Frank Preston Stearns - "Cambridge Sketches"

Sir James George Frazer - "The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3)"

Various - "Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society Vol. 3"

Wilhelm Hauff - "Maerchen Almanach auf das Jahr 1828"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917

V >> Various >> The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917




Slavery, as an industrial institution, has flourished only in
countries with great natural resources, easy of access and affording
ready means of sustenance. The crops cultivated must be simple, such
as tobacco, rice or cotton, and hence admitting of easy mastery by the
slave as well as the efficient organization and direction of gangs of
laborers. The soil must be very fertile and unlimited in extent to
assure a profit on the unskilled routine labor of the slave, which
makes rotation of the crops impossible and soon exhausts the soil so
that the worn out lands must be abandoned for new. The industrial
cycle passed through by the great slave-estates of the West Indies
finds a parallel in the South, where the speedy exhaustion of a
fertile soil with the resulting necessity for a more scientific and
intensive agriculture, impossible under slavery, forced slaveholders
to open up new lands constantly. Hence the insatiable land hunger of
the slave power.[314]

There is evidence that at the end of the colonial period the older
lands of Virginia and Maryland, where slavery and the plantation
system had long existed, were approaching a period of decay. This was
the logical result of slavery. An industrial readjustment was taking
place involving the decline of the plantation system and with it the
decline of slavery. It was at this juncture that the fate of slavery,
and with it the destiny of the entire southwestern region, was
determined by a new factor, namely, the rise of the cotton culture.
But for the invention of the cotton-gin, and the improvements in
cotton manufacture that accompanied it, the economic forces already
militating against the patriarchal form of slavery in Virginia would
doubtless have brought about in time its peaceful abolition. As it
was, these discoveries created an industrial basis for the fostering
of slavery more dangerous than any pro-slavery legislation had been
and more sweeping and insidious than anti-slavery agitators could
possibly imagine. It opened up for the cultivation of the cotton
plant the vast fertile region extending from eastern North Carolina
through South Carolina, middle Georgia and Alabama to Mississippi,
Louisiana and Texas[315]. Here were found all the conditions mentioned
above as necessary to the success of slavery.

Within this vast region, however, there were variations of climate and
soil which made certain sections better adapted to slavery and the
plantation system than others. Between the foothills just to the south
of the Appalachian mountains and the flat sandy levels of the sea
coast lay a central rich alluvial region called the "black belt" at
first after the color of its soil and later after the color of the
majority of its inhabitants. This section was peculiarly well suited
to the growth of the cotton plant and here, after the pell-mell of
immigration which poured into the southwest with the development of
cotton culture began to take on the forms of a fixed social order,
arose those large cotton plantations which were the central feature of
southern ante-bellum civilization. The "black belt" included virtually
the whole of South Carolina, a strip through central Georgia and
south-central Alabama and the rich alluvial lands along the
Mississippi and Red rivers in the States of Mississippi and Louisiana.
Here the large plantations gradually absorbed the lands of the
frontiersmen and small farmers who had preceded them and spread over
all the lands where the gang labor of the slave system could be
prosecuted with profit[316].

This slave aristocracy of the "black belt," which determined the
social standards and shaped the morals and directed the political
policies of the South, was composed of a few powerful families who
through their wealth, social standing and talents for leadership
controlled the destinies of a vast section. Perhaps 500,000 out of a
total white population of 9,000,000 profited by slavery in 1860, but
out of this number some ten thousand families, including such
familiar names as Hampton, Rutledge, Brooks, Hayne, Lee, Mason, Tyler,
Wise, Polk, Breckenridge and Claibourne, really determined the
policies of the South[317]. Beneath the slave aristocracy were ranged
the other elements of society. First among these came the small
farmers, often owning a few slaves. Though having occupied the land
first, they were gradually crowded out by the competition of the large
slaveholders, who bought up their lands and forced them to occupy the
foothills to the north of the "black belt" in Georgia, Alabama and
Mississippi which were ill adapted to the plantation slave system.
Next came the thriftless and impecunious whites, variously known as
the "pine-landers" and "crackers" in Georgia, the "sand-hillers" of
South Carolina, or the "red-necks" of Mississippi. The lowest stratum
was composed of slaves with a slight intermixture of free Negroes.

Bagehot remarks that slavery "creates a set of persons born to work
that others may not work, and not to think in order that others may
think. Therefore, slave-owning nations, having time to think, are
likely to be more shrewd in policy, and more crafty in strategy[318]."
This is amply illustrated in the case of southern leaders. The sons of
the slaveholders received the best education the land could afford;
the plantation life gave a training in administration and leadership
and with leisure and natural political talent they looked to public
life for advancement. Those who showed ability in local or State
governments were advanced to the House or Senate so that by a process
of natural selection the slave-power at the South was able to develop
leaders, who not only moulded the public sentiment of the South itself
but shaped the policies of the nation for the better part of half a
century[319].

Thus, by a slow process of evolution, was built up in the "black
belt" of the South an industrial empire, based upon slavery, nominally
democratic, but in reality an oligarchy composed of a group of
talented men, united in their traditions, social standards and
political ideals by virtue of their common loyalty to the "peculiar
institution" of their section. It was democratic within its own
limits, chivalrous, cultured although it cherished ideals essentially
at variance with democratic institutions and bound in time to give
birth to a social consciousness that was incompatible with that
entertained by the rest of the nation. When the slave-power was
defeated at the polls in the election of 1860, secession was the
logical result.

The status of the Negro, both slave and free, was intimately
associated with this economic development of the far South. There is
much to indicate that the entire South gradually underwent a profound
change of attitude towards slavery in the three decades from 1800 to
1830. Slavery was generally looked upon as an evil by the southern
leaders of the time of the constitutional convention and for two
decades afterwards, perhaps. Mason of Virginia in the debates of 1787
stated that slavery discouraged the arts and manufactures, prevented
immigration of whites, exercised a most pernicious effect upon
manners, made every master a petty tyrant and would bring the judgment
of heaven down upon the country. Baldwin, speaking for Georgia, said
that "If left to herself, she may probably put an end to the
evil[320]." Jefferson's expressions against slavery were many and
pronounced[321], and there is reason for thinking that these ideas
were shared by many even in the far South. An editorial in the
_Milledgeville Journal_ of Georgia, January 1, 1817, has this
remarkable language: "With such a hint from a distinguished
philosopher (_i. e._, Jefferson), shall we not merit execration, if we
fail to provide in time an adequate remedy for this great and growing
evil, an evil which is always staring us in the face--which obtrudes
so frequently upon us in spite of ourselves, the most gloomy and awful
apprehension[322]." As late as 1826, when Edward Everett, of
Massachusetts, asserted before the House that slavery was sanctioned
by religion, John Randolph, of Virginia, himself a slaveholder,
replied: "Sir, I envy neither the head nor the heart of that man from
the North who rises here to defend slavery from principle[323]."

Apparently the first assertion of the usefulness and beneficence of
the institution from a southern man of political repute came from the
governor of South Carolina in 1830[324]. How then are we to explain
the profound change of sentiment indicated by the leading papers of
the South just before the war? _The Richmond Enquirer_, September 6,
1855, asserts: "Every moment's additional reflection but convinces us
of the absolute impregnability of the Southern position on this
subject. Facts, which can not be questioned, come thronging in support
of the true doctrine--that slavery is the best condition of the black
race in this country, and that the true philanthropists should rather
desire that race to remain in the state of servitude, than to become
free with the privilege of becoming worthless." The _Richmond
Examiner_, 1854, advises all southern men to act "as if the canopy of
heaven were inscribed with a covenant in letters of fire that the
negro is here, and here forever; is our property and ours forever; is
never to be emancipated; is to be kept hard at work, and in rigid
subjection all his days[325]." The _Daily Intelligencer_, of Atlanta,
January 9, 1860, states editorially: "Whenever we see a negro, we
presuppose a master and if we see him in what is commonly called a
'free state' we consider him out of his place. This matter of
manumission, or emancipation, now thank heaven less practiced than
formerly, is a species of false philanthropy, which we look upon as a
cousin german to Abolitionism--bad for the master, worse for
the slave." Calhoun pronounced slavery "the most solid and
durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political
institutions[326]." Hammond claimed, in a eulogy of slavery in the
Senate, March 4, 1858, that its "frame of society is the best in the
world." Jefferson Davis defended it as "a form of civil government for
those who by nature are not fit to govern themselves";[327] Mason, a
descendant of the great Mason of revolutionary days, described it as
"ennobling to both races."[328]

It is useless to try to explain these statements by attributing to
their authors moral perverseness; the explanation must be sought in
the conditions that surrounded them. We have already alluded to the
fact that our moral conceptions are absorbed from the social milieu in
which we are reared. The prevailing ideals of family, business, the
social, political or national group of which we happen to be members
we absorb as part of our "social copy" and build into the fabric of
our social selves. The larger the group and the more vital any given
ideal is considered by the group as a whole the greater will be its
hold upon the loyalty of the individual member. Everything conspired
to give to the social sanction of the slave-aristocracy an
authoritativeness and binding force without a parallel in the history
of the nation. Upon the basis of the slave as the industrial unit was
reared in the course of years a mass of _mores_ which conditioned the
entire world-view of the slave-owner. Economic methods, social
differentiations, political institutions, religious ideals, moral
values, local patriotism and pride, all took their color from the
"peculiar institution" of the section. To question its validity or to
deny its divine authority was to threaten the entire social order with
an _Umwerthung aller Werthe_ that to the southern mind was
unthinkable. The increase of the slave population and the ever
widening gap between white and black made it all the harder for the
white to consider schemes for emancipation or manumission which meant
economic and social chaos. The weight of accumulated traditions, the
hardening of social habits and even the constantly increasing economic
handicaps of the ruinous slave-labor made any change more difficult
and dangerous. Many, who would gladly be rid of slavery, found
themselves in the predicament described by Jefferson, "We have the
wolf by the ears, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him
go."[329]

The status of the slave was determined directly by the rise of the
slave-power and on the whole shows, as was to be expected, a tendency
to treat the slave more and more as a chattel or, as Aristotle would
say, a "living tool." The general drift of the slave codes of the
various southern States was to negate the personality of the slave and
to fix his status as a part of an industrial system. The earliest of
the slave laws to be passed were of the nature of police regulations,
restricting the personal liberties of the blacks.[330] Of peculiar
interest are the laws with regard to emancipation and the status of
the free Negro, for the latter was a standing rebuke to slavery and a
fruitful source of discontent among the slaves. In 1822 a Charleston
writer says, "We look upon the existence of the Free Blacks among us
as the greatest and most deplorable evil with which we are unhappily
afflicted.... Our slaves when they look around them and see persons of
their own color enjoying a comparative degree of freedom and assuming
privileges beyond their own condition, naturally become dissatisfied
with their lot, until the feverish restlessness of this disposition
foments itself into insurrection and the 'black flood of long retained
spleen' breaks down every principle of duty and obedience."[331]

As early as 1800 South Carolina prohibited free Negroes and mulattoes
from entering the State. In 1822 they were required to have a guardian
and in 1825 were forbidden the use of firearms. By an act of 1841
emancipation of slaves was made unlawful and in 1860 free Negroes were
required to wear badges with their name and occupation.[332] In many
States emancipation was made unlawful and in Arkansas by an act of
1858 all free Negroes and mulattoes were required to leave the State
or be sold as slaves.[333] About 1830, and probably as a result of
abolition activity, acts were passed in practically all the southern
States prohibiting even the elementary forms of education to the slave
and placing heavy penalties upon whites who violated it. Thus the
status of the free Negro tended always to approximate that of the
slave. Moreover, a study of the evolution of the slave codes of each
State shows a gradual narrowing of the sphere of the slave and a
general drift towards the principle expressed in South Carolina law
that "Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed and adjudged in law
to be _chattels personal_ in the hands of their owners and possessors
and their executors, administrators and assigns, to all intents,
constructions and purposes whatsoever."[334]

So far then as the relations of master and slave went, the law gave
the former complete control over the slave's time and labor, his food
and clothing, punishment, together with the right to turn him over to
an agent or sell his labor. The slave had no property rights in law,
could be sold, mortgaged, leased or disposed of in payment of debt;
the slave could not be party in a legal action against his master,
could not redeem himself, change his master or make a contract. His
status was hereditary and perpetual both for himself and his children.
In his civil status no slave could be a witness against a white or be
a party to a suit; he was deprived of the benefits of education and in
some States of religious instruction also.[335] The actual status of
the slave was, of course, subject to the varying conditions of the
different sections of a wide area of country, the status of the slave
on a Virginia or North Carolina farm being very different from that of
the field hand on a sugar or cotton plantation of the far South. The
slaveholders also were to a very large extent a law unto themselves.
"On our estates," says DeBow, "we dispense with the whole machinery of
public police and public courts of justice. Thus we try, decide, and
execute the sentences in thousands of cases, which in other countries
would go into the courts."[336] Fanny Kemble describes how she made
use of this autonomous position of the slaveholder on her own
plantation to teach her slave Aleck to read in violation of the
law.[337] This explains the great extremes in southern slavery and the
mistakes of writers who judge the institution as a whole by extreme
cases.[338]

Our conclusion as to the effect upon the Negro himself of slavery will
depend largely upon whether we stress his previous savage estate and
the gain made through contact with a superior civilization or the
inherent evils of slavery itself and their effect upon his character.
That the transition from African savagery to slavery was a gain for
the Negro in many respects will hardly be denied.[339] The field hand
of the plantation of the far South doubtless retained many of his most
primitive savage traits. Olmsted, an unprejudiced observer, describes
him as on the average a very poor and a very bad creature, "clumsy,
awkward, gross and elephantine in movement ... sly, sensual and
shameless in expression and demeanor." "He seems to be but an
imperfect man, incapable of taking care of himself in a civilized
manner, and his presence in large numbers must be considered a
dangerous circumstance to a civilized people."[340] And yet he
testifies that slavery improved the African Negro.[341]

The most beneficial effects were noticeable where the slave came in
constant contact with the whites. For this reason the household slaves
manifested a degree of intelligence and initiative far above that of
the untutored field hand; this contact with the white was in effect an
involuntary education. This appeared even in dress. "For though their
own native taste," says Kemble, "is decidedly both barbarous and
ludicrous, it is astonishing how very soon they mitigate it in
imitation of their white models." The mulattoes in Charleston were
often as well dressed as the whites.[342] The best witness to the
benefits derived from slavery was the fact that for a generation after
emancipation the older Negroes who received their training under the
old regime made the most faithful and consistent laborers when set
free.[343]

There were, however, other effects of slavery which offset its
advantages. The slave had no true home life and without this it is
impossible to train personality and character. The father felt no
responsibility for children that were not really his but his master's.
The mother merely discharged the animal functions of bearing and
rearing the child, all the finer instincts of motherhood being
prostituted to a selfish commercial end. The slave-mother, of course,
did not feel the pathos of the situation when pointing to her children
she said: "Look missis! little niggers for you and massa; plenty
little niggers for you and little missis." The slave lived perpetually
in an atmosphere of fawning and flattery by no means conducive to the
development of independent manhood either in himself or his master.
Being outside those social sanctions which keep the free man honest
and trustworthy he was often guilty of petty theft and deceit and the
law recognized the logical results of his status upon his character by
refusing to take the word of a slave against a freeman. The slave had
no social standing and no respect for himself or his fellow slaves and
hence exercised unbounded insolence and tyranny towards his fellows.
This gave to the social intercourse between slaves a flavor of
vulgarity and insincerity utterly incompatible with the development of
the finer instincts of personality.[344]

The essential injustice of slavery lies in withholding the legitimate
use of those means for self-development which are the inalienable
right of every creature born with potentialities for personality. It
becomes a national crime when the public conscience in any age
recognizes in a group or an individual potentialities for the exercise
of rights or the discharge of social functions with a rational regard
for the well-being of society as a whole, and yet through powerful
class interests refuses to give legal recognition to those rights. The
paradox of the slaveholder's position and the fundamental injustice of
it appear even in the slave codes and the arguments used in defense of
the "peculiar institution." The slave codes treated the slave in one
clause as a chattel, an irrational thing, and yet proceed to embody in
the same code regulations against learning to read and write, theft,
and murder, thus acknowledging that the slave is both rational and
moral. Laws against teaching slaves were passed in South Carolina in
1834, in Georgia, 1829, Louisiana, 1829, Alabama, 1830 and Virginia,
1849.

As a result of this negation of his personality the slave thought and
acted solely in terms of the social mind of the white. Hence the
prevailing idea of the slave, "massa can do no wrong."[345] The slave
had no social consciousness, no ethical code apart from that of the
white master; his self-determining powers of personality had no scope
for expression or development. He looked down with infinite scorn upon
the "poor white trash" which had no entree into his master's circle
and he pitied the free Negro because his lack of a master gave him no
social standing. To have a Negro overseer was a disgrace. Olmsted
overheard the following conversation between two Negroes: "Workin' in
a tobacco factory all de year roun', an' come Christmas, only twenty
dollars! Workin' mighty hard too--up to twelve o'clock o'night very
often--_an' den to hab a nigger oberseah_!" "A nigger!" "Yes dat's it
yer see. Wouldn't care ef it warn't for dat. _Nothin' but a dirty
nigger! orderin' 'round, jes' as ef he was a wite man_."[346] To be
sure, on the basis of this submerged status of the slave, ties of the
greatest intimacy and affection often grew up between master and
slave. But the slave's personality was absorbed by that of his master.
Petty thefts, deceits and delinquencies of the slave were excused
because it was all in the family. The master even felt his slave's
acts to be morally his own and condoned them as he would his own
foibles. It should never be forgotten that when the Negro made the
transition from the artificial and quasi-social status of the slave to
a free democratic order, where individual worth and social efficiency
determine one's place in society, he was like a child taught to swim
with bladders and suddenly deprived of them.

"Jove fixed it certain, that whatever day
Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away."

JOHN M. MECKLIN.


FOOTNOTES:

[291] Turner, _op. cit._, p. 14 ff.

[292] Moore, _op. cit._, p. 10; Johnson, _op. cit._, p. 18.

[293] "Economic and Social History of New England," 1620-1789, II, pp.
450, 451.

[294] Dabney, "Defence of Virginia," p. 58.

[295] Locke, _op. cit._, Ch. V.

[296] Turner, _op. cit._, p. 87.

[297] "Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts," pp. 241,
242.

[298] Moore, _op. cit._, pp. 228 ff.

[299] "Diary," p. 149.

[300] No exaggeration! See Turner, "The Negro in Pennsylvania," pp.
146, 147.

[301] "Democracy in America," I, pp. 361 ff.

[302] See Steiner, "History of Slavery in Connecticut," pp. 45 ff. for
the famous instance of the Quakeress, Miss Prudence Crandall, and her
school.

[303] "Society in America," 1, pp. 193-196.

[304] "Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation," p. 11.

[305] Hart, "Slavery and Abolition," pp. 256 ff.

[306] _Journal_, p. 86.

[307] See Turner's excellent account, "The Negro in Pennsylvania,"
Chs. IX-XIII.

[308] Turner, pp. 242, 245.

[309] _Ibid._, pp. 160 ff. for details.

[310] "Democracy in America," I, pp. 379 ff.

[311] 19 Howard's R., p. 624, quoted by Hurd, "Law of Freedom and
Bondage," I, p. 358, see also pp. 321 ff. of Hurd.

[312] Hurd, I, pp. 217 ff., for the colonial legislation and II, Chs.
XVII, XVIII, XIX, for subsequent legislation in the different states
and territories.

[313] "Documentary History of American Industrial Society," I, p. 75.

[314] "Documentary History of American Industrial Society," I, p. 91.
See also Cairnes, "The Slave Power," pp. 52 ff.; Nieboer, "Slavery as
an Industrial System," pp. 417 ff.

[315] For an account of the growth of the cotton industry see Baines,
"History of the Cotton Manufacture," pp. 116 ff. See also DuBois,
"Suppression of the Slave Trade," pp. 151 ff.

[316] Phillips, "Origin and Growth of the Southern 'black belts,'" pp.
798 ff., Vol. XI of _The American Historical Review_.

[317] Hart, "Slavery and Abolition," pp. 67 ff.

[318] "Physics and Politics," p. 73, ed. of 1896; Ingram, "History of
Slavery," p. 5.

[319] Rhodes, I, pp. 347 ff.

[320] Livermore, "An Historical Research Respecting the Opinions of
the Founders of the Republic on Negroes as Slaves, as Citizens, and as
Soldiers," pp. 56 ff.

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.