Beginning with the first chapter, Blassingame argues that, despite the unparalleled shock (13) of enslavement for Africans, they preserved aspects of their native African culturesincluding elements of their languages, folk magic and stories, and music and dancing while also assimilating to the culture of the Southern United States. In these "invisible churches", slaves could discuss freedom, liberty, and the judgment of God against slaveowners. Blassingame joined the module of Yale University in 1970. where he taught in the African American Studies. 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." The The Slave Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and quizzes written by community members like you. (one code per order). They seize and tie Douglass and the rest of the escape party. She notes that The Slave Community, like other historiography produced in the 1960s and 70s, "did not directly address women's history, even though many of the historians were sensitive to women's experience. Kolchin, Peter. The fight with Covey causes Douglass to regain his spirit and defiance, as well as his resolve to be free. Blassingame addresses the historiography of slavery published between 1972 and 1978 in the revised edition. "[9] He relies heavily on narratives by Henry Bibb, Henry Clay Bruce, Elizabeth Keckley, Samuel Hall, Solomon Northup, Charles Ball, Jermain Wesley Loguen, William Wells Brown, John Brown, Robert Anderson, William Grimes, Austin Steward, and Frederick Douglass. Consequently, the slave did not have to be infantile or abjectly docile in order to remain alive (Blassingame, 249). 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." Douglass recalls that he loved them and that they operated together as a single community. They questioned Blassingame's decision to exclude the more than 2,000 interviews with former slaves conducted by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s. Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more! Blassingame is an important author because he had the courage to write such a book that provides readers with the opposite side of the slavery picture than had ever been presented before. The Slave was a novel written by Polish author Isaac Bashevis Singer and was published in 1962. Overall his attempt to show this picture was successful because he was able to prove that slaves were worth more than a bullet (Blassingame, 331). You'll also receive an email with the link. 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. The Slave Community contradicted those historians who had interpreted history to suggest that African-American slaves were docile and submissive "Sambos" who enjoyed the benefits of a paternalistic master-slave relationship on southern plantations. [22], Children observed fathers demonstrating two behavioral types. The extent of submissiveness often depends on the structure of the group to which the person belongs. Rediker's book provides a deeper understanding of the slaving industry. Sandy Jenkins also lives at Freelands at this time, and Douglass reminds readers about Sandys root and reports that Sandys superstition is common among the more ignorant slaves. Drawing on psychology, Blassingame argues that enslaved people did adopt submissive roles and were subjected to coercion. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South shows that slaves were not the obedient workers that previous authors had suggested they were. To install StudyMoose App tap 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. The book includes essays by the panelists as well as James D. Anderson, Ralph D. Carter, John Henrik Clarke, and Stanley Engerman. Jacob returns to Pilitz 20 years later to find that Sarah's grave now falls within the perimeter of the cemetery, since many more have died in that town. Douglass alludes to Henrys famous declaration, Give me liberty or give me death. While Henry faces a choice between political independence and oppression, escaping slaves must choose between two unattractive optionsthe familiar ills of slavery and the unknown dangers of escape. Blassingame, John W. (1972). The second half of Chapter X continues to shift between personal accounts and public arguments against slavery. Douglass explains that this strategy helps keep blacks enslaved. I'm thinking this sounds right but I'm not an expert on population. The Question and Answer section for The Slave is a great The book analyzes three main personality types of black slaves. But Batiatus is training the men in order to sell them off. It seems, that the most outstanding tradition that was mentioned was the spirituals. He compares the conversion of slaves in the southern states to Protestant Christianity, European slaves in North Africa to Islam, and African slaves in Latin America to Catholicism.[71][72]. Douglass presents Freeland as a good slave owner because he lacks both of these vices. The Slave talks about a Jewish man, called Jacob, who lived in a small village called Josefov in Poland. Spartacus is one of the slaves he buys. Historians argued that Blassingame's use of psychological theory proved unhelpful in his interpretation. 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". Except for his friendship with the local boys in Baltimore, Douglass has been a figure of isolation and alienation in the Narrative. Southern slaves often included African animals like elephants, lions, and monkeys as characters in their folk tales. This ability is what helped many slaves report more positive life experiences in spite of being enslaved. The film depicts rape during the middle passage and in the present, and offers an unflinching view of the forms of psychological and physical discipline deployed, as when slaves are murdered or made to flog each other under the threat of death. Additional materials, such as the best quotations, synonyms and word definitions to make your writing easier are also offered here. Douglass explains, however, that this seeming benevolence is part of the larger power structure of slavery. Douglass remains in jail because he is identified as the leader and instigator. "[74], Unless noted, all citations from The Slave Community are from the 1979 revised edition, African cultural retention and slave culture. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature sixteen years after the novel was published. "[11], Blassingame asserts that historians have discussed "what could be generally described as slave 'culture,' but give little solid information on life in the quarters. Douglass points out that their decision was far more difficult than that of Patrick Henry, whose choice between death and an oppressed lifeGive me liberty or give me deathwas merely rhetorical. You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers. He argues that slaves had instead been infantilized, or "made" into Sambos, by the brutal treatment received at the hands of slaveowners and overseers. "[9], 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. "[20] 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. Rather than accepting the fugitive slave narratives without question, Blassingame admits to scrutinizing his reading of the texts. "[1] American Negro Slavery is infused with racial rhetoric and upholds perceptions about the inferiority of black people common in the southern United States at the time. SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. What is meant by Government aided secondary school? Community; Historians criticized the use of slave narratives that were seen as unreliable and biased. 21, 22. Blassingame identifies three stereotypes in the literature of the antebellum south: Directly challenging Elkins's infantilization thesis, Blassingame argues that historians have focused too much on the Sambo personality type and the role of paternalism. As . "[66] White discusses the Mammy and Jezebel stereotypes often applied to African American women by white Americans. The escape party consists of Douglass, Henry and John Harris, Henry Bailey, and Charles Roberts. [61], Since its publication in 1972 and revision in 1979, The Slave Community has influenced subsequent historiographical works on slavery in the United States. and then Add to Home Screen. Review of The Slave Community. Like a man whistling in the dark to bolster his courage, the white man had to portray the slave as Sambo. This enforced ignorance robs children of their natural sense of individual identity. First published in 1962 by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, the story centers on Jacob, a Jewish slave who falls in love with Wanda, a gentile woman. Jacob dies during this trip to Pilitz, and they discover the bones of his wife, reuniting her to Jacob by burying them together. It includes an account of the treatment of house slaves written by Angelina . In their prefaces to Douglasss Narrative, Garrison and Phillips place Douglass in the context of the American Revolutionaries battle for rights and freedom. Yet the slaves value their education so highly that they attend Douglass's school despite the threat of punishment. Best summary PDF, themes, and quotes. [48] 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. [45], The importance of The Slave Community as one of the first studies of slavery from the perspective of the slave was recognized by historians. Slaveholders typically encourage slaves to spend the holiday drinking, rather than resting or working industriously for themselves. On January 1, 1834, Douglass is sent to live with Mr. William Freeland. Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina had the greatest annual population loss. Jacob falls in love with his master's daughter, Wanda, but his Jewish beliefs prevent him from taking a pagan woman for a wife. "[32], 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. Pushing his suspicions even further, Nietzsche speculates that the valuation originally placed on altruism, insofar as it encourages acting for others instead of oneself, is an expression of what he calls "herd morality" - the morality of the many and the weak, the function of which is to preserve the community and, at the same time, to . Finally, Blassingame provides an attempt to show that black slaves werent submissive to white slave owners and were able to hold onto some aspects of their culture which provided much more freedom from restraint and more independence and autonomy than his institutionally defined role allowed. Blassingame argued that a great variety of personality types Read more about the motif of slaves as property. "[18] 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. Eventually, she delivers Jacob's baby, but when she screams out in pain, she reveals her pagan ethnicity, and when she dies in childbirth, the community bury her with the donkeys, not the people. He chaired African American Studies for most of the 1980's. He is the writer of New Perspectives on Black Studies ( 1971 ) . Douglass is grateful that Mr. Freeland is not a hypocritically religious man. to start your free trial of SparkNotes Plus. Those women and men know life under cruel, unstable owners. He was also criticized by many for his use of slave accounts and not enough accounts by white slave owners. [19], Slave marriages were illegal in southern states, and slave couples were frequently separated by slaveowners through sale. Some enslaved people went on to become fugitives or engage in revolts. A SuperSummary Study Guide - a modern alternative to Sparknotes & CliffsNotes provides so much more -- including chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and important quotes. Folk heroes like Jack (the image of a secretly rebellious slave who knew how to act around white people so as to avoid danger), religious songs about the Jewish people being freed from Egypt, and religious gatherings represented ways in which enslaved people not only sought leisure and hope, but how they asserted themselves and found community despite their dehumanizing situation. "The Slave Summary". April 17, 2023, SNPLUSROCKS20 "[30] 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 fighting with Seminoles during the Seminole Wars. Among them are Clotel and Althesa, two beautiful teenage girls, and their mother Currer, who hired herself out as a housekeeper to Thomas Jefferson and by whom she had her two daughters.Clotel had gained the attention of a wealthy young man named Horatio Green, who had met her at a ball and had . The Slave Community contradicted those historians who had interpreted history to suggest that African-American slaves were docile and submissive "Sambos" who enjoyed the benefits of a paternalistic masterslave relationship on southern plantations. Douglasss first year with Freeland passes smoothly. Read more about the reference to Patrick Henry and what it means. Chapter 106. Likewise, enslaved people trying to hold onto their family names and keep their families togetherdespite slave owners selling spouses and childrenfound ways to assert themselves through forming and protecting bonds old and new. "[43] He elaborates on his criticism of the interviews in a 1975 article in the Journal of Southern History. Kilson's review in the American Historical Review described Blassingame's aims as "imperfectly realized" because he "lacks a clear analytical perspective". This is a dangerous undertaking, as educating slaves is forbidden; the community violently shuts down a similar school run by a white man. Eugene D. Genovese, "Toward a Psychology of Slavery: An Assessment of the Contribution of. He observed that during courtship men flattered women and exaggerated their prowess. Douglasss analysis of the holiday time falls in this last category. However, they were forced to do this on their own time and when not being watched by white slave owners. "[20] He contends: While the form of family life in the quarters differed radically from that among free Negroes and whites, this does not mean it failed to perform many of the traditional functions of the familythe rearing of children being one of the most important of these functions. Instead, Douglass complains to Hugh Auld, who becomes surprisingly indignant on Douglasss behalf. Give us your email address and well send this sample there. "[17] Blassingame asserts that the most significant instance revolved around Protestant Christianity (primarily Baptist and Methodist 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. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. However, Blassingame emphasizes that all aspects of culture were not eliminated. He begins to despair. Kilson believes that Blassingame ultimately failed in his analysis because "his intellectual integration of social and psychological orientations has yet to be fully achieved. This book analyzes the experience of slaves in the South during misjudgement and confusion. "[33] 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. Plot Summary. 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". He points to his dissatisfaction with Freeland in a pun on Freelands name. . They know what it feels like to be unable to protect their own children. Generally, the public, or persuasivesections of the Narrative generally either disprove pro-slavery arguments, present antislavery arguments, or disabuse readers of misinformation or misinterpretation about the practices of slave owners. This book analyzes the experience of slaves in the South during misjudgement and confusion. I'm not sure what exactly you are asking here. As an eyewitness, the autobiographer brings the historian into contact with almost all kinds of slaves. On the morning of their planned escape, Douglass works in thefields as usual. You'll be billed after your free trial ends. Please wait while we process your payment. Continue to start your free trial. As an apprentice who is not free, Douglass continues working at Gardners, but he endures severe physical intimidation from the white apprentices. Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership. 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. Freeland works his slaves hard, but treats them fairly. for a group? for a customized plan. He paints the Atlantic as an exceptionally violent place. 210 journal of social history about slave culture and personality without acknowledging this diversity and virtually without reference to slaves on farms, in urban areas and in industry) who together constituted nearly half of the slave community. Slave is a great variety of personality types of black slaves the reference to Patrick Henry and John Harris Henry! $ 24.99/year as selected above, called Jacob, who becomes surprisingly indignant on Douglasss.... Of our expert writers often included African animals like elephants, lions, and monkeys characters. 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Historiography of slavery published between 1972 and 1978 in the context of the texts published between and! Of these vices an email with the link in jail because he is identified the.

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