The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation by David Brion Davis Page B
Authors: David Brion Davis
Tags: United States, Social Science, History, Ethnic Studies, 19th century, Slavery, Social History, African American Studies
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diss., Duke University, 1986); Robert L. Paquette,
Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba
(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 15, 26, 36,42, 76–77, 123–24, 211; Alfred N. Hunt,
Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Douglas R. Egerton,
Gabriel’sRebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), ix, 45–48, 160–61, 168–72. For simplicity I use here the term “free blacks,” but there was often a significant division between free blacks like Toussaint Louverture and the lighter-skinned “free coloreds” or mulattoes.
2. Bryan Edwards,
The History Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies,
4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1806), IV, 68–80, 98. Edwards went to Saint-Domingue shortly after the slave insurrection of 1791 and later gathered much information from the British expeditionary force that made extensive use of black troops. By “Philanthropy” he means the antislavery movement.
3. James Madison to the Marquis de Lafayette, November 25, 1820, Gilder Lehrman Collection, New-York Historical Society.
4. William W. Freehling,
The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), Part III.
5. [Leonard Bacon],
Christian Spectator,
5 (Oct. 1, 1823), 544; [Bacon], “Report to the Committee appointed February 18, 1823, to inquire respecting the black population of the United States,” in
Memoirs of American Missionaries, Formerly Connected with the Society of Inquiry respecting Missions, in the Andover Theological Seminary
…(Boston, 1823), 300–301. For more on Bacon, see chapter 6 .
6. David Brian Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 303. As George M. Fredrickson has pointedout, with respect to race and racism, in a culture dedicated to the ideal ofequality, a particular group like blacks can be denied the prospect of equal status “only if they allegedly possess some extraordinary deficiency that makes them less than fully human.”
Racism: A Short History
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002), 12.
7. From 1780 to 1804, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, andNew Jersey enacted laws for thegradual emancipation of all slaves. Largely because there were so few slaves innorthern New England, Vermont was able to outlawslavery with a constitution of 1777; in Massachusetts and New Hampshire judicial decisions had a somewhat similar effect in the 1780s, although a few slaves remained in New Hampshire for many decades.
8. Despite the continuing fluctuations between “nature” and “nurture,” these hereditary and environmental versions of dehumanization would sometimes seem to merge.
9. [Theodore Dwight Weld],
American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses
(New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), 110.
10. Adrian Desmond and James Moore,
Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009), 182. Quoted from Darwin’s
Journal of Researches
(1845; repr., 1860).
11. Henry Highland Garnet,
A Memorial Discourse; by Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Washington City, D.C. on Sabbath, February 12
,
1865
, with an introduction by James McCune Smith, M.D. (Philadelphia, 1865), 69–74. I am grateful to Seth Moglen for calling this work to my attention.
It should be noted that chattel slavery has not
always
been the worst form of humanoppression, even though slaves have usually occupied the lowest rung of social hierarchies. In addition to genocidaldeath camps and twentieth-centurygulags and prison farms, there are such examples as the Chinese “coolies” shipped
Sugar Is Made with Blood: The Conspiracy of La Escalera and the Conflict between Empires over Slavery in Cuba
(Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1988), 15, 26, 36,42, 76–77, 123–24, 211; Alfred N. Hunt,
Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America: Slumbering Volcano in the Caribbean
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988); Douglas R. Egerton,
Gabriel’sRebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), ix, 45–48, 160–61, 168–72. For simplicity I use here the term “free blacks,” but there was often a significant division between free blacks like Toussaint Louverture and the lighter-skinned “free coloreds” or mulattoes.
2. Bryan Edwards,
The History Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies,
4 vols. (Philadelphia, 1806), IV, 68–80, 98. Edwards went to Saint-Domingue shortly after the slave insurrection of 1791 and later gathered much information from the British expeditionary force that made extensive use of black troops. By “Philanthropy” he means the antislavery movement.
3. James Madison to the Marquis de Lafayette, November 25, 1820, Gilder Lehrman Collection, New-York Historical Society.
4. William W. Freehling,
The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), Part III.
5. [Leonard Bacon],
Christian Spectator,
5 (Oct. 1, 1823), 544; [Bacon], “Report to the Committee appointed February 18, 1823, to inquire respecting the black population of the United States,” in
Memoirs of American Missionaries, Formerly Connected with the Society of Inquiry respecting Missions, in the Andover Theological Seminary
…(Boston, 1823), 300–301. For more on Bacon, see chapter 6 .
6. David Brian Davis,
The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 303. As George M. Fredrickson has pointedout, with respect to race and racism, in a culture dedicated to the ideal ofequality, a particular group like blacks can be denied the prospect of equal status “only if they allegedly possess some extraordinary deficiency that makes them less than fully human.”
Racism: A Short History
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002), 12.
7. From 1780 to 1804, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, andNew Jersey enacted laws for thegradual emancipation of all slaves. Largely because there were so few slaves innorthern New England, Vermont was able to outlawslavery with a constitution of 1777; in Massachusetts and New Hampshire judicial decisions had a somewhat similar effect in the 1780s, although a few slaves remained in New Hampshire for many decades.
8. Despite the continuing fluctuations between “nature” and “nurture,” these hereditary and environmental versions of dehumanization would sometimes seem to merge.
9. [Theodore Dwight Weld],
American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses
(New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1839), 110.
10. Adrian Desmond and James Moore,
Darwin’s Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin’s Views on Human Evolution
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009), 182. Quoted from Darwin’s
Journal of Researches
(1845; repr., 1860).
11. Henry Highland Garnet,
A Memorial Discourse; by Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Washington City, D.C. on Sabbath, February 12
,
1865
, with an introduction by James McCune Smith, M.D. (Philadelphia, 1865), 69–74. I am grateful to Seth Moglen for calling this work to my attention.
It should be noted that chattel slavery has not
always
been the worst form of humanoppression, even though slaves have usually occupied the lowest rung of social hierarchies. In addition to genocidaldeath camps and twentieth-centurygulags and prison farms, there are such examples as the Chinese “coolies” shipped
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