Month: August 2016

Secession Era Editorials Project

The file for the Secession Era Editorials Project is now posted under “Assignments.” We will discuss it in class next week, but feel free to download the file and start working on it over the weekend. The assigned reading that matches with the assignment has been posted under “Course Readings.”

Spotlight On: Slaves as Commodities

I will periodically post “spotlights” on the website, where I hone in on a historian, a topic we’ve covered in class, or some other subject in more detail.

Several students today brought up the fact that Berlin’s Generations of Captivity could have addressed economics more directly (and more thoroughly). I have two resources I want to provide to address some of those questions. The first is a brief explanation of the “chattel principle,” which deals with the philosophical aspects of the slave trade and ownership of other human beings. The second is some information on the monetary values of enslaved people.

1. One of the cruelest aspects of slavery was the insistence that slaves were commodities, in what Walter Johnson has referred to as “the chattel principle”: the belief that a human being could, because of their legal identity, be evaluated according to the same terms as one would evaluate livestock.[1] Slaves had a simultaneously dual nature as human and as property. This duality opened up opportunities for slave agency and resistance (when owners were forced to recognize the humanity of bondspeople), but it also reinforced white authority by tying economic success and personal wealth to the ownership of human beings (demonstrating the property side of the equation). Slaves’ refusal to act as mere commodities–to assert their own will and test limits–illuminate the elements of negotiation at play. As Johnson has argued, “the contradiction was this: the abstract value that underwrote the southern economy could only be made material in human shape–frail, sentient, and resistant.”[2]

2. The question of slave prices is a complicated one; an enslaved person’s monetary worth was determined by his or her fitness for work, skill set, age, and sex, as well as fluctuations in the local and national economies.This website (by historians who are also trained in statistics), has a useful table at the very bottom that shows prices in what Berlin would call the plantation and revolutionary generations in the Lower South. Slave prices rose as the nineteenth century progressed, so a healthy man in his 20s, living in the 1850s, might be valued at as much as $1,000. This article is a little dated, and it focuses on the Deep South and not the Upper South, but Table 8 on p. 199 shows the prices in four different locations over several decades. If you want a sophisticated economic analysis, I highly recommend a short book chapter by Daina Ramey Berry that analyzes prices in one Georgia county–her work is really great for micro-level analysis.[3]

[1] Walter Johnson, Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Market (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 17, 19.

[2] Johnson, 29.

[3] Daina Ramey Berry, “‘We’m Fus’ Rate Bargain’: Value, Labor, and Price in a Georgia Slave Community,” in The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas, ed. Walter Johnson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 55-71. I can scan this for anyone who is interested.

 

Definition of Historiography

As a 4000-level course, we will spend some time this semester on understanding the historiography of the Civil War. If you are not familiar with this term (or you are, and you just need a refresher!), historiography is essentially the study of historical writing.  Instead of working with primary sources, historiography involves secondary sources only.  Dictionary.com gives two definitions, which when combined, are mostly useful: it defines historiography as “the body of literature dealing with historical matters; histories collectively; the body of techniques, theories, and principles of historical research and presentation; methods of historical scholarship.”  In short, it is the history of historical study and the important debates occurring in the field.  As one author put it, “when we read history, we are reading a particular historian’s encounter with the world.”[1]  Typical questions would include: how do historians’ interpretations of this issue differ, and why?  What are the current debates driving discussion in the field of Civil War studies?  How have our interpretations of the Civil War changed over time, and what factors were most relevant in shaping these revisions?  Those are just some examples.  So, if I use the term “historiography” or “historiographical” in class, now you know!

[1] Francis G. Couvares, et. al., Interpretations of American History: Patterns and Perspectives, vol. 2 (Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2009), 1.

Announcements for 8/23
  1. Here are a few resources debunking some myths about slavery, if you are curious.
    1. “Irish Slaves: The Convenient Myth” <–(you can follow Liam Hogan on Twitter, @Limerick1914)
    2. “Slavery Myths Debunked” 
  2. The first slave codes in Virginia were in the 1660s, for the most part. Here’s a link to South Carolina’s code of 1740, which was not their first slave code, but it is easily accessible online. Here is an article about Arkansas slave codes.
  3. The handout for today with advice about reading history books is now posted under “Class Handouts.” If you have questions about preparing for discussion on Thursday, or writing the book review, please let me know.
  4. If you are interested in the history of slavery, consider taking HIST3353: African American History to 1868, which will probably be offered again next year.

Civil War Tweets

Are there any Twitter users out there?  If so, here’s a list of some of the Civil War-related accounts I find useful. This list is absolutely not comprehensive, so see my Twitter profile (@hist_enthusiast) and the lists there, especially the one titled “Civil War Resources” and the one titled “Historians” (which are not perfect, but are more comprehensive).  Even if you never post about yourself, you can get a Twitter account just to follow your friends, organizations, news sources, etc.  Here’s an example of a Twitter page by a historical society, focusing on John Quincy Adams.

  • Abraham Lincoln — @Abe_Lincoln
  • Lincoln Tweets — @Lincoln_Tweets
  • The Civil War Monitor — @CivilWarMonitor
  • Disunion — @NYTcivilwar
  • Civil War Day by Day — @CWDaybyDay
  • Harry Smeltzer, author of Bull Runnings blog — @bullrunnings
  • Museum of the Confederacy — @moc1896
  • Mark Grimsley, author of The Hard Hand of War — @MarkGrimsley
  • Kevin Levin, author of War as Murder — @KevinLevin
  • Carole Emberton, author of Beyond Redemption — @CaroleEmberton
  • Seth Rockman, author of Scraping By — @sethrockman
  • Civil War Studies — @SmithsonianCW
  • Damian Shiels, author of The Irish in the American Civil War — @irishacw
  • Journal of the Civil War Era — @JCWE1
  • Ann Sarah Rubin, author of Through the Heart of Dixie — @AnneSarahRubin
  • Civil War St. Louis — @CivilWarMO
  • Society of Civil War Historians — @SCWHistorians
  • Civil War Book Review — @CWBookReview
  • American Civil War Center (Richmond, VA) — @CivilWarCenter
  • Ann Tracy Mueller — @LincolnBuff2
  • The Civil War Augmented Reality Project — @ACWAR_Project
  • Jonathan R. Allen — @CivilWarHistory
  • Civil War Campaigner — @CivilWarMag
  • Civil War Collect — @CivilWarCollect
  • Mr. Sardonicus — @CivilWarGuy
  • Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College — @CWI_GC
  • Civil War History (journal) — @CWHJournal
  • Megan Kate Nelson, author of Ruin Nation — @megankatenelson
  • Civil War News 150 — @CivilWarNews150
  • Civil War Photos — @CivilWarPhotos
  • Discovering the Civil War — @discovercivwar
  • Rachel Shelden, author of Washington Brotherhood — @rachelshelden