Peculiar Institution

lervns CH APT ER 8 The Peculiar Institution, Slaves Tell Their Own invention ii THE PROBLEM With the establishment of its nelw presidential term in 1789, ihe United States became a r. irtual rnagaet for foieign traveiers, peradventure never more so than during the triad Cecades immediately preceding our Civil lVar. Niddle to up_ per class, interesied in some(prenominal)thing from political relation to prison crystalise to botanical specimens to the position of women in Ameri shtup society, these cu_ rious travelers fanrred out across the United States, and nigh all wrote some their observ-ations in ieLters, pamphlets, anci books widej-v bear witness orr both sides of rhe ocean.Regardlcss of their special interests, ho*. ever, ferv travelers f. itled to nonice-an. d comment on-the peciiliar instrtution, of -fri finish Anre, rican slal,e,-v. As rlere narl-v nineteenth-cenlurr. onterr writers, English agent Har_ i*t inter_ riet Martineau was especiaily tc tap female siave s sexually, a practice that frequently produced mulatto children born into buckle d admitry. The young Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville came to study the Ameri_ can penitentiary corpse and stayed to investigate politics and society.In his book Democracy in the States (1g42), Tocqueville geted his belief that American knuckle d hands had completelr. bem accustomd their . drican cuiture-their custorns. lariguages, religions, ancl tear d give birth ihe memories of their countries. An Eng_ ish novelist rvho 4/as enor. moLr_. lv poprrlar in the p16 Srrtr. -.. t-,. ested in those aspects of American so_ ciety that affected women and chil_ dren. She was scandalise by the slave organization, believing ii degadcd mar_ riage by aliowing grey face c curingh rnen 1791 ,ll . (ul,lAIt 3ftr1loN .rrls 1lll,l, ,tElR ON .+,r()ltY gray Charles the Tempter, also visited in 1842. He spent very little time in the South but collected (and published) advertisemenis lor blowout slaves th at contained gruesome descriptions of their burns, brandings, scars, and iron culfs and collars. As Dickens departed for a steamboat trip to bhe West. he wrote that he left with a glateful sum total that I was non doomed to receive where thraldom was, and had never had my s nses blunted to its wrongs and horrors in a slave-rocked cradle. I mer wrote to her baby that they ar ugly, but appear for the some part cheerful and vigorous-fed. 2 Her resultant trips to the plar. lations of the th gir m( stz backcountry, however, increased her sympalhy for slaves and her distrust of neat southerlyers assertions that slaves are the happiest people in the world. l In fact, by the end o. her stay, Bremer was praising ihe slaves morality, patience, la,cnts, and religior,s practices. to tht m( sla alc ev( gio m3 1850s, Fredrika Bremer, a Swedish novelist, traveled throughoul the United States for devil vears and spent considerable time in Soulh Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana.After her first encounters with African Americans in Charieston, Bre- In the turbulent These traveiers-and many an(prenominal) moreadded their opinions to the growing liteiature nigh the nature of American slavery and its effects. moreover the over- sla dot pr( whelming majority of this literature was indite by smock people. What did the slaves themselves think? How did they express their find oneselfings about the peculiar institulion of slavery? mi iio sla (aI SIn sla inc I it BACKGROUND JI F the wh 3i cilLBy the time of the American Revolution, rvhat haci begrrn in 1619 as a trick-le of Africans intended to attachment the farm tote of inderrtured servants from Engiano had sweiled to a slave population of approrimateiy 500,000 people, the majority concentrated on tobacco, rice. and cotton piantations in the South. Moreover, as the African American population greu, rvhat apparenuly had been a fairly- ioose and unregimented labor s-r. stem gradually evoived into an increasingly harsh , rigrd. and complete Charies Dickens. Anteri-can Notes desiccated Picrrres ircn 1lol-y rLcnCon Oxlold Unrversit. v Press. 1957), p. 3?. system of chattel slavery that tried to say-so neariy every aspect of the slaves iives. By 1775, African Ameiican slavery had operate a pregnant (some wouki have said indispensable) part of southern iife. The American Revoiution did nct reverse those trends. Although northern states in which African American slavery was nol so deeply rocted began instituting graduai emancipation, after the Revolution, the slave systemas well as its harshness-increased in the pio the Vir wh wh sec sor_ tha mo his no1 ag( 2. Fredrika Brenrer, ,nttri,ctt ol the Fi. fties i. Letters of Fredriha Brenier. cd. Adolph B.Benson (Nerv York melicrrr ,Scandinavian Foundation, I92-1r. p. 96. I e 3 ibid , p. 1r. t0 f1801 ITAOKGROUND the South. The invention ofthe cotton gin, which enabled seeds to be withdraw from the easily grown short stapie cotton, permitted southerners to cultivat,e collon on the uplands, scale, and sell-preservation other. . . . in the t the Lay, moOUS iftcan ,er- tire did drd t,he thereby spurring the westward movement of the piantation system anci slavery. As-a result, slaverv expanded along , with settlement into nigh bverv area of the South the . Gulf region, Tennessee, Kentucky, and uitimately Texas.Simulianeously, the slave population burge 1d, roughly doubling every thirty years (from approximately 700,000 in 1790 to 1. 5 million in 1820 to morethan 3. 2 mitiion in 1850). Because importation of slaves from Africa was banned in 1808 (although there was some iilegal slave smuggiing), to the highest degree further gains in the By this time, ho*ever, Jelferson was nearly alone among rvhite southerners. Most did not question the assertion that siaver-i as a necessity, that it was gooti for both the slave and the owrlrr, and that it nrusr be preserved at nny cost. Ir ofen has been pointed oul that lhe majority of rvhite south erners did not own slaves.In fact, the proportion of white southern families who did own slaves was actualiy declining in the nineteenth century, from one- lnt 1e) rot han an ef- southern pcpulation, and ihose siave fight backers with iarge plantations and But as the sla. re popuiation grew, the fears and anxieties of southern hundreds of slaves were an exceedingiy small group. whites grew correspondingly. Il 1793, How, then, did the pecuiiar institua slave insubordination in the Caribbean tion oi slavery, as one southerner caused dreadful consternation in the white South. Rurrrors of uprisings called it. become so embeddeci in the piotted by slaves were numerous. _nd superannuated South? Firsr. regular(a) though wholly a the actual rebeilion of Nat Turner in minority of southern whires owned Virginia in 1831 (in which fifty-five slaves, nearly all southern whites whites were killed, many of them were somehorv touched(p) by the instit. rtion of slavery. Fear of b pretermit r_i prisings r,rhile asieep) provided increased white inpiorrrpred many nonsiaveholders to securities and dread. In response, support an increasingly rigrd slave southern states passed a series oflaws that make the system of siavery even system that include night patrols, more restrictive.Toward the end of rvritten passes for slaves arvay fi-om his life, doubting Thomas Jefferson (r. iho did plantations. supenised religious servnot live to see Nat Turners uprising) ices for slales, larr,s prohibiting precept slaves to read or rvrite. and other hurt measLlres to keep slares ignorant, ciePitdeltt. ttrd ar,ar undt thr ,,J. pi 1,1 But as it rs. r, e lrrve hc rvolf bv rho rr lrit,s. 1lrny nonlavehuicl,. r. t. ears, and we can neither hold him, nor rtere ah5id ttat emancipation rvoulci safel-v let hirr go. iustice is in one hling rherrr nto dilect nc,,n,,n. ,. (. (,nrincrease. slave population were frorn natural rird in 1830 to roughly one-fourth b-v 1860. Moreover, nearly three-fourths o f these slaveholders owned fewer than ten slaves. Slaveholders, then, lvere a distinct minorrty of the white f1811 t ,EuLlAll fTloN TEI,I, S ,IR OWN fr)til can Americans partly be on the limitation of rights and emancipations for nally, although large planters repre- southern whites as well. l sented oniy a lraction of the white But how did the slaes reacL to population, they virtuaily controlled irn economic and affable system that the econopnic. ocial, and political in- meanL that neither they nor their chilstilutionsftnd were not about to injure dren would ever realize freedom? either thcmselves or their post bv Most while southerners assumed that eliminating. the slave. syslem that es- slaves were blissful and content. Northsentiallv supporred thern. , ern abolitionists (a minority of the po interpret their peculiar institurion, ivhite population) believed that slaves rvhite southerners constructed a re- continually yearned for I edom. Both markabiy compleie and ciiverse sel of groups used oceans of ink to explain arguments.Siavery, they retained, and support their claims. But evidence was actuaily a far more humane svs- of hor+ the slaves mat and thcught is tem than northern capitaiism. After woefuliy sparse. Given the restrictiie ail, slaves s/ere fed, clothed, shelrered, nature of the slave syltem (which incared for *hen they rvere ill, and sup- cluded enforced analphabetism among ported in their old age, rvhereas north- slaves), this pitiful lack of evidence is ern factory workers were gainful pitifully hardiy surprising. lorv rvages, used, dnd then discarded IIow, then, cail we learn horv slaves when no longer usefui. Iur+. ernrore, feit, and ihought about the pecuiiar inmany . ,rhite southeiners maintained stitution? Slave uprisings were few, that slavery was a controlling good be- but does that mean nigh(prenominal) slaves were cause ir had introduced the barba- happy with their lot? Runa slipway were rous Africans to civilized Americ ah. common, and some, such as Frederick ways and, rnore importantiy, to Chris- Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, actuaily tianitl. Other southern rvhites reached the North and wrote about stressei rvhat they believed lvas the their experiences as slaves. Yet how childirke. ciependent nature of African typical were their experiences?Most Americans, insisting that they could slaves were born, lived, and died in neyer cope with iife outside the pater- servitude. did not introduce in organnaiistic and benevolent institution ized revoits, and did not run awaS. oi iiavri-. in si_ich zin atmorphere, in Fiow ciid they feel about the system of rvhich many of the white southern in- slavery? tellectr,ral efforts rvent into the defense Aithough about slaves did not read or of slaven. , ciissent anci freedom of wrile, did not participate in nonionic thought rvere not welcome. Hence revolts, and did not attempt to run those rrhite southerners rvho dis- away. hey did leave a remarkable agreed anci m ight have challenged the amount of evidence thal can athletic supporter us unScuths ciependence on siarery re- derstand their thoughts and leeiings. mained siient. *ere hushed up, or de- Yet we must be imagrnative in horl. rve cided rcr lear. e rhe region. In man,r, approach and use that evidence. wa,vs. ihen, the enslavement of Afri- peiition with blacks who, it was assumed, would drive down wages. Fi- In that birti size, fortf ordir bn t, tion. help who eCOnl the p of th exiting I and evide sout,l ing r trave much ore Nort the them gand ecdot rich tives r iave Ligat, pecur Histr awar denc, most eight older thev 182 THFI ilEilol) rl- JM? /Ii i. re tves iolh +iA, , r rJi ,ltcc iis iive inong eis ves inere ere ick illv vallecula nii in a-v. In an earlier chapter, you observed (about births, deaths, age at marriage, farm size, inheritance, valuate . rolls, and so forth) can reveal a great deal about workaday people, such. as the colonists on the eve of the American Revolution. Such demographic evidence can help the. historian form a picture of who these people were and the socioeconomic trends of the time, even if the people themselves . ere not aware of those trends. In this exercise, you go forth tre using another configuration of evidence and asking different questions. Your eviCence will not . come fom white southerners (rvhose stake in maintaining slavery was enormous), foreiga travelers (wh-ose own cultural biases often influenced ,vhai they reported), or even white abolitionists in the North (whcse pressing need to eradicate the sin of slavery sometimes led them to gross exaggerations for propaganda purposes). You will be using anecdotes, stories, and songs froia the rich orai tradition of African American slaves, supplemente