Three Perspectives on The Peculiar Institution of Slavery

Mr. Daniel Lazar

Slaves Were Submissive and Accommodating. Why? Six Factors…

1. Economic Reasons

2. Sociological Reasons: – Cooley’s Looking Glass Self & The Social

Construction of The Self– Broken Families

3. Geographical Reasons

4. Intellectual Reasons: – Soft Sciences, e.g. Fitzhugh– Hard Sciences, e.g. Harvard Cranial “Studies”

1. Slaves Were Submissive and Accommodating. Why? Six Factors

5. Psychological Factors– Socialization from Cradle

to Grave– Self-Fulfilling Prophecy– Bigotry of Low

Expectations– Slave Auctions– Chris Williamson

Slaves Were Submissive and Accommodating. Why? Six Factors

6. Religious Factors• When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so

hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21)

• You may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.  (Leviticus 25:44-46)

Slaves Were Submissive and Accommodating. Why?

6. Religious Factors (cont.)• Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and

fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5)

• Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed.  If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful.  You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts.  (1 Timothy 6:1-2)

• "Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them" (Titus 2:9)

• "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord." (Colossians 3:22)

Really?

…Were slaves submissive and accommodating?

No.

…Resist by any means necessary!

Acts of Individual Resistance

• Sit-down Strikes• Laziness, Stubbornness & Faking Illness• Suicide & Mutiny on the High Seas• Abortion and Baby Killing• Self-Inflicted Wounds• Arson• Poisoning Masters• →Celia: Ground glass and spiders in buttermilk

• Breaking Tools

Acts of Individual Resistance• Runaways

– To Canada, Mexico, FL & LA (before they were slave states)– To the North

• Underground Railroad• Worked for abolitionists• Became lawyers in the North• Joined Union Army

Acts of Individual Resistance

The Power of the Pen• Olaudah Equiano • Harriet Beecher Stowe• David Walker ($10,000 alive, $1,000 dead)

Organized Rebellion: Amistad Case (1839)

Organized Rebellion: Gabriel Prosser (1800)

Organized Rebellion: Denmark Vesey (1822)

Organized Rebellion: Nat Turner (1831)

Organized Rebellion: John Brown (1859)

Why Rebel?

• Obvious response: hard times and a desire for justice• The rhetoric of freedom, independence, equality, liberty

and democracy• Rumors of conspiracy and insurrection elsewhere.

Sometimes started by fearful whites. • Slaves often raised in a culture of violence. • Increased education• For public sympathy • The racism of white abolitionists left many slaves

seeking an alternative

→Hard to say whether or not such rebellions were productive or counterproductive.

• Why do we hear so little of slave revolts?

• Maybe because these are exceptional situations and NOT the norm?

• So were the slaves best characterized as rebellious revolutionaries?

No…

3. Peaceful Cohabitation: The Overlooked Peculiarity of the Peculiar Institution

• A slave was worth US$60,000 in today's money (Princeton)

• Neither slaves nor slave-owners were ignorant of a simple fact: times were tough, the were co-dependent and they had to make the best of challenging circumstances

→poetry, music, art, magic, worship, dancing…• “The cotton was high and the corn was growing

fine.”