived in quite close quarters to their masters, such as house slaves, would concede that their masters might be good human beings. However, most slaves suggested that even though Southerners might not be rotten to the core, because of the constraining nature of the institution, even the best slave owners were capable of great evil when provoked, because of the evils of the institution of slave ownership.
Perhaps Frances Kemble recorded least kindly views of the institution of slavery from this early period of observing slavery, in her work "On Racism, Religion and Fear in Georgia. 1838-1839." In this early account, the observer presents a powerful testimony to the vehemence with which slaves injected religion into their restricted lives, and used it as a method of emotional expression, despite master's attempts to use religion as a sedating technique to the fires of rebellion and revolt. Life for slaves was a continual state of physical and emotional preservation under the influence of severe repression.
Slavery was a psychologically confusing state for both slave owners and slaves, where the fiction that the slave was not quite a person on the equal of a master, but still somehow more than property or animal, was sustained on a constant, tenuous basis. As evidenced in Thomas Dew's tract, "Thomas Dew Defends Slavery," from 1832, when Southerners publicly defended their cultural and economic institution, which they saw as peculiar and integral and natural to their way of life, they could be quite rhetorically florid. However, in the livid reality of the institution, life was far more contradictory in its enactment.
This tract would be solidified, however, with the early 19th century invention of the cotton gin. As the text by Maier et al. assert, Eli Whitney's simple invention would have dramatic and transformative effects on American society. As the urban centers of the North turned increasingly to factory operations in the face of immigrant labor and the industrial revolution, the south coalesced around its agricultural identity. More particularly, the cotton
Slavery in America -- Three Compromises, All Compromised Wrong -- the Three-Fifths Compromise, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and the Compromise of 1850 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men were created equal" -- except for Black American men, of course, who are only 3/5ths equal, according to the Constitution of the United States. The ringing words about equality, penned by Jefferson, a guilty-minded slaveholder sound far less
Virginia's code lagged far behind South Carolina's of 1696 and the earlier British island codes" (Vaughn 306). These early slave codes also served to further differentiate the appropriate legal rights that were afforded white indentured servants compared to their enslaved African counterparts. In this regard, Leon Higgenbotham adds that "at the same time the codes were emphatic in denying slaves any of the privileges or rights that had accrued to
Kennedy. The American Spirit. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. English Working Classes Cheer." (1863) Bailey, Thomas Andrew & David M. Kennedy. The American Spirit. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Slave is taken to Barbados," (1750). Bailey, Thomas Andrew & David M. Kennedy. The American Spirit. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. South Carolina Threatens Secession (1832) Bailey, Thomas Andrew & David M. Kennedy. The American Spirit. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Stowe, Harriet Beecher.
Slavery The remnant of slavery in America has caused a great deal of stigma and represents a lasting stain on our nation's history. The issue slavery is a difficult one to explore because of the sensitivities involved and the shame associated with the practice of slavery. There are many issues that can be discussed when delving into this particular topic. Although the institution of slavery was prevalent in many states a
" (McPherson, 13) This is to illustrate that the abolition of slavery did not just threaten to dismantle the institution retaining blacks in bondage. Moreover, the modes of capitalism promised to dismantle the southern agrarian way of life which depended upon slavery. This was not simply because slavery was perceived as something which had to be abolished. Moreover, this was because the nature of the southern economy no longer corresponded with economic patterns defining the United States.