In a searing indictment of plantation life in the antebellum South,
noted historian Franklin (professor emeritus at Duke Univ.) and
Schweninger (History/Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro) use
primary documents such as court records, newspapers, and letters of
contemporaries, including slaves themselves, to show that slaves
often resisted their condition by means direct and indirect, and
frequently to the point of running away. Historians traditionally
have depicted antebellum plantation slaves as docile and resigned
to their fate. Indeed, early studies of American slavery, such as
Ulrich Phillips's Life and Labor in the Old South (1929),
romanticized plantation slavery and even portrayed slaves as
generally contented with their lot. While modern scholarship has
exposed the harsh aspects of plantation life, the image of the
slave as passive victim has survived. The reality was vastly
different, say the authors; quiet resistance and open rebellion
were common occurrences on the typical Southern plantation, and the
average plantation owner had several runaways every year. In a
meticulous survey of primary sources, the authors examine multiple
aspects of slave resistance, including passive resistance and
outright racial violence on the plantation; the motives of
runaways, which included, commonly, the desire to be reunited with
family members; and typical opportunities for running away, such as
the death of the master. Runaways faced tremendous obstacles, the
authors point out: they had to travel hundreds of miles to freedom
amid a well-organized system of slave catching and retrieval that
was so efficient and vicious that it even enslaved free blacks, and
runaways faced drastic penalties, including physical punishment and
even death, if caught. Most were caught, but thousands continued to
seek their freedom, and many made it, whether alone, through the
solicitude of free blacks or by the Underground Railroad of
clandestine assistance, to the promised land of the free states or
Canada. A well-crafted and carefully researched account that opens
a new window onto a dark and painful chapter in American history.
(Kirkus Reviews)
From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American
historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance
and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil
War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against
their masters and ran away from their plantations whenever they
could.
For generations, important aspects about slave life on the
plantations of the American South have remained shrouded.
Historians thought, for instance, that slaves were generally pliant
and resigned to their roles as human chattel, and that racial
violence on the plantation was an aberration. In this precedent
setting book, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger demonstrate
that, contrary to popular belief, significant numbers of slaves did
in fact frequently rebel against their masters and struggled to
attain their freedom. By surveying a wealth of documents, such as
planters' records, petitions to county courts and state
legislatures, and local newspapers, this book shows how slaves
resisted, when, where, and how they escaped, where they fled to,
how long they remained in hiding, and how they survived away from
the plantation. Of equal importance, it examines the reactions of
the white slaveholding class, revealing how they marshaled
considerable effort to prevent runaways, meted out severe
punishments, and established patrols to hunt down escaped slaves.
Reflecting a lifetime of thought by our leading authority in
African American history, this book provides the key to truly
understanding the relationship between slaveholders and the
runaways who challenged the system--illuminating as never before
the true nature of the South's "most peculiar institution."
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