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From Interstate - Journal of International Affairs VOL. 2014/2015 NO. 1 The Concept of Property and Ownership in the Antebellum American South: Slaves, Slaveholders, Theft, Conflict and the Law
By John Wood
Interstate - Journal of International Affairs
2015, Vol. 2014/2015 No. 1 | pg. 2/3 | « »
To find the slave’s concept of property and ownership, following the legal prohibitions above, is one therefore of perception rather than legality. As the slave only owned property by the leave of the master, or by theft, we must rely on investigation of the slave’s first-hand testimony to provide a history of thought on this matter.
In exploring slaves’ understanding of property there are two main kinds of sources, each of which have some problems of bias due to the historical context of when they were written and also why they were written. The most accessible source is the Federal Writers Project (FWP), collected from 1936-8 as part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, to combat the social and economic consequences of the Great Depression. These were recollections of surviving slaves collected by out of work authors and other ‘writers’ across the former Southern states. The other major source of slave testimony is the autobiographies and biographies written either in the period leading up to the Civil War, or to a lesser extent after it. These various biographies have the problem that many of them were ghost written or edited by abolitionist activists.29 This has the tendency to bias the accounts due to the nature of the abolitionists’ need to prove the evils of slavery to a white audience. This shows in narratives through the accounts being edited so that much of the everyday activity of the slave, essential to the social historian but dull to the contemporary reader, was not included.30
There are clearly several problems with the use of slave testimony which have been elaborated over the past half century, and it is with these in mind that we can explore the nature and understanding of property derived from testimonies of the FWP. Stanley Elkins is the first and possibly most adroit in his criticism of the intellectual paradigm surrounding the collection of the ex-slaves testimony, positing that there was an inherent bias in the selection of interviewers. This was due to the interviewers being (almost exclusively) white, coming from the same states, and sometimes the same local area, as their interviewees. So over the two or three generations between the subject materials collection and the events described, the nature of what he describes as the paternalist model, 31 has only altered rather than radically changed. He shows that the early studies of slavery were dominated by Southerners who grew up within the legacy of slavery and the ‘Jim Crow’ laws and this meant the recording of their testimony by the framework of the interviewers was thus severely biased. 32 This applies to our sources of slave testimony in two ways. The first is that, any theft or other duplicity from, or involving, the owners was less likely to be reported; as on at least one occasion the interviewer was the descendent of a local slaveholder, 33 and in general the black interviewees were less inclined to confide in a white interviewer. 34
There were also other more general problems with the evidence collected by the FWP, many of which are suggested by Blassingame, and those expanding upon his research between the publishing of his original book, The Slave Community, in 1972 and 1980.35 It however must be noted that the pendulum of historiography had moved to the opposite side during this period, rather than, as in the 1920s trying to ameliorate the legacy of slavery á la Phillips, in the wake of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement there was now a move towards finding the slave’s agency and empowerment, possibly to the point of bias.36
Time is only the most self-evident problem when assessing the interviews. Even for a slave who was only emancipated upon the passing of the 13th Amendment and was consequently interviewed at the start of the FWP, it was still exactly 70 years since they had been enslaved, and because of this, two further problems result. The first is that of memory, in that even for those ex-slaves who still had sharp memories after 70 years, they were generally vulnerable pensioners living through the Great Depression, in the region hit hardest, due to the reliance on agriculture in the South.37 In several narratives this shows up as a longing for the lack of material hardship they had as slaves compared to current conditions and other nostalgia.38 The second factor is that as young children growing up in slavery there is evidence that their condition did not impinge upon their consciousness until they were around 8-10 years old, and they only started adult work between the ages of 12 and 16.39 Thus as many of the ex-slaves interviewed were ‘only’ in their mid-70s, they themselves could only be reporting what they had been told about the adult slave regime, and those under 75 would not even have real memories of first hand observation. Age also introduces a bias due to the exceptionality of all of these slaves, in that cliometric modelling of the slave’s lifespan suggests that the life expectancy of the average slave was only in their late 30s, compared with a contemporary US whites 40-2.40 This suggests that the slaves living for 70 years following emancipation were those who were most fortunate, receiving both good diet and medical care, and one must contemplate that their narratives, therefore, may also be exceptional, rather than reflecting the average for a slave.41
With all of the above in mind as to the qualification and sensitive treatment of the ex-slaves narratives, several ideas of the slaves’ understanding of property can be drawn out. The first is the seemingly communal nature of property within the slave quarters; there seems within the narratives to be a distinct body of property, usually that given by the master to his slaves, which is the property of the slaves as a whole rather than being a possession of the narrator in particular. Throughout the various narratives there are certain references to ‘Our’ and ‘Us’ rather than ‘me’ or ‘mine.’ This may be due to the fact for many large plantations the distribution of food, clothes and shoes was a mass event. Della Briscoe notes (in the interviewers obviously paraphrased style) ‘Food was distributed on Monday nights, [there was] a staple ration of 3½ lb. meat, 1 pack of meal and 1 gal. ‘shorts’, whilst vegetables and meat was distributed daily’, whilst Jasper Battle notes ‘Jus’ a few o’ de slave famblies was ‘lowed to do cooking … Marster kept cooks up at de big house what never had nothin’ to do but cook for the slaves’.42 This is in accord with much of the current trends in the historiography of slave communities, suggesting the communal nature of many activities, whilst the gang labour system is the most obvious, a common one in narratives is ‘quilting’.43 This communal activity combined with the lack of property of individuals to give them status, meant that role of the extended family blended into the community as a whole more than in the contemporary white culture.44
Just as there was a sense of the property which belonged to the whole community, rather than the individual, there is considerable evidence that outside this sphere there was an acceptance of casual or petty theft, ranging from poaching, which could be semi-condoned by the master, to general theft from the slave owner class. The most interesting and immediately striking example is that given by Rev. Allen in listing reasons for slaves being whipped, he says, ‘[because of] taking things –the whites call it stealing.’ This is certainly not the casual sophistry one would expect from a minister and speaks for a heartfelt idea of difference. There are also many other incidences throughout the narratives of cases of theft, usually reported by those who were still children at the time of emancipation.45 For some plantations it would seem that theft was an endemic problem. Hector Hamilton recalls after the white males were drafted that:
‘Mis’ Laura took me away from de sideboa’d [where he was a house servant] an’ made me a watchman. Dat is, I wuz set to watch the commissary to see dat de niggers wuzn’ take no more den dey share o’ eats, den I looked after de chickens an’ things’.
Fredrick Douglass also mentions this during the earlier antebellum period, ‘Scarcely a day passed in the summer, but that some slave had to take the lash for stealing fruit’.46
One key notion which seems to run through the testimonies is that it was a slave’s duty to steal on behalf of a runaway slave if they could get away with it. Fanny Cannady describes this at length when recounting the tale of how Burrus, a slave on her plantation was killed for running away by a cruel master:
‘Ol’ Marse denn tole all de niggahs dat if anybody fed Burrus on de sly, de he was goin’ ta shoot them like he done shot Leonard … [later when he was found hiding out] Sally whispered an’ tole him to lie still, dat she goin’ to slip him somethin’ to eat.’
Thus even in the face of explicit threat of punishment a slave was willing to steal for another. This example suggests the bonds of the community were sufficient to transcend the difference between the property of the slaves and the masters in the slave’s eyes.47 This may have developed, in part, through what was a necessity at times. Fredrick Douglass mentions his inner conflict on, as he saw it, being forced to steal due to hunger when the master was well provided for:
‘We were reduced to… begging and stealing, whichever came in handy in our time of need… many times have we been perishing with hunger when food in abundance lay mouldering in the safe or smokehouse.’48
He later explicitly defines the slaves’ position as, ‘The morality of free society could have no application to slave society’.49
There was some evidence of the slaves being allowed personal property in the form of their own private plots for agriculture by the masters, and even being allowed to trade the excess produce at market. Whilst Jeff Forret has examined this in detail amongst the slaves operating in the rural Carolinas50 and there has been extensive research in the slave economies of the Low Country,51 there has so far been little on the slave economies of the Deep South with the exception of Vernon Palmer, who only traces the evolution of custom of slaves trading rather than extent.
It also emerges that there was some masters who allowed their slaves to work at certain times for pay, Gus Clarke says in his narrative:-
‘… but my Daddy say dat de niggers earn money on Old Boss’ place even during slav’ry. He give ‘em every other Sat’dy fer deyse’ves. Dey cut cordwood fer Boss, wimmens an’ all. Mos’ of de men cut two cords a day an’ de wimmins one. Boss paid ‘em a dollar a cord… Some cullud men saved enough to buy deyse’ves frum Boss, as free as I is now’.
This permission to earn money openly at the market seems however to be something which occurred more in the Deep South than the Upper South. In the Mississippi Narratives 4 of the 5 sampled testimonies mention being allowed to either earn through working or selling produce at the market or to the master.52 In the Georgia Narratives 3 of the 6 narratives included some mention of permission to sell at the market.53 By comparison in the Upper South there are two mentions of slaves being given permission to trade openly at the market for themselves.54 The author would speculate that this may have had its cause partially in the demography of the Deep South as compared to the Upper South.55 Another cause of these customary markets, according to Palmer, was a cultural blending with the period before the US annexation of the Louisiana Purchase territories. Due to the inheritance of the different slave codes from the Spanish Codigos Negros and the French Code Noir, where the legacy was that the slaves had to provide their own clothes and food rather than the master providing for them, there was the custom of temporary release from their duties to do this. These customs then diffused across the South due to the interstate trade of slaves.56
In this section the role of the slave as property will be addressed in two respects. The first is to find the idea the slaveholders had of the slave, as both a person and their property. The second approach is to examine the ideas slaveholders had of the slaves’ property, or whether they thought of the slaves as having property at all.
The idea of slaves as key to the idea of property for slaveholders in the South is indisputable. When threatened with the loss of this property the various white groups thought it preferable to form the Confederacy and fight rather than risk the loss of this property. This being said however there were various conceptions of the slave as property by Slaveholders.
‘My child, he had no gold, his wealth lay in his land and Negroes’57 was the comment of N. B. De Saussure when describing her father’s estate at the time of emancipation, and this, for many planters, describes their conception of the slave as property; large sums of money were not the making of a gentleman, rather the quantity of land one could cultivate with ones slaves. Through evidence such as this we can see that the element within the paternalist paradigm where the slaveholder saw the slave as almost part of the extended family. George Fitzhugh in Cannibals All! gave an elegant description:-
‘Almost all Negroes require masters, whilst only children, the women, weak, poor and ignorant among the whites, need some protective and governing regulation of this kind’.58
Much of the older historiography emphasised paternalism, and between the late 1960s and early 1980s much of the historiography excoriated this ideal, as has been described earlier, so for our purpose it is only useful to show that for many it was in fact a fallacy. In many cases that paternalism was only a mask for a business where, when profit was at stake, the only role of paternalism was to provide the form rather than reality of guilt.59 Thomas Chaplin, when forced to sell ten slaves due to a debt shows the false guilt of the slave owner:-
‘I never thought I would be driven to this … extremity, nothing can be more mortifying and grieving to a man, than… some of his Negroes to be sold. [To] separate families… all to pay for your own extravagances.’60
James H. Hammond was another slaveholder who does not see a dichotomy between slaves as persons and as property to be used for profit, though for him it seems almost though there was mental self-censorship of such thoughts. Within the space of four days his diary tells of the delight of a conversation with the son of a slave who was owned by the Boone pioneer family, and then a radical change to the need to procure more slaves and open up more land in case the price of cotton fails again, as if individually slaves could have a personality, but, when taken as a whole they were as any other livestock to him.61 This comes out in many of the passages about the terrible mortality rate of his plantation, but is particularly evident when he says, ‘I have lost 89 Negroes and at least 50 mules and horses in the past 11 years, several of the horses, blood mares costing me $1000 to $1500’.62
Genovese in The Political Economy of Slavery, stresses, from a Marxist analysis, that the paternalist model was more important in interactions between the elite members of the slaveholder society, than between the slaveholders and their slaves. In this social sphere acting in accordance with paternalistic ideas was a mark of status. The relationship of the slaveholders toward their slaves however was based around economic exploitation, as it was only through profiting from productive labour of the slave that the slaveholder could maintain his estate, and live the traditional role of the ‘Southern Gentleman’. Those who could exploit the labours of their slaves most effectively became the leading members of this elite, as they could invest more capital in land and slaves, thus maintaining the economic focus over the generations.63 The slaves only benefitted from paternalism as a by-product of the desire for status among the masters.
In some cases the paternalist ideal of the master receiving the labour of the slave in return for protection was not even paid lip service; Charles Parsons visited a large plantation where the means of profit was the ‘breeding’ of slaves for sale rather than the sale of produce they made:-
‘There was very little labor [sic] done on that plantation .One Northern man would perform as much as five of those slaves. And yet I never saw a more miserable, degraded, despairing family of human beings. Debts, taxes, and expenses of all kinds were paid by the sale of slaves, and the ’soul driver’ was an almost weekly visitor… there was not an unbroken family among them’.64
This form of industrialised slave production does not fit easily with prior southern philosophical justifications of slavery, when it was the ‘soul’ not the labour as a commodity.65
Finding the nature of property that slaves were allowed by their masters, through the masters eyes, is difficult, but though periodicals, such as Southern Planter, De Bow’s Review and others, which were effectively slavery’s trade journals, we can see into the minds of the planters on comparing the ideal slave regime. In certain themes there was a consensus as to the correct allowances for the slaves. In the discussion of slave housing there was almost total accord that it should be as good as the slave owner could afford, and situated in a place the slaveholder himself would live. This, however is measured by the reduction in doctor’s fees good housing will provide when the slaves are away from dangerous ‘miasmas’.66 In other themes of ownership there was intense debate over many years. Much was debated over the subject of food distribution: Was it better for a weekly allowance to be provided all at once or rationed per day? Should each slave family cook for themselves or should it be made the permanent task of a cook slave? Various arguments were employed by each contributor, including relative cost effectiveness, trustworthiness of slaves and the racial characteristics influence upon nutrition.67
The greatest debate of the slaveholders was over the nature of rewards and commerce among slaves. Some slaveholders were utterly against their slaves having any access to money under any situation, whilst others saw it as an effective means of social control. For the former, slave possessions which were not given by the master were a risk to him, as in a society where there was some legitimate trade by the slaves that trade would become a cover for sale of stolen goods and promote independence from the master as well.68 Those of the latter viewpoint believed that through some small grants of land, or payment at holiday times for good or hard work ,the slaves could be better kept in line, not only should there be a stick, but also a carrot.69 When comparing the language of the two sides it is not surprising to note that those in the ‘anti-reward’ camp tend to stress the common perception of the time, that the ‘negro’ had an immature and infantile nature that could not be trusted with normal responsibilities without supervision, and those in the ‘pro-reward’ group the common human nature the slaves shared with the masters.70Continued on Next Page »
Books
Ashworth, J., Slavery, capitalism and politics in the Antebellum South, Volume One, (CUP, 1995, Cambridge)
Davis, C. T., & Gates, H. L., The Slave’s Narrative, (OUP, 1985, Oxford)
Elkins, S. M., Slavery 3rd Edition (Chicago UP, Chicago, 1976)
Fogel, R. W., & Engerman, S. L., Time on the Cross: The economics of American Negro Slavery, (Wildwood House, 1974, London)
Genovese, E. D., The political economy of Slavery: Studies in the economy and society of the Slave south, 2nd Edition, (Wesleyan University Press, 1989)
Gilmore, T. (Ed.), Revisiting Blassingame’s The Slave community: the scholars respond, (Greenwood, 1978, London)
Gross, A. J., Double Character: Slavery and mastery in the Antebellum Courtroom, (Princeton UP, 2000, Oxford)
Halpern, R. & De Largo, E., (Editors), Slavery and Emancipation, (Blackwell, Oxford, 2002)
Harris, J. W. Editor, Society and Culture in the Slave South, (Routledge, London, 1992)
Huston, J. L., Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property rights, and the economic causes of the Civil war, (North Carolina UP, 2003, London)
Kolchin, P., American Slavery, (Penguin, London 1993)
Kolchin, P., Unfree Labour: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom, (Belknapp, London, 1987)
Morris, T. D., Southern Slavery and the Law 1619-1860, (North Carolina UP, 1996, London)
Parish, P. J., Slavery: History and Historians, (Harper & Row, New York, 1989)
Wahl, J. B., The Bondsman’s Burden: An economic analysis of the Common Law of Southern Slavery, (CUP, 1998, Cambridge)
Articles
Blassingame, J. W., ‘Using the Testimony of Ex-slaves: Approaches and Problems’, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 473-493.
Chan, M. D., ‘Alexander Hamilton on Slavery’, The Review of Politics, Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 207-231
Crowther, E. R., ‘Holy Honour: sacred and secular in the Old South’, Journal of Southern History, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp.619-636
Flanigan, D. J., ‘Criminal procedure in Slave trials in the Antebellum South’, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 537-564
Forret, J., ‘Slaves, poor whites and the Underground economy of the rural Carolinas’, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 783-824
Foster, G. M., ‘Guilt over Slavery: a historiographical analysis’, The Journal of Sothern History, Vol. 56, No.4, pp. 665-694
Franklin, J. H., ‘Slaves virtually free in Ante-bellum North Carolina’, The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 284-310
Gorman, R. M., ‘Blazing the way: the WPA Library service demonstration Project in South Carolina’ Libraries and Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 427- 455.
Jefferson, T. and Magnis, N. E., ‘Thomas Jefferson and Slavery: An analysis of His racist thinking as revealed by his writings and behaviour’, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 491-509
Lichtenstein, A., ‘’That disposition to theft, with which they have been branded’: Moral economy, Slave management and the law’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 413-440
Loewenburg, R. J., ‘John Locke and the antebellum defence of Slavery’, Political Theory, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 266-291
Lyman, J. L., ‘Jefferson and Negro slavery’, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 10-27
Morgan, P. D., ‘The ownership of Property by Slaves in the Mid –Nineteenth-century Low country’, The Journal of Sothern History, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 399-420
Palmer, V. V., ‘The customs of Slavery: The war without arms’, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 177-218
Rosenstone, R. A., ‘The Federal (Mostly Non-) Writers Project: A review of A study in Government Patronage of the Arts by Monty Penkower’, American History, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 400-404.
Schwartz, P. J., ‘Jefferson and the Wolf: The sage of Monticello Confronts the Law of slavery’, OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 18-22
Schweninger, L., ‘Slave independence in South Carolina, 1780-1865’, The South Carolina Historical Magazine, Vol. 93, No. 2, pp. 101-125
Soapes, T. F., ‘The Federal Writers Project Slave Interviews: Useful Data or misleading Source?’, The Oral History Review, Vol. 5, pp. 33-38
Thompson, J. C., ‘Towards a more humane oppression: Florida’s slave codes, 1821-1861’, The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 3, pp. 324-338
Van Woodward, C., ‘History from Slave Sources’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 2, pp. 470 – 481
Yetman, N. R., ‘Ex-Slave interviews and the Historiography of Slavery’, American Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 181-210.
Primary Sources
Blassingame, J. W., Slave Testimony: Two centuries of letters, speeches, interviews and autobiographies, (Louisiana State UP, 1977, Baton Rouge)
Breeden, J. O. (Ed.), Advice among Masters: the ideal in Slave management in the Old South, (Greenwood Press, 1980, London)
De Saussure, N. B., Old Plantation Days: Being recollections of Southern Life before the war, (Duffield & Co. 1909, New York)
Douglass, F., Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, written by himself, (American Anti-Slavery Office, 1847, Boston)
Goodell, W., The American Slave Code in theory and Practice: Its distinctive features shown by its Statutes, Judicial decisions and illustrative facts, (The American Anti-Slavery Society, 1858, New York)
Hammond, J. H. & Bleser, C. (Ed.), Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, A Southern Slaveholder, (OUP, 1988, Oxford)
Jefferson, T., Notes on the state of Virginia with an Appendix, Third American Edition, (Furman and Loudon, 1801, New York)
Kembal, F. A., Journal of a residence on a Georgia Plantation in 1838-1839, (Harper & Bros., 1863, New York)
Locke, J. Second Treatise of Government (London, first published 1690)
Morgan, K., Slavery in America, a Reader and Guide, (Edinburgh UP, 2005, Edinburgh)
Parsons, C. G., An insider view of Slavery: or a tour amongst the planters, (John P. Jewett & Co., 1855, Boston)
Rose, W. L. (Ed.), A Documentary History of Slavery in North America, (OUP, 1976, Oxford)
Stroud, G. M., A sketch of the laws relating to Slavery in the several States of the United States of America, (Kimber and Sharpless, Philadelphia, 1827)
Wheeler, J. D., A practical treatise on the laws of Slavery: being a compilation of all decisions made on that subject in the various courts of the United States and the State Courts, (Benjamin Levy, New Orleans, 1837)
Slave testimonies available from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html The Library of Congress’ collection of the former Slave’s narratives collected from 1936-8, sorted by State and volume with relevant slave biographical information (age at time of interview and place of residence at time of interview, if known).
Georgia Narratives, Vol. IV, Part 1
Rev. W.B. Allen, 78, Columbus
Rachel Adams, 78, Putman Co.
Celestia Avery, 75, Troupe Co.
Georgia Baker, 87, Crawfordville
Jasper Battle, 80, Crawfordville
Mississippi Narratives, Vol. IX
Gus Clark, 85
Dora Frank, 81, Jackson
Pet Franks, 92, Monroe Co.
Prince Johnson, ‘at least 86’, Clarksdale
Clare Young, 89, Monroe Co.
Virginia Narratives, Vol. XVII
Charles Crawley, ‘More than 80’, Petersburg
Candis Goodwin, 80, Cape Charles
Mariah Hines, 102, Norfolk
Simon Stokes, 100, Gloucester Co.
Richard Slaughter, 87, Hampton Roads.
North Carolina Narratives, Vol. XI, Part 1
Cornelia Andrews, 87, Smithfield
Charity Austin, 83, Raleigh
John Bectom, 74, Fayetteville
Fanny Cannady, 79, Durham Co.
Harriet Ann Davies, 80, Raleigh
Rev. Squire Dowd, 82, Raleigh
Frank Freeman, 76, Raleigh
Sarah Gudger, 121 (claimed but not proven to have been born before 1820), Asheville
Hector Hamilton, 90
Essex Henry, 83, Wake Co.
Internet Sources
Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy - Locke’s political theory http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/#Pro
A racial demographic profile of the United states in 1860 http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm
Historical records of the Supreme Court of the State of Alabama, rulings upon manumission http://www.lib.auburn.edu/archive/aghy/manumission/creswell.htm
Endnotes
- Or more rarely Black African and Native American, as the attempted enslavement of the Native American s in the 17th and 18th centuries had been largely unsuccessful.
- Huston, J. L., Calculating the Value of the Union: Slavery, Property rights, and the economic causes of the Civil war, (North Carolina UP, 2003, London), p. 7
- Seen as a philosophical justification for the Westward Expansion throughout the nineteenth century, The Native Americans were not using the land (in the traditional conception of the whites) so it could be claimed by the labour of the settlers.
- In that by placing a subjective value upon what was there, but not previously valued, they have been invested with the product of our labour.
- The above discourse is a summary of paragraphs 27-43 of Locke, J. Second Treatise of Government (London, first published 1690), with criticism from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/#Pro
- The discipline of legal history has not been in vogue for much of the twentieth century due to the decline of the statist paradigm after the First World War, and before this time there was little interest in the legacy of slavery, but there has been some resurgence in recent years, see for example Palmer, V. V., ‘The customs of Slavery: The war without arms’, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 177-218, or Flanigan, D. J., ‘Criminal procedure in Slave trials in the Antebellum South’, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 537-56. Much of the contemporary discussion of the role Locke played in the pro and anti-slavery debates such as Loewenburg, R. J., ‘John Locke and the antebellum defence of Slavery’, Political Theory, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 266-291, presupposes prior detailed knowledge of Locke, so for the benefit of the historian it is elaborated here.
- Adams, S., Writings of Samuel Adams, Vol. 2:299, quoted in Huston, Calculating the Value of the Union, p. 12
- Patrick Henry, History of the Virginia Federative convention, quoted in Lyman, J. L., ‘Jefferson and Negro slavery’, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 13-14
- This problem was given its most explicit form on the eve of the Civil War. In The executors of the Creswell Estate vs. Walker, (1861) It was judged that a slave given the option of choosing his legal master upon the death of his previous one, or choosing manumission was judged legally incapable on grounds of capacity to choose his own freedom over slavery.
- See Gross, A. J., Double Character: Slavery and mastery in the Antebellum Courtroom, (Princeton UP, 2000, Oxford), introduction, for the different evolutions of the slave as a person and the slave as property through the criminal and civil courts respectively.
- Huston, Calculating the Value of the Union, p. 13
- Jefferson, T., Notes on the state of Virginia with an Appendix, Third American Edition, (Furman and Loudon, 1801, New York), pp. 125 – 133, exemplars in this text of his thought before his term as President include describing Slavery as ‘this Blot upon our country’, and ending the passage with ‘[may] the minds of our citizens be ripening for a complete emancipation of human nature’ (p. 133).
- Thomas Jefferson’s legacy with respect to slavery has been debated at length throughout the twentieth century, and this will probably continue. From the founding of the NAACP to the present there has been a conflict over the traditional hagiography of the founding fathers when their status was combined with that of slaveholder. See for example Lyman, J. L., ‘Jefferson and Negro slavery’, The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 10-27, or Jefferson, T. and Magnis, N. E., ‘Thomas Jefferson and Slavery: An analysis of His racist thinking as revealed by his writings and behaviour’, Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 491-509 and Schwartz, P. J., ‘Jefferson and the Wolf: The sage of Monticello Confronts the Law of slavery’, OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 18-22, for good examples of the ‘anti’ and ‘pro’ Jefferson camps.
- This may be due to the contradictions of his political theory in that he was certainly a racist, thinking that white and black people may not have shared monogenesis, and unable to reconcile the expansion in state power necessary for the dismantling of the slave system, with his fundamental views of the ‘yeoman’ state. Ashworth, J., Slavery, capitalism and politics in the Antebellum South, Volume One, (CUP, 1995, Cambridge), pp. 37-40
- Jefferson speaking of George III:-
‘Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this exorable commerce.’
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition, Vol. 2, pp. 210-212, quoted in Lyman, ‘Jefferson and Negro slavery’, p. 17
- In Jefferson’s second inaugural address on his pervious opposition to slavery:-
‘All too well bear in mind that this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and their violation be oppressive’.
Lyman, J. L., ‘Jefferson and Negro slavery’, p. 18
- Alexander Hamilton, ‘The Farmer Refuted’ in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. 1 pages 88-134
- Alexander Hamilton, ‘The Farmer Refuted’ quoted in Chan, M. D., ‘Alexander Hamilton on Slavery’, The Review of Politics, Vol. 66, No. 2, p. 215
- Ibid. p. 219
- Morris, T. D., Southern Slavery and the Law 1619-1860, (North Carolina UP, 1996, London)
- Within the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, writing 50 years before Locke, the dangers of the ‘state of nature’ mean that in exchange for the preservation of one’s life, one must be willing to utterly sacrifice one’s freedom to the terms of the protector, as it is the only solution to the constant risk of death.
- With the historical exception of the States of Massachusetts and Connecticut, but in the antebellum period either slavery had been abolished (the former) or was rare as to be effectively unnoticed (the later). Wheeler, J. D., A practical treatise on the laws of Slavery: being a compilation of all decisions made on that subject in the various courts of the United States and the State Courts, (Benjamin Levy, New Orleans, 1837), p. 6
- Ibid., p. 7
- Ibid.
- Ibid. Also mentioned in Stroud, G. M., A sketch of the laws relating to Slavery in the several States of the United States of America, (Kimber and Sharpless, Philadelphia, 1827), p. 237
- Ibid, p. 238.
- ‘The Slave , who is but a ‘chattel’ on all other occasions, with not one solitary attribute of personality accorded to him becomes ‘a person’ whenever he is to be punished! He is the only being in the universe to whom is denied all self-direction and free agency, but who is, nevertheless, held responsible for his conduct… he is under the control of law, though unprotected by law and can know law only as an enemy, and not as a friend.’[italics in original] Goodell, W., The American Slave Code in theory and Practice: Its distinctive features shown by its Statutes, Judicial decisions and illustrative facts, (The American Anti-Slavery Society, 1858, New York), p. 125
- Phillips, U. B., The revised Statutes of Louisiana, (New Orleans, 1856), pp.51, Parish of St. Landry v. George (a slave), quoted in Morris, T. D., Southern Slavery and the Law 1619-1860, (North Carolina UP, 1996, London), pp. 226-7
- Many of the original titles, often cut down in newer editions to conform to modern style include a sub title similar to ‘Written from a statement of facts made by himself’ or ‘Written by a friend, as recounted to him by Brother [insert name here]’. Davis, C. T., & Gates, H. L., The Slave’s Narrative, (OUP, 1985, Oxford), p. 152
- James Olney in ‘’I was born’: Slave narratives, Their status as autobiography and literature’ in Davis, C. T., & Gates, H. L., The Slave’s Narrative, (OUP, 1985, Oxford),pp. 148-175, describes an emergence from the 1830s of a standard template that these autobiographical accounts were almost expected to obey, ranging from the teleological nature of the incidents which memory emphasises lead to the slave’s escape, to the very formatting of the text and supporting sources throughout the work, suggesting this was an publishing industry sector of the times equivalent to the formulaic cowboy novels of the early 20th century, or the noir detective novels of the 40s and 50s. This does not however mean that what is included is not true, as noted by Blassingame in Slave Testimony very few of these narratives were challenged by the Southern white community, introduction, pp. xxiii-xxvii
- The key points of paternalism are the inherent superiority of the whites to blacks, due to their ‘childlike’ nature, which he describes as ‘Samboism’, this gave the whites a ‘duty of care and education’ towards their slaves, and so the slaves the responsibility to work for their masters as a reward for this. See Elkins, Slavery, Chapters 3 and 4.
- Elkins, S. M., Slavery 3rd Edition., (Chicago UP, Chicago, 1976), See the footnotes between pp. 14-18 for the discussion of the UB Phillips paternalistic paradigm (as described in his book American Negro Slavery, published 1918) being the dominant one for the whole of the period from 1920 and not ‘seriously challenged’ until at least 1944, with the release of Hofstadter, R., ‘U B Phillips and the Plantation Legend’, Journal of Negro History, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 109-24, thus dominating the working framework of the FWP writers. For a flavour of American Negro Slavery, ‘In the actual regime severity was clearly the exception, and kindliness the rule’, p. 306
- Yetman, N. R., ‘Ex-Slave interviews and the Historiography of Slavery’, American Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 2, p. 188
- Shown throughout the narratives in that there are a great many occasions when it is said that only slaves on other plantations were beaten or whipped, and there is hardly ever a personal tale of stealing from the master, despite reports of it happening being common in general.
- Blassingame, J. W., ‘Using the Testimony of Ex-slaves: Approaches and Problems’, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 473-493, and also serving as the lynchpin of the discussion in Gilmore, T., Revisiting Blassingame’s The Slave community: the scholars respond, (Greenwood, 1978, London)
- Between 1982-8 three important articles were published stressing the importance of contextualising slave resistance within the wider southern community including Kolchin, P., ‘Re-evaluating the Antebellum slave community: a comparative perspective’, Journal of American History, Vol. 70, and Shore, L., ‘The poverty of tragedy in American historical writing’, South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 85.
- Gorman, R. M., ‘Blazing the way: the WPA Library service demonstration Project in South Carolina’ Libraries and Culture, Vol. 32, No. 4, p. 428. This was due to the effects of the depression being more severe on agriculture than many other sectors of the economy.
- See the narrative of Clare Young, 89, Monroe Co. Mississippi Narratives for an archetypal example of this.
‘What does I think about slavery? I tells you I wish it was back. Us was a lot better off in them days dan we is now. If’un Yankees had lef’ us ‘lone we’d be a lot happier. We wouldn’t be on ‘leif [poor relief] en’ old age pension these last years. An’ Jennie May I b’leive… … woulda been the Missus’ smartest gal and stayed at the big house lak I did.’
- Kolchin, P., American Slavery, (Penguin, London 1993), p. 141, As an example within the narratives see Harriet Ann Davies, ‘I was nothing but a child, but I know, and remember, I was treated kindly’ (though she stresses she was a mulatto so is possibly somewhat atypical), or Frank Freeman ‘[Master] would not let his slave boys work until they were 13’, this however can be countered by Sarah Gudger ‘If’n children too young to ho’ they be pullin’ weeds[sic]’
- Fogel, R. W., & Engerman, S. L., Time on the Cross: The economics of American Negro Slavery, (Wildwood House, 1974, London), pp. 125-6, though all of the figures of Fogel et al must be treated with some scepticism, see Evans, R. J., In defence of History, chapter 2 where Time on the Cross is used as the case study for controversial historical techniques.
- Just as an overview of one of the narrative volumes (South Carolina, part 2), out of 30 randomly selected narratives, 5 of the slaves were owned by something other than a professional planter, with a blacksmith, two doctors and two clergymen, which is statistically different from the population at large, where 7 in every 8 slaves where held on larger plantations (20+ slaves), whilst our ratio is 1 to 6 rather than 1 to 8. Kolchin, P., American Slavery, p. 99-101
- There are many other examples of this throughout the various narratives, such as in Mariah Hines, describing clothing distribution, John Bectom describing the yearly shoe allowance, and Prince Johnson, who noted that all food was prepared communally except on Sundays.
- Both Celestia Avery and Della Briscoe speak of autumn ‘quilting’ where by all the female slaves would travel from house to house, at each one ensuring that the family had enough warm clothes and blankets for the winter by helping finish any the mistress had not already before winter came, thus to some extent creating a sense of communal ownership, as all families contributed to the security of the others.
- Kolchin, P., Unfree Labour: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom, (Belknapp, London, 1987), p. 210
- Rev. Squire Dowd stole honey from the master whilst tasked as a house boy, Charity Austen stole an egg each day when she was in charge of looking after hens, John Bectom mentions ‘Sometimes slaves would steal the marster’s chickens and hogs and got to another plantation to have them cooked.’ Candis Goodwin volunteered as a teen to watch the master’s children just so she could get ‘jam un’ biscuits … Ef’n dey don’t give me none I jes’ teks some’. Rosa Barnwell, upon gaining a new master harsher than the old, ‘we was never allowed a piece of meat, unless sometime [we] should take a pig on [our] own account’, Blassingame, Slave Testimony, p. 698.
- Douglass, F., Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, written by himself, (American Anti-Slavery Office, 1847, Boston), p. 16
- Other examples in the narrative include Dora Franks who would steal on behalf of a slave who ran away during the war and only came out upon emancipation. For more on slave theft as a social study see Lichtenstein, A., ‘’That disposition to theft, with which they have been branded’: Moral economy, Slave management and the law’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 413-440, who, following Genovese’s Marxist perspective thinks that the role of slave theft was an effort by the slave to redefine the boundaries of paternalism.
- Douglass, Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass, p. 52
- Fredrick Douglass in a later version of his autobiography (1855 rather than 1847 above), on the same section of slave theft. Quoted in Morgan, K., Slavery in America: A Reader and Guide, (Edinburgh UP, 2005, Edinburgh). Kolchin suggests that this is an issue with the contemporary biographies which distorts their legacy, in that so many of the accounts were written by runaways from slave elites, such as Douglass, who had suffered sudden loss in status, and that this was also what gave them the literacy and articulation to record their experience, for comments on the nature of the morality of necessity would certainly be unusual for a field hand. Kolchin, P., Unfree Labour: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom, (Belknapp, London, 1987), p. 318
- Forret, J., ‘Slaves, poor whites and the Underground economy of the rural Carolinas’, The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 783-824
- Articles here include Philip D. Morgan, "Work and Culture: The Task System and the World of Low country Blacks, 1700 to 1880," William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 39, No. 3, Betty Wood, '"White Society' and the 'Informal' Slave Economies of Low country Georgia, c. 1763-1830," Slavery and Abolition, Vol. 11, and Lawrence T. McDonnell, "Money Knows No Master: Market Relations and the American Slave Community," in Winfred B. Moore Jr., Joseph F. Tripp, and Lyon G. Tyler Jr., eds., Developing Dixie: Modernization in a Traditional Society (Westport, Conn., 1988)
- Those narratives given by Gus Clark, 85, Pet Franks, 92, Monroe Co., Prince Johnson, ‘at least 86’, Clarksdale, and Clare Young, 89, Monroe Co.
- These were Rev. W. B. Allen, Georgia Baker and Celestia Avery, though Rev. Allen’s description is of his father, who was a blacksmith and so a much more valuable slave, usually given some leeway compared to normal slave convention. See Harris, J. W. Editor, Society and Culture in the Slave South, (Routledge, London, 1992), pp. 83 which shows that Blacksmiths were sold with between a 50-60% premium compared to the average labourer.
- Charles Crawley implies this when he says:-
‘Poor white folks like slaves had to get a pass … to sell anything an’ go places or do an’thin’ … dey had to go to sum Big white man like Colonel Allen [his master]’
Also James L. Bradley, of Arkansas, ‘I used to sleep three or four hours, then awake and work for myself the rest of the night... I used to go out with the hoe and plant little patches of corn… and tobacco. With my first money I bought a pig’. Blassingame, J. W., Slave Testimony: Two centuries of letters, speeches, interviews and autobiographies, (Louisiana State UP, 1977, Baton Rouge), p. 688
- When comparing the two sections the Upper South has a white to slave ratio of 4:1 (Virginia) and at least 2:1 (North Carolina), whereas the Deep South has more generally a ratio of 1.1:1 (Alabama, Georgia or Florida) or even 1:1.4 (South Carolina or Mississippi). Where the population of slaves equals or exceeds the number of whites the policing of their activity would inevitably become harder, so it may be that the slaveholders preferred an open market for trade by the slaves that could be regulated to a black market which is mentioned elsewhere and by definition could not be controlled by the slaveholder class. See http://www.civilwarhome.com/population1860.htm
- Palmer, V. V., ‘The customs of Slavery: The war without arms’, The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 177-218
- De Saussure, N. B., Old Plantation Days: Being recollections of Southern Life before the war, (Duffield & Co. 1909, New York), pp. 78-9
- Fitzhugh, G., Cannibals All!, quoted in Halpern, R. & De Largo, E., (Editors), Slavery and Emancipation, (Blackwell, Oxford, 2002), pp. 152 There were many other proponents of a racial difference as the basis of justified paternalism such as Josiah Nott as a proponent of polygenesis and Samuel Cartwright and his ideas of mental illness among slaves, most famously Drapetomania. All of these authors tried to portray a scientific need for the enslavement of blacks based on racial inferiority.
- See Foster, G. M., ‘Guilt over Slavery: a historiographical analysis’, The Journal of Sothern History, Vol. 56, No.4, pp. 665-694
- Chaplin, T. B., Manuscript Diary entry of May 3rd 1845, South Carolina Historical Association, quoted in Rose, W. L. (Ed.), A Documentary History of Slavery in North America, (OUP, 1976, Oxford), pp. 374. For context the sale was of 8 young males and 2 females, in 1845 worth around $5000 (calculated from values given by Hammond), quite a debt for living expenses at the time. This is also the man who in an undated entry from after the Civil War said, ‘It was a trying time then. But could I or anyone foreseen [sic] how things would be in 19 years when every Negro was set free by force of war… In truth the Negros did not care about us as much as us about them’.
- Diary entries of 31/3/1841 and 3/4/1841 respectively, quoted in Hammond, J. H. & Bleser, C. (Ed.), Secret and Sacred: The Diaries of James Henry Hammond, A Southern Slaveholder, (OUP, 1988, Oxford), pp. 49-52. Though it must also be noted that Hammond was a cold man when reading through his diaries and from a sense of superiority disliked not only ‘local society’ but his brother, Washington political society, doctors, horse racing and many other people and topics.
- Ibid, p. 102
- Genovese, E. D., The political economy of Slavery: Studies in the economy and society of the Slave south, 2nd Edition, (Wesleyan University Press, 1989), Chapter 1
- Parsons, C. G., An insider view of Slavery: or a tour amongst the planters, (John P. Jewett & Co., 1855, Boston), p. 125
- There are however some historians who stress that throughout the antebellum period the notion of paternalism was in fact strengthening rather than a paper tiger. Crowther, E. R., ‘Holy Honour: sacred and secular in the Old South’, Journal of Southern History, Vol. 58, No. 4, pp.628-31 suggests that the internal reforming tendencies of religion were helping the condition of the slaves and strengthening paternalism in a reaction to criticism from Northern churches.
- See Breeden, J. O. (Ed.), Advice among Masters: the ideal in Slave management in the Old South, (Greenwood Press, 1980, London), pp. 114-144
- Ibid. Elaborative quotes from this sometimes heated debate include ‘Every planter knows there are some slaves who will barter an individual food allowance away for a little liquor or tobacco… and steal for their improvidence’, pp. 91. From the other side of the argument, ‘Many planters argue that negroes would be happier if their food was cooked for them. [Personal experience shows] the reverse… The simplicity of the negroes’ diet, the very quiet, happy lazy way he has of enjoying his victuals has much to do with his admirable digestion and health’, p. 107.
- Ibid. Such arguments by a planter that it was kinder to deny their slaves all opportunities for commerce as, ‘the negroes are prevented from acquiring habits of trading in farm produce, which invariably leads to stealing, followed by whipping, trouble to the master and a [greater] discontent on the part of the slave,’ p. 271. Another example stresses;-
‘The system of encouraging slaves to the performance of reasonable labour by giving them crops… is one fraught with evil; nothing but evil, and that continually… it opens a strong temptation to theft… [makes] him vain and arrogant… independent that he will at last come to exhibit it at home… money is power’, pp. 273-4
- Ibid. ‘No negro with a full stocked poultry house, a crop advancing, or a few tubs unsold [referring to the craft of cooperage] will ever run away’, p. 266.
- Ibid, ‘A human being, the horizon of whose life is never illuminated by the cheerful beams of hope, is devoid of any inducements to praiseworthy actions… and must be driven by fear of punishment… such a one… will be fit only to be constantly under the eye of the overseer’, p.261
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APA 6th
Wood, J. (2015). "The Concept of Property and Ownership in the Antebellum American South: Slaves, Slaveholders, Theft, Conflict and the Law." Interstate - Journal of International Affairs, 2014/2015(1). Retrieved from http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1072
MLA
Wood, John. "The Concept of Property and Ownership in the Antebellum American South: Slaves, Slaveholders, Theft, Conflict and the Law." Interstate - Journal of International Affairs 2014/2015.1 (2015). <http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1072>
Chicago 16th
Wood, John. 2015. The Concept of Property and Ownership in the Antebellum American South: Slaves, Slaveholders, Theft, Conflict and the Law. Interstate - Journal of International Affairs 2014/2015 (1), http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1072
Harvard
WOOD, J. 2015. The Concept of Property and Ownership in the Antebellum American South: Slaves, Slaveholders, Theft, Conflict and the Law. Interstate - Journal of International Affairs [Online], 2014/2015. Available: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=1072
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