Background Stanley M. Elkins, a famous historian who wrote Slaver.docx

Background: Stanley M. Elkins, a famous historian who wrote
Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual
Life (1959), argued that the harsh conditions of American
slavery stripped slaves of their native African identities,
prevented them from having strong social and family
relationship, and reduced them to dependent child-like laborers
who were emasculated and unable to think for themselves.
However, recent historical scholarship has reexamined the lives
of those born into slavery and has begun to focus on their
religious, social, cultural and intellectual identities. Many
historians now conclude that individuals born into slavery had
the power to shape their own world and were not merely objects
of oppression. Historians are now analyzing slavery with a more
broadened perspective, looking at not just slave treatment, but
the creation of slave societies as well. Yet, in doing so, some
critics believe that society may lose sight of how oppressive and
degrading American slavery really was. You will need to
wrestle with these issues as you frame your response to the
prompt.
Task: Using the following documents (referencing as many as
you can), answer the following questions.
· In what ways were slaves denied their basic human rights and
WHY? (Describe the ways in which slavery was dehumanizing
and the reasons used by southern representatives and
slaveholder to justify the institution.)
· In what ways did slaves forge their own culture and society?
Document 1
Document 2

Document 3
Source: Eighteenth-century painting (estimated 1785-1795),
from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Art Museum (VA)
Early African American Wedding Ceremony
Artist: John Rose, South Carolina plantation owner
Document 4
John Woolman, Quaker, in Considerations on the Keeping of
Negroes (1754)
Suppose that our ancestors and we had been exposed to constant
servitude in the more servile and inferior employments of life;
that we had been destitute of the help of reading and good
company; that amongst ourselves we had had few wise and
pious instructors; that the religious amongst our superiors
seldom took notice of us; that while others in ease had
plentifully heaped up the fruit of our labour, we had received
barely enough to relieve nature, and being wholly at the
command of others had generally been treated as a
contemptible, ignorant part of mankind. Should we, in that case,
be less abject that they are now?
Quaker community at Germantown, Pennsylvania (c. 1750)
What thing on the world can be done worse towards us, then if
men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to
strange countries, separating husbands from their wives and
children. Being now this is not done at that manner, we will be
done at, therefore we contradict and are against this traffic of

men’s bodies.
Document 5
Auction advertisement (1860)
Source: Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, New
York, NY
Document 6
Gordon, also known as “Whipped Peter”, ca. 1863
Courtesy National Archives
Document 7
Instruments used in slavery: mask, collar, wrist irons, spiked
cuffs
Courtesy Library of Congress
Document 8
Interview with former slave Charlie Barbour, age 86
(interviewed by Mary A. Hicks), Smithfield, North Carolina,
May 20, 1937. From the WPA Slave Narrative Project.

I belonged ter Mr. Bob Lumsford hyar in Smithfield from de
time of my birth. My mammy wuz named Candice an’ my
pappy’s name wuz Seth. My brothers wuz Rufus, William, an’
George, an’ my sisters wuz Mary an’ Laura.
I ‘minds me of de days when I was a youngun’, I played marbles
an’ hide an’ seek. Dar wuzn’t many games den, case nobody
ain’t had no time fer ‘em. De grown folkses had dances an’
sometimes co’n shuckin’s, an’ de little niggers patted dere feets
at de dances an’ dey he’p ter shuck de co’n.
On de night ‘fore de first day of Jinuary we had a dance what
lasts all night. At nidnight when de New Year comes in marster
makes a speech an’ we is happy dat he thanks us fer our year’s
wuck an’ says dat we is good, smart slaves.
Marster wucked his niggers from daylight till dark, an’his
thirteen grown slaves had ter ten’ ’bout three hundred acres o’
land. Course dey mostly planted co’n, peas an’ vege’ables.
I can ‘member, do’ I wuz small, dat de slaves wuz whupped fer
disobeyin’ an’ I can think of seberal dat I got. I wuz doin’
housewuck at de time an’ one of de silber knives got misplaced.
Dey ‘cused me of misplacin’ it on purpose, so I got de wust
beatin’ dat I eber had. I quz beat den till de hide wuz busted
hyar and dar.
We little ones had some time ter go swimmin’ an’ we did; we
also fished, an’ at night we hunted de possum an’ de coon
sometimes. Ole Uncle Jeems had some houn’s what would run
possums or coons an’ he uster take we boys ‘long wid him.
I ‘members onct de houn’s struck a trail an’ dey tree de coon.
Uncle Jeems sen’s Joe, who wuz bigger den I wuz, up de tree ter
ketch de coon an’ he warns him dat coons am fightin’ fellers.
Joe doan pay much mind he am so happy ter git der chanct ter
ketch de coon, but when he ketched dat coon he couldn’t turn
loose, an’ from de way he holler yo’ would s’pose dat he ain’t
neber wanted ter ketch a coon. When Joe Barbour wuz buried
hyar las’ winter dem coon marks wuz still strong on his arms

an’ han’s an’ dar wuz de long scar on his face.
I ‘members onct a Yankee ‘oman from New York looks at him
an’ nigh ’bout faints. ‘I reckon’, says she, ‘dat dat am what de
cruel slave owner or driver done ter him’.…
Yes ‘um, I reckon I wuz glad ter git free, case I knows den dat I
won’t wake up some mornin’ ter fin’ dat my mammy or some ob
de rest of my family am done sold. I left de day I hyard ’bout de
surrender an’ I fared right good too, do’ I knows dem what ain’t
farin’ so well.
I ain’t neber learn ter read an’ write an’ I knows now dat I
neber will. I can’t eben write a letter ter Raleigh ’bout my old
man’s pension.
I ‘members de days when mammy wored a blue hankerchief
’round her haid an’ cooked in de great house. She’d sometimes
sneak me a cookie or a cobbler an’ fruits. She had her own little
gyardin an’ a few chickens an’ we w’oud ov been happy ‘cept
dat we wuz skeered o’ bein’ sold.
I’se glad dat slavery am ober, case now de nigger has got a
chanct ter live an’ larn wid de whites. Dey won’t neber be as
good as de whites but dey can larn ter live an’ enjoy life more.
Source: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-
antebellum/5321#comment-2020
Document 9
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Slave Spiritual) Lyrics
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home

I looked over Jordan,
and what did I see
A band of angels coming after me
If you get there before I do
Tell all my friends I'm coming, too
I'm sometimes up and sometimes down
But still my soul feels heavenly bound
The brightest day that I can say
When Jesus washed my sins away
If I get there before you do

I'll cut a hole and pull you through
Document 10
$10 Reward. RUNAWAY from the subscriber on the 31st
December last, negro man JIM, by trade a black smith,
belonging to the Davis Estate. Said fellow has a wife at
Sam'l[Samuel] Sutton's in Perquimans County, and it is
supposed he is lurking in that neighbourhood; he is well known
in this and Perquimans County, and a description of him is
deemed unnecessary. I will give the above reward and pay all
reasonable expenses, to any one who will deliver the said fellow
to me or confine him in jail so that I get him.
RICHARD BEASLEY.
Chowan Co. Jun. 3th, 1830. tf 2
Source:
http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/RAS/id/2026
/rec/4
Document 11
Virginia slave laws:
1627: Christian baptism may not alter conditions of servitude.
1669: The death of a slave during punishment shall not be
accounted felony.
1691: Interracial sexual conduct shall be prohibited.
Document 12
"The Universal Law of Slavery," by George Fitzhugh
He the Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as
a child, not as a lunatic or criminal. The master occupies toward
him the place of parent or guardian. We shall not dwell on this
view, for no one will differ with us who thinks as we do of the

negro's capacity, and we might argue till dooms-day in vain,
with those who have a high opinion of the negro's moral and
intellectual capacity.
Secondly. The negro is improvident; will not lay up in summer
for the wants of winter; will not accumulate in youth for the
exigencies of age. He would become an insufferable burden to
society. Society has the right to prevent this, and can only do so
by subjecting him to domestic slavery. In the last place, the
negro race is inferior to the white race, and living in their
midst, they would be far outstripped or outwitted in the chaos of
free competition. Gradual but certain extermination would be
their fate. We presume the maddest abolitionist does not think
the negro's providence of habits and money-making capacity at
all to compare to those of the whites. This defect of character
would alone justify enslaving him, if he is to remain here. In
Africa or the West Indies, he would become idolatrous, savage
and cannibal, or be devoured by savages and cannibals. At the
North he would freeze or starve.
We would remind those who deprecate and sympathize with
negro slavery, that his slavery here relieves him from a far more
cruel slavery in Africa, or from idolatry and cannibalism, and
every brutal vice and crime that can disgrace humanity; and that
it christianizes, protects, supports and civilizes him; that it
governs him far better than free laborers at the North are
governed. There, wife-murder has become a mere holiday
pastime; and where so many wives are murdered, almost all
must be brutally treated. Nay, more; men who kill their wives or
treat them brutally, must be ready for all kinds of crime, and the
calendar of crime at the North proves the inference to be
correct. Negroes never kill their wives. If it be objected that
legally they have no wives, then we reply, that in an experience
of more than forty years, we never yet heard of a negro man
killing a negro woman. Our negroes are not only better off as to
physical comfort than free laborers, but their moral condition is
better.
The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some

sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged
and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and
necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty,
because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The
women do little hard work, and are protected from the
despotism of their husbands by their masters. The negro men
and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more
than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in
perfect abandon. Besides' they have their Sabbaths and
holidays. White men, with so much of license and liberty, would
die of ennui; but negroes luxuriate in corporeal and mental
repose. With their faces upturned to the sun, they can sleep at
any hour; and quiet sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments.
"Blessed be the man who invented sleep." 'Tis happiness in
itself--and results from contentment with the present, and
confident assurance of the future.
A common charge preferred against slavery is, that it induces
idleness with the masters. The trouble, care and labor, of
providing for wife, children and slaves, and of properly
governing and administering the whole affairs of the farm, is
usually borne on small estates by the master. On larger ones, he
is aided by an overseer or manager. If they do their duty, their
time is fully occupied. If they do not, the estate goes to ruin.
The mistress, on Southern farms, is usually more busily,
usefully and benevolently occupied than any one on the farm.
She unites in her person, the offices of wife, mother, mistress,
housekeeper, and sister of charity. And she fulfills all these
offices admirably well. The rich men, in free society, may, if
they please, lounge about town, visit clubs, attend the theatre,
and have no other trouble than that of collecting rents, interest
and dividends of stock. In a well constituted slave society, there
should be no idlers. But we cannot divine how the capitalists in
free society are to put to work. The master labors for the slave,
they exchange industrial value. But the capitalist, living on his
income, gives nothing to his subjects. He lives by mere
exploitations.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3141t.html

Background Stanley M. Elkins, a famous historian who wrote Slaver.docx

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Background Stanley M. Elkins, a famous historian who wrote Slaver.docx