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''The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South'' is a book written by American
historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...
John W. Blassingame. Published in 1972, it is one of the first historical studies of
slavery in the United States The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Sla ...
to be presented from the perspective of the enslaved. ''The Slave Community'' contradicted those historians who had interpreted history to suggest that
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
slaves were docile and submissive " Sambos" who enjoyed the benefits of a
paternalistic Paternalism is action that limits a person's or group's liberty or autonomy and is intended to promote their own good. Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expres ...
master–slave relationship on
southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...
plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...
s. Using psychology, Blassingame analyzes fugitive slave narratives published in the 19th century to conclude that an independent culture developed among the enslaved and that there were a variety of personality types exhibited by slaves. Although the importance of ''The Slave Community'' was recognized by scholars of American slavery, Blassingame's conclusions, methodology, and sources were heavily criticized. Historians criticized the use of slave narratives that were seen as unreliable and biased. They questioned Blassingame's decision to exclude the more than 2,000 interviews with former slaves conducted by the
Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(WPA) in the 1930s. Historians argued that Blassingame's use of psychological theory proved unhelpful in his interpretation. Blassingame defended his conclusions at a 1976 meeting of the
Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is an organization dedicated to the study and appreciation of African-American History. It is a non-profit organization founded in Chicago, Illinois, on September 9, 1915 ...
and in 1979 published a revised and enlarged edition of ''The Slave Community''. Despite criticisms, ''The Slave Community'' is a foundational text in the study of the life and culture of slaves in the
Antebellum South In the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit= before the war) spanned the end of the War of 1812 to the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The Antebellum South was characterized by ...
.


Historiographic background

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (November 4, 1877 – January 21, 1934) was an American historian who largely defined the field of the social and economic studies of the history of the Antebellum South and slavery in the U.S. Phillips concentrated on t ...
wrote the first major historical study of the 20th century dealing with slavery. In ''American Negro Slavery'' (1918), Phillips refers to slaves as "
negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
es, who for the most part were by racial quality submissive rather than defiant, light-hearted instead of gloomy, amiable and ingratiating instead of sullen, and whose very defects invited paternalism rather than repression." ''American Negro Slavery'' is infused with racial rhetoric and upholds perceptions about the inferiority of black people common in the
southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
at the time. Although African American academics such as
W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois ( ; February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was an American-Ghanaian sociologist, socialist, historian, and Pan-Africanist civil rights activist. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up i ...
criticized Phillips's depiction of slaves, the book was considered the authoritative text on slavery in America until the 1950s. Phillips's interpretation of slavery was challenged by Kenneth M. Stampp in ''The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South'' (1956) and Stanley M. Elkins in ''Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life'' (1958). Stampp's study lacks the racist interpretation found in ''American Negro Slavery'' and approaches the issue from the position that there is no innate difference between blacks and whites. He questions the reality of plantation paternalism described by Phillips: "the reality of ante-bellum paternalism ... needs to be separated from its fanciful surroundings and critically analyzed."Kenneth M. Stampp, ''The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South'' (1956; New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 322, . Elkins also dismisses Phillips's claim that
African American slaves The legal institution of human Slavery#Chattel slavery, chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of List of ethnic groups of Africa, Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States, United States of America ...
were innately submissive "Sambos". He argues that slaves had instead been infantilized, or "made" into Sambos, by the brutal treatment received at the hands of slaveowners and overseers. Elkins compares the process to the infantilization of
Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
in
Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as con ...
. Like Phillips, Stampp and Elkins relied on plantation records and the writings of slaveowners as their main
primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...
s. Stampp admits that "few ask what the slaves themselves thought of bondage." Historians dismissed the written works of slaves such as the 19th century fugitive slave narratives as unreliable and biased because of their editing by
abolitionists Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The Britis ...
. Scholars also ignored the 2,300 interviews conducted with former slaves in the late 1930s by the WPA
Federal Writers' Project The Federal Writers' Project (FWP) was a federal government project in the United States created to provide jobs for out-of-work writers during the Great Depression. It was part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal program. It wa ...
. As historian George P. Rawick points out, more weight was often given to white sources: the "masters not only ruled the past in fact" but also "rule its
written history Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world his ...
." The 1970s, however, witnessed the publication of revisionist studies that departed from the traditional historiography of slavery. Focusing on the perspective of the slave, new studies incorporated the slave narratives and WPA interviews: George Rawick's ''From Sunup to Sundown: The Making of the Black Community'' (1972), Eugene D. Genovese's ''Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made'' (1974), Peter H. Wood, ''Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion'' (1974), Leslie Howard Owens's ''This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South'' (1976), Herbert G. Gutman's '' The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750–1925'' (1976), Lawrence W. Levine's ''Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom'' (1977), and
Albert J. Raboteau Albert Jordy "Al" Raboteau II (September 4, 1943 – September 18, 2021) was an American scholar of African and African-American religions. Since 1982, he had been affiliated with Princeton University, where he was Henry W. Putnam Professor of R ...
's ''Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South'' (1978). One of the more controversial of these studies was John W. Blassingame's ''The Slave Community''.


Blassingame's argument

In ''The Slave Community'', Blassingame argues that "historians have never systematically explored the life experiences of American slaves." He asserts that by concentrating on the slaveowner, historians have presented a distorted view of plantation life that "strips the slave of any meaningful and distinctive culture, family life, religion, or manhood." Blassingame outlines that the reliance on planter sources led historians like Elkins to mimic planter stereotypes of slaves such as the "submissive half-man, half child" Sambo. Noting the
agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...
slaves possessed over their lives, he contends, "Rather than identifying with and submitting totally to his master, the slave held onto many remnants of his
African culture African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
, gained a sense of worth in the quarters, spent most of his time free from surveillance by whites, controlled important aspects of his life, and did some personally meaningful things on his own volition."Blassingame, ''The Slave Community'', p. xii.


African cultural retention and slave culture

According to Blassingame, African culture was not entirely removed from slave culture through the process of enslavement and "was much more resistant to the bludgeons that was slavery than historians have hitherto suspected." "African survivals" persisted in the form of folk tales, religion and spirituality, music and dance, and language. He asserts that the retention of African culture acted as a form of resistance to enslavement: "All things considered, the few Africans enslaved in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America appear to have survived their traumatic experiences without becoming abjectly docile, infantile, or submissive" and "since an overwhelming percentage of nineteenth-century Southern slaves were native Americans, they never underwent this kind of shock he_Middle_Passage.html"_;"title="Middle_Passage.html"_;"title="he_Middle_Passage">he_Middle_Passage">Middle_Passage.html"_;"title="he_Middle_Passage">he_Middle_Passageand_were_in_a_position_to_construct_psychological_defenses_against_total_dependency_on_their_masters." Blassingame_asserts_that_historians_have_discussed_"what_could_be_generally_described_as_slave_'culture,'_but_give_little_solid_information_on_life_in_the_quarters."_He_argues_that_culture_developed_within_the_slave_community_independent_of_the_slaveowners'_influence._Blassingame_notes,_"Antebellum_era.html" "title="iddle_Passage">he_Middle_Passage.html" ;"title="Middle_Passage.html" ;"title="he Middle Passage">he Middle Passage">Middle_Passage.html" ;"title="he Middle Passage">he Middle Passageand were in a position to construct psychological defenses against total dependency on their masters." Blassingame asserts that historians have discussed "what could be generally described as slave 'culture,' but give little solid information on life in the quarters." He argues that culture developed within the slave community independent of the slaveowners' influence. Blassingame notes, "Antebellum era">Antebellum Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to: United States history * Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern United States ** Antebellum Georgia ** Antebellum South Carolina ** Antebellum Virginia * Antebellum ar ...
black slaves created several unique cultural forms which lightened their burden of oppression, promoted group solidarity, provided ways for verbalizing aggression, sustaining hope, building self-esteem, and often represented areas of life largely free from the control of whites." Blassingame notes that many of the folk tales told by slaves have been traced by African scholars to Ghana, Senegal, and Mauritania to peoples such as the Ewe people, Ewe, Wolof people, Wolof, Hausa people, Hausa, Temne people, Temne, Ashanti people, Ashanti, and Igbo people, Igbo. He remarks, "While many of these tales were brought over to the South, the African element appears most clearly in the animal tales." One prominent example discussed by Blassingame is the Ewe story of "Why the Hare Runs Away", which is a
trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story ( god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwi ...
and tar-baby tale told by southern slaves and later recorded by writer
Joel Chandler Harris Joel Chandler Harris (December 9, 1848 – July 3, 1908) was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a planta ...
in his
Uncle Remus Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales compiled and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881. Harris was a journalist in post-Reconstruction era Atlanta, a ...
stories. Southern slaves often included African animals like elephants, lions, and monkeys as characters in their folk tales. As Christian missionaries and slaveowners attempted to erase African religious and spiritual beliefs, Blassingame argues that "in the United States, many African religious rites were fused into one— voodoo." Voodoo priests and conjurers promised slaves that they could make masters kind, harm enemies, ensure love, and heal sickness. Other religious survivals noted by Blassingame include funeral rites, grave decorating, and ritualistic dancing and singing. Slaveowners and state governments tried to prevent slaves from making or playing musical instruments because of the use of drums to signal the Stono Rebellion in 1739. Blassingame, however, points out that in spite of restrictions, slaves were able to build a strong musical tradition drawing on their African heritage. Music, songs, and dances were similar to those performed or played in Africa. Instruments reproduced by slaves include drums, three-stringed banjos, gourd rattles, and
mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of ...
s. Still, Blassingame concludes that cross-cultural exchanges occurred on southern plantations, arguing that "
acculturation Acculturation is a process of social, psychological, and cultural change that stems from the balancing of two cultures while adapting to the prevailing culture of the society. Acculturation is a process in which an individual adopts, acquires and ...
in the United States involved the mutual interaction between two cultures, with Europeans and Africans borrowing from each other." Blassingame asserts that the most significant instance revolved around
Protestant Christianity Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to ...
(primarily
Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul c ...
and
Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
churches): "The number of blacks who received religious instruction in antebellum white churches is significant because the church was the only institution other than the plantation which played a major role in acculturating the slave." Christianity and enslaved black ministers slowly replaced African religious survivals and represented another aspect of slave culture which the slaves used to create their own communities. While ministers preached obedience in the presence of the slaveowners and other whites, slaves often met in secret, "invisible" services unsupervised by whites. In these " invisible churches", slaves could discuss freedom, liberty, and the
judgment Judgement (or US spelling judgment) is also known as ''adjudication'', which means the evaluation of evidence to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. The term has at least five distinct uses. Aristotle s ...
of
God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
against slaveowners.


Slave families

Slave marriages were illegal in southern states, and slave couples were frequently separated by slaveowners through sale. Blassingame grants that slaveowners did have control over slave marriages. They encouraged monogamous relationships to "make it easier to discipline their slaves. ... A black man, they reasoned, who loved his wife and his children was less likely to be rebellious or to run away than would a 'single' slave."Blassingame, ''The Slave Community'', p. 151. Blassingame notes that when a slave couple resided on the same plantation, the husband witnessed the whipping and raping of his wife and the sale of his children. He remarks, "Nothing demonstrated his powerlessness as much as the slave's inability to prevent the forcible sale of his wife and children." Nevertheless, Blassingame argues that "however frequently the family was broken it was primarily responsible for the slave's ability to survive on the plantation without becoming totally dependent on and submissive to his master." He contends: Blassingame asserts that slave parents attempted to shield infants and young children from the brutality of the plantation. When children understood that they were enslaved (usually after their first whipping), parents dissuaded angry urges to run away or seek revenge. Children observed fathers demonstrating two behavioral types. In the quarters, he "acted like a man", castigating whites for the mistreatment of himself and his family; in the field working for the master, he appeared obedient and submissive. According to Blassingame, "Sometimes children internalized both the true personality traits and the contradictory behavioral patterns of their parents." He believes that children recognized submissiveness as a convenient method to avoid punishment and the behavior in the quarters as the true behavioral model. Blassingame concludes, "In he slave father'sfamily, the slave not only learned how to avoid the blows of the master, but also drew on the love and sympathy of its members to raise his spirits. The family was, in short, an important survival mechanism."


Personality types

Blassingame identifies three stereotypes in the literature of the antebellum south: *
Sambo , aka = Sombo (in English-speaking countries) , focus = Hybrid , country = Soviet Union , pioneers = Viktor Spiridonov, Vasili Oshchepkov, Anatoly Kharlampiev , famous_pract = List of Practitioners , olymp ...
was a combination of the
Uncle Remus Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African American folktales compiled and adapted by Joel Chandler Harris and published in book form in 1881. Harris was a journalist in post-Reconstruction era Atlanta, a ...
,
Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sou ...
, and
Uncle Tom Uncle Tom is the title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel, '' Uncle Tom's Cabin''. The character was seen by many readers as a ground-breaking humanistic portrayal of a slave, one who uses nonresistance and gives his life to prot ...
figures who represented the faithful, submissive, and superstitious slave. *Jack worked faithfully until he was mistreated, then he became uncooperative and occasionally rebellious. Rationally analyzing the white man's overwhelming physical power, Jack either avoided contact with him or was deferential in his presence. *Nat was the perpetual runaway and rebellious slave feared by slaveowners. Named after
Nat Turner Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American Heri ...
, the Nat character retaliated against slaveowners and was subdued and punished only when overcome by greater numbers. Directly challenging Elkins's infantilization thesis, Blassingame argues that historians have focused too much on the Sambo
personality type In psychology, personality type refers to the psychological classification of different types of individuals. Personality types are sometimes distinguished from personality traits, with the latter embodying a smaller grouping of behavioral tende ...
and the role of paternalism. "The Sambo stereotype was so pervasive in antebellum Southern literature that many historians, without further research, argue that it was an accurate description of the dominant slave personality." According to Blassingame, the Sambo figure evolved from white Americans' attitudes toward Africans and African Americans as innately barbaric, passive, superstitious, and childlike. Southern writers felt a need to defend slavery from allegations of abuse and brutality leveled by northern abolitionists, so Sambo became a common portrayal to justify and explain the need for plantation paternalism. Finally, slaveowners used the Sambo stereotype to alleviate their own fears and anxieties about the potential rebelliousness of their slaves. Blassingame remarks, "In this regard, Nat, the actual and potential rebel, stands at the core of white perceptions of the slave. With Nat perennially in the wings, the creation of Sambo was almost mandatory for the Southerner's emotional security. Like a man whistling in the dark to bolster his courage, the white man ''had'' to portray the slave as Sambo." Despite slaveowner paternalism and charges of submissiveness, Blassingame contends, "There is overwhelming evidence, in the primary sources, of the Negro's resistance to his bondage and of his undying love for freedom." Blassingame outlines efforts of slaves to run away and rebel, particularly the Stono Rebellion of 1739, Charles Deslondes's revolt in 1811, Nat Turner's revolt of 1831, and the participation of fugitive slaves in
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...
fighting with
Seminole The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, ...
s during the
Seminole Wars The Seminole Wars (also known as the Florida Wars) were three related military conflicts in Florida between the United States and the Seminole, citizens of a Native American nation which formed in the region during the early 1700s. Hostilities ...
. Blassingame concludes that the Sambo and Nat stereotypes "were real." He explains, "The more fear whites had of Nat, the more firmly tried to believe in Sambo in order to escape paranoia." Blassingame concludes that there were a variety of personality types exhibited by slaves positioned on a scale between the two extremes of Sambo and Nat. He argues that variations present in plantations, overseers, and masters gave the slave "much more freedom from restraint and more independence and autonomy than his institutionally defined role allowed. Consequently, the slave did not have to be infantile or abjectly docile in order to remain alive." Blassingame compares slavery on southern plantations to the treatment of prisoners in Nazi concentration camps in an effort to demonstrate that "the most important factor in causing infantilism, total dependency, and docility in the camps was the real threat of death which left few, if any, alternatives for the inmates." He remarks, "Placed on a continuum of
total institution A total institution is a place of work and residence where a great number of similarly situated people, cut off from the wider community for a considerable time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life. Privacy is limited in ...
s, the concentration camp is far removed from the Southern plantation."Blassingame, ''The Slave Community'', p. 331. According to Blassingame, the goal of the irrationally organized and understaffed plantation was not the systematic torture and extermination of its laborers, who were "worth more than a bullet".


Methodology and sources

In ''The Slave Community'', Blassingame uses
psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the pre ...
Harry Stack Sullivan Herbert "Harry" Stack Sullivan (February 21, 1892, Norwich, New York – January 14, 1949, Paris, France) was an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that "personality can never be isolated from the complex interpersonal r ...
's interpersonal theory to interpret the behavior of slaves on antebellum plantations. Sullivan claims that "significant others", persons with the most power to reward and punish individual behavior, were primarily responsible for determining behavior. Interpersonal theorists argue that "behavioral patterns are determined by the characteristics of the situation, how the person perceives them, and his behavioral dispositions at the time." The most important component of personality is self-esteem. Blassingame explains, "Our sense of self-esteem is heightened or lowered by our perception of the images others have of us." Interpersonal behavior revolves around the dominant-submissive axes: "One form of behavior tends to elicit its complement: dominance leads to submission and vice versa. The extent of submissiveness often depends on the structure of the group to which the person belongs." Another psychological theory used by Blassingame is
role theory Role theory is a concept in sociology and in social psychology that considers most of everyday activity to be the acting-out of socially defined categories (e.g., mother, manager, teacher). Each role is a set of rights, duties, expectations, nor ...
. According to this theory, "a person's behavior is generally determined by the socially defined roles or the behavioral patterns expected of him in certain situations." Blassingame asserts that through applying interpersonal and role theory to the fugitive slave narratives, historians can determine "the extent to which slaves acted the way their masters expected them to behave" and how the Sambo, Jack, and Nat personality types can be misleading. Blassingame contends that historians have "deliberately ignored" autobiographies of ex-slaves, particularly the fugitive slave narratives. "Consequently", argues Blassingame, "a great deal of emphasis has been placed on non-traditional sources in this study in an effort to delineate more clearly the slave's view of bondage and to discover some new insights into the workings of the system." He relies heavily on narratives by
Henry Bibb Henry Walton Bibb (May 10, 1815 in Shelby County, Kentucky – August 1,1854 in Windsor) was an American author and abolitionist who was born a slave. Bibb told his life story in his narrative ''The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American ...
, Henry Clay Bruce, Elizabeth Keckley, Samuel Hall,
Solomon Northup Solomon Northup (born July 10, 1807-1808) was an American abolitionist and the primary author of the memoir '' Twelve Years a Slave''. A free-born African American from New York, he was the son of a freed slave and a free woman of color. A f ...
,
Charles Ball Charles Ball (real name Charles Gross; 1780 – ''unknown'') was an enslaved African-American from Maryland, best known for his account as a fugitive slave, ''Slavery in the United States'' (1836). Autobiography ] The main source for Ball's life ...
,
Jermain Wesley Loguen Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen (February 5, 1813 – September 30, 1872), born Jarm Logue, in slavery, was an African-American abolitionist and bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and an author of a slave narrative. Biogr ...
,
William Wells Brown William Wells Brown (c. 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian in the United States. Born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, near the town of Mount Sterling, Brown escap ...
, John Brown, Robert Anderson, William Grimes,
Austin Steward Austin Steward (1793 – February 15, 1869) was an African-American abolitionist and author. He was born a slave in Virginia then moved at age 7 with the Helm household to New York State in 1800. The household settled in the town of Bath, Ne ...
, and
Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
. Blassingame's discussion of the
African slave trade Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in parts of Africa in ancient times, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Indian Ocean ...
, Middle Passage, and African culture is based on
Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano (; c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa (), was a writer and abolitionist from, according to his memoir, the Eboe (Igbo) region of the Kingdom of Benin (today southern Nigeria). Enslaved a ...
's '' The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African'' (1794). Rather than accepting the fugitive slave narratives without question, Blassingame admits to scrutinizing his reading of the texts. He notes that arguments against the use of these autobiographies used by historians revolve around reliability: "Many historians refuse to use these accounts because they have felt the fugitive, as the primary sufferer in the institution, was unable to give an objective account of bondage."Blassingame, ''The Slave Community'', p. 370. Still, Blassingame defends his reliance on autobiographies, noting, "The portrait of the institution of slavery which emerges from the narratives is not the simple picture of
hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...
on earth that most historians have led us to believe they contain. Instead, the fugitives' plantations are peopled with the same range of heroes and villains, black and white, which one generally finds in the human race." Therefore, Blassingame concludes: Besides fugitive slave narratives, Blassingame uses abolitionist periodicals such as '' The Liberator'', ''
National Anti-Slavery Standard The ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'' was the official weekly newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society, established in 1840 under the editorship of Lydia Maria Child and David Lee Child. The paper published continuously until the ratifica ...
'', ''
Pennsylvania Freeman The ''National Enquirer'' was an abolitionist newspaper founded by Quaker Benjamin Lundy in 1836,Wicks, Suzanne RBenjamin Lundy. Friends Journal
'', ''Anti-Slavery Bugle'', and ''
Genius of Universal Emancipation The ''Genius of Universal Emancipation'' was an abolitionist newspaper founded by Benjamin Lundy in 1821, in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. History The newspaper was originally Elihu Embree's '' The Emancipator'' in 1820, before Lundy purchased it t ...
''. According to Blassingame, these periodicals printed slave interviews, letters, and autobiographies, but "gave even more coverage to white Southerners than to slaves and frequently reprinted articles, letters, and proceedings from a large number of Southern newspapers". A primary source that Blassingame did not consult in his study was the WPA slave interviews. While he admits that "slave interviews rival autobiographies in their revelations about the internal dynamics of bondage, ... the heavy editing of the WPA interviews makes them far more difficult to utilize than black autobiographies." He elaborates on his criticism of the interviews in a 1975 article in the ''Journal of Southern History''. He describes how white interviewers often deleted material contrary to the paternalistic image of the antebellum South which they wanted to present. Blassingame concludes, "Uncritical use of the interviews will lead almost inevitably to a simplistic and distorted view of the plantation as a paternalistic institution where the chief feature of life was mutual love and respect between masters and slaves." Blassingame builds on the historiography of Phillips, Stampp, and Elkins, but he acknowledges the influence of Charles S. Sydnor's ''Slavery in Mississippi'' (1933), Orville W. Taylor's ''Negro Slavery in Arkansas'' (1958), Eugene D. Genovese's ''The Political Economy of Slavery'' (1961), and Ann J. Lane's anthology of essays ''The Debate Over Slavery: Stanley Elkins and His Critics'' (1971).


Reception and influence

The importance of ''The Slave Community'' as one of the first studies of slavery from the perspective of the slave was recognized by historians. The book nonetheless received heavy criticism by academics who disagreed with Blassingame's conclusions, methodology, and sources. Historian George P. Rawick noted in 1976, however, that the criticism "should not obscure the fact that lassingame'sbook was of such merit as to warrant spending our time criticizing it four years after its publication. Yet, like many good books, it should have been better."


Criticism

In ''The History Teacher'', Keith Polakoff comments that "only with the publication of Blassingame's work do we obtain for the first time a detailed examination of the daily lives of the slaves on large plantations, with some intelligent speculation about the forces to which they were subjected. David Goldfield writes in ''Agricultural History'' that the book was the most impressive and balanced attempt to understand the slave's responses to plantation life to date. Carl N. Degler writes in the ''
Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
'' that Blassingame's study comes "closer than any previous study to answering the question 'what was it like to be a slave?'" Still, Blassingame's conclusions, methodology, and sources received substantial criticism from historians. Marian DeB. Kilson's review in the ''
American Historical Review ''The American Historical Review'' is a quarterly academic history journal and the official publication of the American Historical Association. It targets readers interested in all periods and facets of history and has often been described as the ...
'' described Blassingame's aims as "imperfectly realized" because he "lacks a clear analytical perspective". She found his discussion of slave personality types "fascinating" and "his methodological aims ... important" but "not systematically pursued". Kilson believes that Blassingame ultimately failed in his analysis because "his intellectual integration of social and psychological orientations has yet to be fully achieved." Orville W. Taylor contends in the '' Journal of Negro History'' that Blassingame had a tendency to overgeneralize and make "unsubstantiatable claims to originality and uniqueness". In the ''
Journal of Political Economy The ''Journal of Political Economy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. Established by James Laurence Laughlin in 1892, it covers both theoretical and empirical economics. In the past, the ...
'',
economic historian Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and ins ...
Stanley L. Engerman complains that the book is not "written by or for
economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...
s" and makes "limited use of economic analysis". He continues, "Given the concern with the 'personal autonomy' and culture of the slave, much of the book is devoted to the African heritage; to slave music, religion, and folklore; and to the discussion of the slave family and other personal relationships." Engerman concedes that ''The Slave Community'' "is a book written at a time of transition in the interpretation of slavery and black culture", but "the author at times seems unsure of the direction in which he is pointing." He concludes that Blassingame's "analysis is incomplete in its presentation of a different and more complex scene" even though he "effectively shows the difficulties of the concentration-camp image and the Sambo myth". Historians criticized Blassingame for dismissing the WPA slave interviews and relying solely on fugitive slave narratives. In the ''
Journal of American History ''The Journal of American History'' is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', the official jo ...
'',
Willie Lee Rose Willie Lee Rose (May 18, 1927 – June 20, 2018) was an American historian. She was a professor of American History at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of several books about slavery and the Reconstruction Era. Early life Rose was born ...
writes that Blassingame's use of the fugitive slave narratives is marred by his neglect of the WPA interviews. Kenneth Wiggins Porter regards Blassingame's dependence on printed sources as a "major weakness" and believes he does not use enough white sources like plantation records and travel narratives, particularly
Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co- ...
's account of life in the antebellum South. According to George Rawick, "We desperately need work that depicts and analyzes the lives of black women under slavery. We have had very largely a male-dominated literature about slavery." He notes, "Blassingame, unfortunately, does not help us at all in this task." Rawick surmises that if Blassingame had consulted the WPA slave interviews, he would have developed a picture of the "heroic struggles of black women on behalf of themselves and of the whole black community". Historians exhibited varying responses to Blassingame's use of psychological theory. In a review in the ''William and Mary Quarterly'', George Mullin is especially critical of Blassingame's use of psychology, stating that Blassingame "reduc sslave behavior and culture to a question of roles and psychological characteristics". He concludes that an "
E. P. Thompson Edward Palmer Thompson (3 February 1924 – 28 August 1993) was an English historian, writer, socialist and peace campaigner. He is best known today for his historical work on the radical movements in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, in ...
for the American Black community during slavery is still off-stage", and that the topic needs exploration by a
social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
or economic historian. Rawick states that Blassingame's "first major error lies in adopting the very questionable deterministic social psychological role theories associated with ...
Erving Goffman Erving Goffman (11 June 1922 – 19 November 1982) was a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some "the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century". In 2007 '' The Times Higher Ed ...
and
Harry Stack Sullivan Herbert "Harry" Stack Sullivan (February 21, 1892, Norwich, New York – January 14, 1949, Paris, France) was an American Neo-Freudian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who held that "personality can never be isolated from the complex interpersonal r ...
." He complains that it "parodies the basic complexity of the 'psychology' of the oppressed who simultaneously view themselves in socially negative terms while struggling against the view of themselves and their behavior". Rawick is convinced that Blassingame would have reached the same conclusions from the sources without the use of psychology "because the historical evidence as seen through an unadulterated commitment to the struggles of the slaves and an equally uncompromising hostility to the masters would have led him there." On the other hand, Eugene D. Genovese and Earl E. Thorpe praised Blassingame for his use of psychological theory, but admit they prefer
Freudian Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...
and
Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...
interpretations over Sullivanian theory.


Influence

In 1976, the
Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is an organization dedicated to the study and appreciation of African-American History. It is a non-profit organization founded in Chicago, Illinois, on September 9, 1915 ...
met in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
and held a session on ''The Slave Community''. Panelists included
Mary Frances Berry Mary Frances Berry (born February 17, 1938) is an American historian, writer, lawyer, activist and professor who focuses on U.S. constitutional and legal, African-American history. Berry is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Tho ...
, Herbert Gutman, Leslie Howard Owens, George Rawick, Earl Thorpe, and Eugene Genovese. Blassingame responded to questions and critiques from the panel. The discussion led to the publication of an anthology edited by Al-Tony Gilmore called ''Revisiting Blassingame's'' The Slave Community'': The Scholars Respond'' (1978). The book includes essays by the panelists as well as James D. Anderson, Ralph D. Carter,
John Henrik Clarke John Henrik Clarke (born John Henry Clark; January 1, 1915 - July 16, 1998) was an African-American historian, professor, and pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the ...
, and Stanley Engerman. Blassingame's essay, "Redefining ''The Slave Community'': A Response to Critics" appears in the volume. Since its publication in 1972 and revision in 1979, ''The Slave Community'' has influenced subsequent historiographical works on slavery in the United States. In a 1976 edition of ''Roll, Jordan, Roll'', Eugene Genovese explains that Blassingame's book "demonstrates that the published accounts of runaway slaves can be illuminating". The authors of ''Reckoning with Slavery'' (1976) use Blassingame's findings to challenge the assertions of
Robert William Fogel Robert William Fogel (; July 1, 1926 – June 11, 2013) was an American economic historian and scientist, and winner (with Douglass North) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. As of his death, he was the Charles R. Walgreen Di ...
and Stanley Engerman in '' Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery'' (1974). In ''Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South'' (1978),
Albert J. Raboteau Albert Jordy "Al" Raboteau II (September 4, 1943 – September 18, 2021) was an American scholar of African and African-American religions. Since 1982, he had been affiliated with Princeton University, where he was Henry W. Putnam Professor of R ...
comments, "We should speak of the 'invisibility' of slave religion with irony: it is the neglect of slave sources by historians which has been the main cause of this invisibility." Raboteau credits Blassingame and others for demonstrating the value of slave sources. Historian Charles Joyner's influential study ''Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community'' (1984) is reinforced by the findings of ''The Slave Community'' and relies on similar evidence. Historian Deborah Gray White builds on Blassingame's research of the family life of the slaves in ''Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South'' (1985). Her argument is similar to Blassingame's: "This present study takes a look at slave women in America and argues that they were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be so." White discusses the Mammy and
Jezebel Jezebel (;"Jezebel"
(US) and
) was the daughte ...
stereotypes often applied to African American women by white Americans. She calls ''The Slave Community'' "a classic" but remarks that "Blassingame stressed the fact that many masters recognized the male as the head of the family. He observed that during courtship men flattered women and exaggerated their prowess. There was, however, little discussion of the reciprocal activities of slave women." She concludes that Blassingame "described how slave men gained status in the family, but he did not do the same for women."
Elizabeth Fox-Genovese Elizabeth Ann Fox-Genovese (May 28, 1941 – January 2, 2007) was an American historian best known for her works on women and society in the Antebellum South. A Marxist early on in her career, she later converted to Roman Catholicism and became ...
makes similar observations in ''Within the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South'' (1988). She notes that ''The Slave Community'', like other historiography produced in the 1960s and 70s, "did not directly address
women's history Women's history is the study of the role that women have played in history and the methods required to do so. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, personal achievement over a period of ...
, even though many of the historians were sensitive to women's experience. Most of the male authors had done a large part of their work before the development of women's history as a discipline, and even the most sensitive were hampered by a paucity of sources and by unfamiliarity with the questions feminists would soon raise."


Revised edition

After the 1976 Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History meeting and the publication of ''Revisiting Blassingame's'' The Slave Community in 1978, Blassingame produced a revised and enlarged edition of ''The Slave Community'' in 1979. In the new preface, Blassingame asserted that the book had to be revised because of George Bentley, an enslaved,
pro-slavery Proslavery is a support for slavery. It is found in the Bible, in the thought of ancient philosophers, in British writings and in American writings especially before the American Civil War but also later through 20th century. Arguments in favor o ...
Primitive Baptist Primitive Baptists – also known as Hard Shell Baptists, Foot Washing Baptists or Old School Baptists – are conservative Baptists adhering to a degree of Calvinist beliefs who coalesced out of the controversy among Baptists in the early 19th ...
minister from
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...
who pastored a white church in the 1850s. Blassingame wanted to "solve the myriad dilemmas posed by George Bentley", but he also wanted to answer the questions, challenges, and critiques raised by scholars since the publication of ''The Slave Community''. Blassingame explains that he incorporated the suggestions published in ''Revisiting Blassingame's'' The Slave Community "without long protestation or argument". The most significant changes made to the text involve further discussion of African cultural survivals, slave family life, slave culture, and acculturation. Blassingame added a chapter titled "The Americanization of the Slave and the Africanization of the South" where he draws parallels between the acculturation of African American slaves in the American South, African slaves in
Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived ...
, and European slaves in
North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
and the
Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
. He compares the conversion of slaves in the southern states to Protestant Christianity, European slaves in North Africa to
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
, and African slaves in Latin America to
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
. Blassingame addresses the historiography of slavery published between 1972 and 1978 in the revised edition. For instance, he challenges Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's economic and statistical study of slavery in ''Time on the Cross''. Blassingame writes: Reviewing the revised edition in the ''Journal of Southern History'', Gary B. Mills suggests, "All controversy and revision aside, ''The Slave Community'' remains a significant book, and the author's position that the bulk of both slaves and slaveowners lay between the stereotyped extremes proves durable. Their exact location on a scale of one to ten will always remain a matter of opinion."Mills, review of ''The Slave Community'', p. 114.


See also

*''
Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U ...
''


Notes

Unless noted, all citations from ''The Slave Community'' are from the 1979 revised edition


Further reading

* Gilmore, Al-Tony, ed. ''Revisiting Blassingame's'' The Slave Community'': The Scholars Respond''. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978. . * Issel, William. "History, Social Science, and Ideology: Elkins and Blassingame on Ante-bellum American Slavery". ''The History Teacher'' 9 November 1975: pp. 56–72. * Kaye, Anthony E. "'In the Neighborhood': Toward a Human Geography of U.S. Slave Society". ''Southern Spaces'', September 3, 200
Southern Spaces: An interdisciplinary journal about the regions, places, and cultures of the American South
* Kolchin, Peter. "Reevaluating the Antebellum Slave Community: A Comparative Perspective". ''
Journal of American History ''The Journal of American History'' is the official academic journal of the Organization of American Historians. It covers the field of American history and was established in 1914 as the ''Mississippi Valley Historical Review'', the official jo ...
'' 70 (December 1983): pp. 579–601. * Parish, Peter J. ''Slavery: History and Historians''. New York: Westview Press, 1989. . * White, John. "Inside Slavery". ''
Reviews in American History ''Reviews in American History'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1973 and published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. It publishes reviews of new books on the topic of American history, as well as retrospectives on ...
'' 1 (December 1973): pp. 514–519.


External links

*
The Slave Community
' at
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
. *
The Slave Community
' at
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