Kolchin
What is the problem he poses?
 What is the solution he offers (thesis)?
 How does the essay structure around the
solution?

The historical phenomenon / problem?
Not so much a question about how or why
something happened in the past. More about
how we should understand what happened in
the past. The subject is historiography (how we
study the past) rather than history (the past
itself).
 Was the slave community really so communal?

– Has there been in the historiography “an exaggerated
emphasis on communal solidarity and felicity”? (582).

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STUCKEY
“an ethos which enabled them to endure” (418)
ability to “maintain their essential humanity”
(419)
slavery was “not so ‘closed’ that it robbed most
of the slaves of their humanity” (417)
slavery did not “denude them of meaningful
Africanisms while destroying any and all
impulses toward creativity” (436)
RAWICK
 “there was room for maneuver” (9)
 the slave participated in a “community . . .
where he knew how to behave and where
he would be accepted” (10)
 “found ways of alleviating the worst of the
system and at times of dominating the
masters” (11)

The historical phenomenon / problem?


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Worries about a new “myth” — “that of the utopian slave
community” (581).
A “celebratory tone” that “seems distorted if not
implausible” (581-82).
“One rarely comes across child abuse, wife beating, and
unhappy, or even squalid and mundane, families; one
encounters little black cruelty or meanness, few bullies,
thieves, and rapists, or just dull, plodding, uninteresting
people” (582). “It is hard to believe that the slave
quarers were people by men and women quite so loving,
cheerful, cooperative, and resourceful as we are told”
(582).
His method (how he’ll proceed to solve this):
What if we applied the comparative approach to
the study of the slave community?
 “Comparative analysis has much to tell us about
the slaves as well as about the masters, and a
broader perspective modifies significantly our
view of antebellum slave life. . . . How
comparison can shed light on the nature of the
antebellum slave community” (581).

His solution / argument
“Demographic reality severely limited the
potential for autonomous slave life” (582).
 What was “demographic reality”? What
are “demographics”?
 Demographics: The characteristics of
human populations and population
segments

Demographic factors
1.
2.
Size of holdings
Planters resident or absent?
– Planter paternalism
3.
Creole (native-born) population
Conditions faced by slaves
Nonmaster
majority
Large
holdings
Absentee- Cultural
ism
continuity
United States
no
no
no
Brazil
somewhat no
Cuba
no
no
somewhat somewhat
Score
0
1.5
somewhat yes
somewhat
2
St. Dominigue yes
yes
yes
somewhat
3.5
Jamaica
yes
yes
yes
somewhat
3.5
Russia
yes
yes
yes
yes
4
Consequences for slave life
“difficult to develop an autonomous life”
(588-92)
 “exhibited markedly fewer examples of
collective behavior” (592-96)


Evident in patterns of resistance (596-601)
Final road map
Problem: was slave community really so
communal?
 Method: comparison of slave societies
 Demographic factors affecting slave community

– Plantation size and pop ratios
– Planters resident or absent?
– New slaves creole or from slave trade?

Consequences of these for slave life in US
– Economic autonomy
– Communal institutions
– Patterns of resistance
Legitimate sample quiz questions
Why does Kolchin concern himself with
Russia, which was not a slave society?
 Of what significance was it that many
planters in the Old South resided on their
plantations?
 Kolchin seems to suggest that slaves in
the US did not resist as much as those
elsewhere. Does this accurately state his
argument?

Challenging Kolchin
OK, slave autonomy in US minimal
compared to other places.
 Is the implication that slavery in the US
therefore worse?

– Frazier, Tannenbaum, Elkins, Handlins, etc. –
all argued that slavery in US particularly harsh
b/c it was a “closed” system that shut down
prospects for cultural maintenance and
continuity
Challenging Kolchin
What are ways we can measure the
harshness of slavery?
 Opportunities for cultural persistence
 Communal autonomy
 Control exercised by planters
 Deadliness of slaves’ work regime

– How difficult was it to simply live?
Challenging Kolchin

US better in some respects
– More healthful climate, disease environment, and work regime
– No infusions of Africans = fewer conflicts between and among
those of African descent
– No sharp caste and class distinctions as in other places

The case of family life
– Self-sustaining creole pop. in US
– Permits the development of (somewhat) stable multigenerational family life
– Because the climate and work regime are not so harsh

Slavery in US actually better (in terms of living
conditions) than elsewhere
– Implications of this for resistance?
settler
hybrid
trading empire
exploitation
exploitation
true empire
true empire
exploitation
hybrid
trading empire
Quebec: trading empire
New England: settler
New Amsterdam: trading empire
Chesapeake: hybrid
Carolinas: hybrid/exploitation
Caribbean: exploitation
Mexico:
True empire