Category Archives: Slavery

Were You An Abolitionist?

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I am making my way through Andrew Delbanco’s short book, The Abolitionist Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2012), which features his essay of the same name as well as responses by John Stauffer, Manish Sinha, Darryl Pinckney, and Wilfred M. McClay.  The reading is difficult, especially the literary analysis of antebellum literature.  As a historical interpretation it is fraught with problems.  First, Delbanco never provides a satisfactory historical profile of the abolitionist community.  More importantly, he places too much weight on their role in causing the war.

Delbanco is at his best, however, when exploring how recent cultural, social, and political shifts have shaped our understanding of the abolitionists.  This particular paragraph caught my eye.

Would we have regarded the firing on Fort Sumter as the abolitionists did–as a welcome provocation to take up arms against an expansionist power?  Or would we have regarded it as a pretext for waging war, akin to that notorious event in every baby boomer’s memory, the Gulf of Tonkin incident?  If we could have known in advance the scale of the ensuing carnage, would we have sided with those who considered any price worth paying to bring an end to slavery?  Or would we have voted for patience, persuasion, diplomacy, perhaps economic sanctions–the alternatives to war that most liberal-minded people prefer today in the face of manifest evil in faraway lands? [p. 43]

 
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Support the Dred and Harriet Scott Statue

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A statue of Dred and Harriet Scott is scheduled to unveiled at the Old Courthouse in Downtown St. Louis on June 8, but organizers are still $140,000 shy of its fundraising goal.

“The memory of Dred Scott and the important shift he helped to bring about in American society is a story that deserves to be recognized and remembered for all future generations. We are appealing to individuals, corporations and foundations to help us get over the finish line prior to the June 8th unveiling on the grounds of the Old Courthouse in St. Louis.”–Lynne M. Jackson

 
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A 1950s View of the Southern Plantation System

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[Cross-Posted at the Atlantic]

The following documentary fits neatly into the culture of 1950s America. Southern plantations were depicted as scenes of peaceful coexistence between master and slaves before the Civil War and through the era of Jim Crow. According to this narrative, slave labor led naturally to sharecropping, and both arrangements provided the two parties with an equal benefit within an organic community. One can hear echoes of the Lost Cause view of the Civil War, which played down the evils of slavery and the coming of emancipation and freedom.

Today, if we visit a social gathering in the south, we’ll see some of these things. The gentle manners and courtesy. The separation of society into distinct groups. And the relationship of that society to the land, which supplies its wealth. These are some of the things the plantation system has contributed to southern life.

The nation’s collective memory of its Southern past, which included no hint of any racial or class tension, reinforced America’s self-proclaimed status as leader of the free world at the height of the Cold War. Within a few years, this view would be shattered by bus boycotts, Freedom Riders, and lunch-counter sit-ins. As a result, by the end of the 1960s, a new interpretation of the Antebellum South began to emerge, one that attempted to deal more honestly with some of the tougher questions related to slavery and race.

 
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Civil War “Hip-Hop” in the Classroom

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I think you are going to find this to be quite entertaining and perhaps even appropriate for some of your classrooms depending on how you choose to use it. Unfortunately, I was only able to embed a preview, but you can watch the full video here, which also includes the lyrics.

 
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