Dare to Know

“Dare to Know”

            The medieval man considered religion above all else, with life composed and ordered by God. His duty was to accept the Word, live accordingly, and reach salvation. As the seventeenth century matured, man’s ideas and theories began to mature and change. Certain men, “philosophes,” began to confront the medieval man’s way of thinking. Instead of relying on societal tradition, philosophes such as Jean-Jacques Rosseau, Denis Diderot, and Immanuel Kant challenged their contemporaries to use reason in their individual lives and religion to go beyond what had normally been accepted as fact. This Age of Enlightenment lasted throughout the eighteenth-century, but the facts of and the debate about this monumental shift in public thought continues to be studied today. 

Many modern historians claim different interpretations of the Enlightenment, its actors, and its components. Writing from the perspective of the twentieth-century, Carl L. Becker ably describes the intellectual scene leading up to the Enlightenment in his book, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers. “Intelligence was essential, since God had endowed men with it. But the function of intelligence was strictly limited.” Man did not question his origin or what would happen upon his death. Intelligence was needed to demonstrate the truth of revealed knowledge.[1]

Becker importantly asserts that the philosophes of the Enlightenment relied upon Christian assumptions. “The philosophes were nearer the Middle Ages, less emancipated from the preconceptions of medieval Christian thought, than they quite realized or we have commonly supposed.”[2] Becker also goes on to argue that before the seventeenth century, there existed a rational climate of opinion, but the Age of Enlightenment brought with it a factual climate of opinion. Becker’s title points to two things: the medieval man’s engrained notions of Heaven and the salvation needed to get there, and eighteenth-century thought patterns that helped to enlighten Europeans, who would reconstruct a Heavenly City of different materials.

Paul Hazard, in his The European Mind, builds upon Becker to provide a brief social and cultural historical foundation of Europe leading up to the Enlightenment. This generally influential history looks into the rise of the modern European mind, as the title points to. Detailing the past and providing for the future, Hazard describes the ways in which new thoughts on science, art, and philosophy began to undermine the classical world. Tradition gave way to reason.  

Beginning with travel and travel literature, Hazard contends that “minds and consciences were deeply stirred by” the startling inflow of new ideas as the Enlightenment dawned.[3] Next, “the Moderns” arrived on the scene and with archeological backing changed cultural awareness and opened up religion. Hazard concludes with England assuming the lead in Enlightenment from the French.

Peter Gay, describes what he calls “modern paganism” in his first volume on the Enlightenment, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation. Gay’s paganism is not synonymous with the standard definition of pagan: heathen, infidel, and idolater. He calls paganism instead, “the affinity of the Enlightenment to classical thought.”[4] Gay describes seventeenth-century Europe as living in an enlightened atmosphere and citizens as half-prepared to listen. His enlightenment is a cultural style and an invasion of theology by rationalism. He charges that religion was on the defensive throughout the Age of Enlightenment, due in part to the decay of clerical morale, the estrangement of tradition, and the widespread loss of religious fervor. Gay takes a narrower stance on the time frame of the Enlightenment by including only the years 1689-1789. This limited stance leaves out philosophers such as Rene Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, while including those such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu, Denis Diderot, David Hume, Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon.

As a modern-day historian, Jonathan Israel offers a fresh perspective on the Enlightenment in Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity. He argues that society can only remain stable while details of that particular society direct enough societal popularity and acceptance to maintain a majority. What Israel is alluding to in his thesis, is the breakdown of tradition leading up to the Age of Enlightenment. He points to an erosion of “trust in and acceptance of social hierarchy and kings, bishops, and aristocracy” that began to invade general thought. Following this erosion of tradition, the advent of republican and democratic political ideologies rose to prominence.[5]

Along the same lines of Peter Gay, Israel defends a single century as the time-frame of the Enlightenment. “In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as earlier, long-accepted and deep-rooted criteria legal, dynastic, and theological fixed the measure of just and unjust, legitimate and illegitimate, and of what reforms could rightfully be implemented.” Israel claims that this means that no real revolution could have taken place during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.[6] One glaring difference with Gay is Israel’s claim that there were two enlightenments and not one as Gay asserts. Israel breaks Enlightenment down into a radical enlightenment and the more popular, conservative or moderate mainstream enlightenment.

            Immanuel Kant wrote his piece, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” as the Age of Enlightenment was coming to an end. He offers a mature, developed, and contemporary view about what some enlighteners understood about what they were doing and what they had accomplished. Kant begins with the immaturity and laziness of man. In words that ring true even today, Kant describes man’s reluctance to do for himself what he can pay for others to do. In democratic language, Kant argues that in order for society to be enlightened, it only needs freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters. He underscores this freedom with the assertion that affairs which would affect the interests of all need a certain mechanism to control misuse. Kant describes the freedom of society, beginning with officials of the law, citizens, scholars, and clerics.

            Kant’s awareness of Enlightenment is striking in his statement, “If it is now asked whether we at present live in an enlightened age, the answer is: No, but we do live in an age of enlightenment.”[7] Kant realized that Enlightenment was more than a passing fad or a generational trend. He was essentially giving Enlightenment freedom to continue. Kant also argued for a controlled degree of civil freedom so that intellectual freedom would be free to expand to its fullest extent.

            Enabled by the Scientific Revolution, Enlightenment became the near exact opposite of the Middle Ages. Enlightenment took many by surprise as the Middle Ages were marked by unwavering religious devotion. This revolutionary time period in European history cleared the path for individualistic thought and brought an increase in self-awareness.

1.     Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (1932), pp. 1-31.

2.     Paul Hazard, The European Mind [1680-1715] (orig. 1935), pp. xv-xx, 3-79.

3.     Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, vol. 1, The Rise of Modern Paganism (1996), pp. 3-27, 322-57.

4.     Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of modernity 1650-1750 (2001), pp. 3-22.

5.     Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (1784).

---

[1] Becker, page 9.

[2] Becker, page 29.

[3] Hazard, page 9.

[4] Gay, page 9.

[5] Israel, pages 9-10.

[6] Israel, page 4.

[7] Kant. 

Book Review: A Stone of Hope

David L. Chappell. A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow

          In A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, David L. Chappell sheds new light on the components of the civil rights movement, concretely adding prophetic religion to the mix of ingredients of those tumultuous times from 1940s-1960s. Chappell’s thesis states “that faith drove black southern protesters to their extraordinary victories in the mid-1960s, grew out of a realistic understanding of the typically dim prospects for social justice in the world.” The protester’s prophetic content of their speeches, diaries, and other paraphernalia related to the civil rights movement, illuminates this great divide. With an eye for detail, Chappell points to the factors of religion that have been overlooked by other historians as our country ended Jim Crow and segregation.

          One of Chappell’s interesting beliefs was that the civil rights movement and the end of Jim Crow and segregation took place at a weak point in white solidarity. He claims that Southern blacks did not have the same number of supporters as segregationists, but “that white racism could not withstand the strength of the cultural resources that some black protesters brought to bear on the struggle.” In short, antiracists and black protesters had a greater understanding of human nature that helps explain their defeat of segregationists.

          To acknowledge all of the leading protesters and their theories on racism, liberalism, and the like would take more space than Chappell could probably afford. Instead, he highlights several of the most well-known and “ordinary” leaders of the civil rights movement, and details their theories and philosophies. Of the more interesting to read about were Bob Moses with his prophetic brand of skepticism about human progress, the outspoken preacher Fannie Lou Hamer who felt that the civil rights battle was an inherently spiritual struggle for black Americans and held on to the adage that the most segregated hour in America was ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, and Fred Shuttlesworth, a charismatic leader who believed that the movement was “a religious crusade, a fight between light and darkness, right and wrong, good and evil, fair play and tyranny.” Bringing to life these types of characters in such a defining moment of American history, and not just relying on the most well-known such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., pulls into focus the point that the civil rights movement was a movement led by ordinary people faced with extraordinary racial and religious obstacles.

          Bringing religion into the picture, Chappell compares the civil rights movement to a historic revival. The civil rights movement “shifted the focus of church doctrine away from eternal salvation and toward attaining justice in this life.” The enthusiasm of the movement moved into the streets, and if it did not directly influence every listener, Chappell claims that the message reached them nonetheless, whether or not they accepted. The church was the perfect breeding ground for the movement to take place. Weekly meetings, racially divided, large groups, prophetic messages, nowhere else would large numbers of Southern blacks be gathered together and easier to organize than the church house.

          Of books related to the civil rights movement, most overwhelmingly center on desegregation and it’s defendants. Chappell does something interesting by highlighting segregationists and their thinking, the evil in a good versus evil battle. Part of his claim is that the white South did not put up much of a fight. He spends an entire chapter trying to explain this seemingly incomprehensible phenomenon. Fear was a driving force behind white southerner’s relationships with each other. The minds of the segregationist faction feared what the “white bigots and demagogues” would do and react. According to Chappell, this division in effect, lost the segregationist battle of the civil rights movement. “Fortunately for the black protesters, they were not united.”

          Chappell deserves a ton of credit for completing A Stone of Hope, especially given the subject matter: prophetic religion. In his conclusion, Chappell admits, “First approaching this story as an atheist, I was surprised and skeptical to hear so many of my subjects – whom I admired from afar – expressing what Bayard Rustin called “fundamentalist” views.” Chappell goes on to describe his reluctance to believe his subject’s testimony of “miracles” had it not been for their frequency and key to the beliefs of his subject’s choices. In a catch-22 situation, perhaps only an atheist could tell this story with an objective mind, but perhaps a religious mind could have given more clarity to certain aspects.

          Clearly a well-researched book, A Stone of Hope is nevertheless not an easily understandable book by someone who is not somewhat familiar or the least bit interested in the civil rights movement of the twentieth century. Chappell obviously has a great handle on the material but seems to have trouble getting that material to the reader in a fashion that is interesting and relatable. It is more a book of general theories than facts, which is more difficult to understand.

As compared to W. J. Cash’s book, The Mind of the South, A Stone of Hope picks up Cash’s story long after The Mind of the South was published. Cash lays a foundation of the general racial attitudes of the South before the civil rights movement gained steam. Cash’s generalizations about African-Americans are just as offensive in the twenty-first century as they would have been in the middle of the twentieth when black protesters marched on Birmingham. Cash would have scarcely believed the desegregated America that emerged as a result of the civil rights movement. Chappell clarifies this movement and gives black Americans a legacy to be proud of. He very clearly shows that the protesters of the civil rights movement were not deaf and dumb to their plight. Their hope of equality set them apart from Cash’s typical African-American.

          

Book Review: American Slavery, American Freedom

Morgan, Edmund S. American Slavery, American Freedom. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1975.

          One of the great questions Americans could ask of history is: How could a nation be founded upon freedom and liberty but enslave twenty percent of its citizens? Edmund S. Morgan attempts to answer this question in American Slavery, American Freedom. This is a magnificently researched book that sets out to cut to the root of this great topic, slavery and freedom. His thesis, how freedom came to be supported by slavery, a relationship of exact opposites, is one that many Americans continue to have trouble accepting. Morgan asserts that the answers to this hypocritical situation lie in Virginia since that state was the most influential and most populated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

          To begin, Morgan addresses the hypocrisy of our Founding Father’s separation from England because of tax enslavement. While white Virginians attempted to wrest control of the fledgling American government from England, those same wealthy plantation owners had no problems enslaving an entire race of people. There may be no exact answer, but Morgan places himself and Virginia in the best position to account for the hypocrisy. Morgan centers his research on Virginia and his reasons are clear and important: “Virginia was the largest of the new United States, in territory, in population, in influence – and in slaveholding.” Tobacco, the crop that Morgan claims helped buy American independence, was grown in great quantities in Virginia by Virginian slaves. Plus, many of the Founding Fathers were from Virginia. Many of our country’s great documents were written by Virginians. Morgan’s point is that Virginia was the center of early American economics and politics. Without Virginia, it would be hard to answer the paradoxical question of the simultaneous growth of slavery and freedom. American Slavery, American Freedom is also the story of Virginian Slavery, Virginian Freedom.

Detouring slightly from his proclaimed thesis, Morgan has a fascinating chapter on the lost colony of Roanoke Island. What happened to the colonists on Roanoke Island remains a great mystery in the history of the colonization of the New World. While Morgan has no new theories as to where the colonists disappeared to, his storytelling and research is hard to discredit. To be sure, Morgan has an interesting topic to being with, but “The Lost Colony” is made all the more better by his writing and attention to detail.

The tale of slavery and freedom cannot be told without mentioning tobacco. Morgan ably describes how the weed saved the new colony of Virginia and gave rise to servitude and eventually led to racial slavery. The first colonists who planted tobacco exported their crop to England. As this practice became more and more profitable, the crop became the only thing Virginians wanted to plant. Even after the English government tried to control and limit the planting of tobacco to raise the price, wealthy Virginians continued to export the plant. However, these Virginians could not farm tobacco alone. Labor was required.

Initially, Morgan attests that forms of indentured servitude furnished the necessary labor to farm tobacco. Englishmen were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean and would enter into servitude for a period of time as payment for their passage to the New World. Morgan goes into great detail chronicling the ins and outs of this early servitude, including the trade-off of transportation versus the amount of time to be served, punishments allocated to servants, and the high mortality rate of those servants. This information is just fascinating and Morgan’s dedication to the subject is appreciated.  

Morgan points out that over time the impressed servitude of English servants gave way to outright racial slavery. Although it is hard to pinpoint a moment in time that racial slavery took hold, Morgan seems certain that the switch happened on Virginian tobacco plantations. Admittedly, Morgan has a little trouble stating exactly why Virginians began enslaving imported African slaves and why this practice accelerated. He points out that it made better economic sense to buy servants rather than slaves. Granted, slave owners would own slaves for a lifetime, that lifetime would be statistically short in early Virginian society. On the other hand, a servant would serve a master for a period of years and then be freed. The plantation owners were faced with paying a high price for a slave who probably would not live for an extended amount of time, or pay a price for a servant during their peak working years.

Finally making his way to his thesis, Morgan begins to specifically address the relationship between slavery and freedom. For the reasons behind the seemingly simultaneous growth of slavery and freedom, he points to a slave force who had become isolated by race and racism, a large group of wealthy, politically minded planters who were extremely loyal to Virginia, and an even larger group of poorer farmers who had become convinced that their interests would be best served by those wealthy plantation barons. Plantations needed labor to grow their tobacco and other crops. African-American slaves proved to be the solution to the labor question. The wealthy Virginians wanted to control the economics of Virginian society. Poor whites realized that it would be better to have relative liberty and go along with the wealthy plantation owners than to be the blood, sweat, and tears behind the wealthy plantation labor. These three components, mixed with the rise of republican ideas, allowed American slavery and American freedom to prosper side by side.

One of W.J. Cash’s main theories was the continuity of American history. He claimed that there were no definite breaks in American history. Morgan’s impeccably research American Slavery, American Freedom pinpoints the changes in how wealthy Virginians obtained their labor. What began as impressed servitude of Englishmen developed into full-blown racial slavery in about one hundred years. If one compares the two forms of servitude at their respective heights, the differences are blatant. It could be argued that as racial slavery developed from English servitude, the differences were a little more subtle, however, given the standpoint of time, there is no continuity of the history of American enslavement practices.

American Slavery, American Freedom is more valuable for the minutely researched information on early Virginian society than for the conclusions drawn. Morgan provides a comprehensive look at the driving forces of Virginian economics and society. Students of Southern history or Virginian history should make time for this informative book. 

Book Review: The Strange Career of Jim Crow

Woodward, C. Vann. The Strange Career of Jim Crow. A Commemorative Edition with a new afterward by William S. McFeely. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

From the distance of sixty years since its original publication, The Strange Career of Jim Crow may not ignite reader’s passions as it did on the eve of the Civil Rights Movement of the nineteen fifties. But with the hindsight that history offers, The Strange Career of Jim Crow continues to be, as Martin Luther King, Jr. described, “The Historical Bible of the Civil Rights Movement.” C. Vann Woodward forever solidified his importance in Southern History with his groundbreaking essays on Reconstruction, race, and the Jim Crow South.

History is not always transparent or easy to interpret. The decades following the Civil War are sometimes characterized as harmonious and without conflict. Woodward turned that perspective on its head with The Strange Career of Jim Crow. His thesis runs that Jim Crow laws and segregation did not occur until after the Civil War, with Reconstruction well on its way. Instead, he argues that white racial superiority manifested itself at the very beginning of the twentieth century in the form of Jim Crow laws and segregation. Jim Crow was not an inevitable outcome of the Civil War or Reconstruction. Those laws were a choice made by white Americans, Northern and Southern.

The majority of the first part of The Strange Career of Jim Crow is a much-needed history lesson on racial circumstances from the Civil War onward. Woodward asserts that segregation stemmed from slavery. Although most slaves worked in the presence of their slave owners, a large amount other daily activities took place away from the whites. Slave’s sleeping, bathing, eating, and other daily activities took place away from the whites whom they served. Despite this seclusion, there was little other segregation. Black slaves, especially house servants, were constantly in the presence of whites. Woodward also mentions the fact of slave health in relation to the nearness of whites. It was in the best interest of the slave owner to maintain their slave’s health. Slave owners would have tended to wounds and otherwise been in close proximity with their property for mere financial reasons.

In what is considered a historical revelation, Woodward suggests that Jim Crow and segregation weren’t inevitable aftershocks of the Civil War or Reconstruction, but were instead part of a bigger political picture. The South did not go from Civil War to racial segregation over night. While it took nearly one hundred years for blacks to be recognized as full citizens, many held prominent positions in society. Woodward lists name after name and number after number of black men to hold respected societal positions up to the turn of the century, including members of state senates and postmasters. Next, the author points to the relationships blacks and whites held in day-to-day life. In certain areas, blacks and whites shared train rides. They shared restaurants. They shared barbers. They shared churches and religion. Woodward is quick to point out that Jim Crow laws regarding transportation began in the North, not in the South where they would eventually flourish. However, far from blaming the North for Jim Crow laws, Woodward goes on to explain how the laws and segregation permeated the South. He points to a fateful mix of Southern politics, white supremacy and economics as the factors that ultimately led to the South’s divided public.

Despite the doom and gloom the South created for itself, Woodward also hopefully maintained that if Jim Crow and segregation could come to be accepted, then desegregation and the Civil Rights movement could change what had previously been wrought. It is this hopeful endearment that makes The Strange Career of Jim Crow such a timeless piece. In the face of all of the hate, all of the negativity, C. Vann Woodward is able to live during these tumultuous times and still have hope for a better South.

The distance between W. J. Cash and C. Vann Woodward as writers rings loud and clear (not to be confused with Cash’s “gallop of Jeb Stuart’s cavalrymen”). Cash writes The Mind of the South as a great Southern fiction novel, while Woodward in The Strange Career of Jim Crow is clearly an academic writing for the general public. When comparing the two books, it is again evident how Cash pays little to no attention to the blacks. On the other hand, Woodward focuses on the plight of the black man and the challenges he faced.

Most significantly, Cash’s broad thesis surrounds his theory of continuity: a continual link between the Old South and the New South. Woodward begins The Strange Career of Jim Crow by comparing American history to that of a stream flowing through the centuries. The stream flowed down from the seventeenth century, reaching a level plain in the eighteenth century. Woodward points out that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Southern history took a different path, plunging over falls or swirling through rapids. “The breaks in the course of Southern history go by the names of slavery and secession, independence and defeat, emancipation and reconstruction, redemption and reunion.” Without question Southern history took a different course, not only prior to the Civil War, but in the years known as Reconstruction. Clearly, Cash saw a continuity where Woodward did not.

And finally, Cash is never able to cut to the heart of the black experience as Woodward does. Mostly given to criticizing the black man for his laziness, Cash rarely mentions blacks and never does he champion their burgeoning civil rights cause. However, Woodward is able to see the black man’s point of view in regard to slavery, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The Strange Career of Jim Crow is itself an advocate for Civil Rights. Perhaps, given the chance of a longer life, W. J. Cash could have had a chance to remedy some of his interpretations of history.

The Strange Career of Jim Crow details the life of one of America’s biggest embarrassment in terms of legislation. Woodward has completely mastered the pen and builds steam as the Civil Rights Movements crests. Generations of Americans have turned to The Strange Career of Jim Crow to learn about our shared history. This relatively short book still has much to teach Americans and will continue to teach even over the distance of time. 

Book Review: The Mind of the South by W. J. Cash

Cash, W. J. The Mind of the South. With a new introduction by Bertram Wyatt-Brown.          New York: Vintage Books, 1991.

The year 1941 saw a landmark book published, The Mind of the South, by W. J. Cash. Cash determined to delve into the true mindset of the South. His thesis contends that the South was divided into three minds, or “frontiers:” pre-Civil War, where the white planter class dominated all aspects of society, with little regard to Native Americans, African-Americans, or women; the Reconstruction era, where African-Americans were still not really free and elite whites continued to dominate society; and the beginning of the twentieth century where the old social order of the South charged on, with Confederate soldiers and elite whites assuming the lead roles in all parts of society, thus laying the groundwork for the Civil Rights movement. This is a shocking and almost comical book for modern readers, but remains a landmark book in early-twentieth century Southern scholarship.

From his first few lines, Cash assumes his readers are just like him: white, male, and above all else, Southern. In the introduction by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Cash’s writing is compared to a country attorney addressing a jury of other like-minded Southern white men. The Mind of the South is a first-rate example of traditionalist historical writing. The only point-of-view defended is that of the elite Southern white man. Women are ignored except to criticize their behaviors. African-Americans are mentioned, but just as members of the lowest social order throughout the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the early twentieth century. True to the traditionalist stand-point, the Southern white man is glorified and exemplified. Given today’s distance from the time of his writing and the progression of Southern historiography, these points are easy to observe. Thankfully, we do not have to rely on Cash’s work as the final say as the true “Mind of the South.”

          Of his three frontiers, the first section of Cash’s Mind of the South, the pre-Civil War frontier, is most interesting to read. Much time is spent defending the white planter class against a descent from English aristocracy. Cash claims that most nineteenth century planters had instead started as poor whites who were somehow able to tame the wilderness and rise to prominence in early American history (pg. 7). When not defending elite whites, Cash can be counted on to excoriate poor whites. His categorizations are not only wrong, but offensive. Not every poor white man would do nothing but sit under a shade tree getting drunk (pg. 24). He considers the poor whites to be less cunning and less lucky than their counterparts. Cash seems to create a separate species when he writes about poor whites.  

          Another important aspect of the mind of Cash’s South, is the paternalism he describes elite whites as having over the poor whites. To begin, Cash’s elite Southern white man is distantly related to everyone in a thirty mile radius (pg. 26). This situational-connectedness allowed the elite man to socially preside over the poor white man. With Southern romanticism, Cash asserts that the elite white man would tend to and care for the poor white man in times of extreme need. Planting advice was given as needed to the poor man, resources were shared; a weird paternalism existed. Cash also touches on the inevitable haughtiness that would come from the elite whites. If the poor whites received scorn from the elite planter class of white men, the scorn was unnoticeable (pg. 41). Cash basically defends Cotton Snobs for their snobbery. Cash’s interpretation of this time period is reminiscent of the Margaret Mitchell’s historical novel, Gone With the Wind.

          In his second section, Cash addresses the Civil War and Reconstruction-eras as a mindset of the South. No less shocking in his generalizations and stereotypes, Cash charges on with his ideals. The Old South is depicted as a society overwhelmed by the aspect of defeat, shame, and guilt. Southerners were no longer in control of their government, and in their secret heart, Cash asserts that guilt was expressed over slavery (pg. 61).

Additionally, as a Southerner himself, Cash defends the “Lost Cause” mindset. African-Americans are depicted as pleasure-seeking rapers of white women. (What about the rape of black women?) Cash admits that the initial emergence of white violence towards former slaves was because of the defense of the white woman and the ease of which blacks were the scapegoat (pg. 117). 

          Another interesting aspect Cash uses to defend the “Lost Cause” mindset of the South, is his claim that the planter class died out and gave way to a gentlemen’s class, mostly made up of former Confederate soldiers (pg. 121). It is true that Confederate soldiers were revered in the South during the Reconstruction years and even afterward, most Confederate soldiers were themselves poor farmers, hardly wealthy landowners on the whole.

          Finally, Cash’s third frontier is what he claims to be the quiet years as the twentieth century dawned. Cash contends that the poor white farmers of the nineteenth century remained at the bottom of the social order as the lowly factory workers. The wealthy planter class morphed into the factory owners. Instead of large plantations, the elite white men were building columned homes, buying large cars, and their wives were joining country clubs, the D.A.R. and the U.D.C (pg. 239-240). Blacks remained at the very bottom of the social strata much as they had before, during, and after the Civil War.

It takes little effort to discover the W.J. Cash committed suicide shortly after publication of The Mind of the South. This fact begs the question: What part does his mental illness and physical disabilities play into his generalizations, stereotypes, and prejudices in his mind of the south? Cash was recorded as experiencing manic episodes, melancholia, and alcoholism (xxviii). Had he lived longer after the publication of The Mind of the South, Cash could have had time to heavily revise some of his key points.

Lucky for Cash, he is a good writer. When not being overly-romantic, his words are beautiful. However, this cannot take away from the fact that over one hundred year’s time has gone by and almost all of his conclusions have proven to be false. Perhaps Wyatt-Brown said it best of The Mind of the South: “It has its own special voice through which it articulates the author’s singular perception of the South.” (vii) Singular and one-dimensional, indeed.

History 5374 - Seminar in the History of the American South

1. Book Review: The Mind of the South, by W. J. Cash

2. Book Review: James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery, by Drew Gilpin Faust

3. Book Review: A Stone of Hope Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow, by David L. Chappell

4. Book Review: The Strange Career of Jim Crow, by C. Vann Woodward

5. Book Review: American Slavery, American Freedom, by Edmund S. Morgan

Talitha Cumi Bonner Cox

birth: February 20, 1894
location: Navarro County, Texas
death: January 28, 1978
location: Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas

father: John Ishom Bonner
mother: Martha Britton

spouse: James E. Cox

1910 census

marriage to James E. Cox - 1913

1920 census

1930 census

1940 census

death

burial

children with James E. Cox:

Emmie Mae Cox - 1914
Violet Lorene Cox - 1915
Ola Jewel Cox - 1917
Boy Cox - 1920
Lloyd H Cox - 1922
Robert Lee Cox - 1923

Cumi Cox - 1940 census

1940 census

location: Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas

date: April 24, 1940

Cumi Cox  head  female  white  white  47  widowed  Texas  farmer

Emmie Cox  daughter  female  white  25  single  Texas  laundress

Jewel Cox  daughter  female  white  23  single  Texas  laundress

Robert Lee Cox  son  male  white  17  single  Texas

Jimmie Cox  daughter  female  white  11  single  Texas

Miller Chandler  son-in-law  female  white  24  married  Texas

Violet Chandler  daughter  female  white  24  married  Texas

Elizabeth Cox  sister-in-law  female  white  56  single  Texas 

"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K4SN-VFW : accessed 15 May 2015), Emmie Cox in household of Cumi Cox, Ward 2, Corsicana, Justice Precinct 1, Navarro, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 175-3, sheet 25A, family 555, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 4112.

Cumi Cox - 1930 census

1930 census

location: Navarro County, Texas

date: April 25, 1930

Cumi Cox  head  female  white  37  widowed  Texas  farmer

Emmie Cox  daughter  female  white  17  single  Texas

VIolet Cox  daughter  female  white  14  single  Texas

Jewell Cox  daughter  female  white 12  single  Texas

R L Cox  son  male  white  6  single  Texas

Jimmie M Cox  daughter  female  white  1 11/12  single  Texas

Lizzie Cox  sister  female  white  46  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:HFR9-42M : accessed 15 May 2015), Emmie Cox in household of Cumi Cox, Precinct 1, Navarro, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0011, sheet 13A, family 283, line 14, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 2379; FHL microfilm 2,342,113.

Jim Cox - 1920 census

1920 census
location: Navarro County, Texas
date: January 6, 1920

Jim E Cox  head  male  white  26  married  Texas  farmer
Cumi T Cox  wife  female  white  25  married  Texas
Emmie Mae Cox  daughter  female  white  5  single  Texas
Violet L Cox  daughter  female  white  4 3/12  single  Texas
Ola J Cox  daughter  female  white  2 4/12  single  Texas
Lonie N Cox  mother  female  white  63  widowed  Texas
Lizzie M Cox  sister  female  white  35  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1920," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MH13-FY8 : accessed 15 May 2015), Cumi T Cox in household of Jin E Cox, Justice Precinct 1, Navarro, Texas, United States; citing sheet 2A, family 40, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,821,836.

Talitha Cumi Bonner and Jim Cox - marriage

"Texas, County Marriage Records, 1837-1977," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV1C-MNN3 : accessed 15 May 2015), Jim Cox and Cumi Bonner, 13 Jul 1913, Marriage; citing Navarro, Texas, United States, Citing county clerk offices, Texas.

Talitha Cumi Bonner Cox - death

"Texas, Deaths, 1977-1986," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KH3Z-B7K : accessed 15 May 2015), Talitha Cumi Cox, 28 Jan 1978; citing Corsicana, Navarro, Texas, United States, 12856, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin; .

Annie Ruth Colley

birth: 1911

location: Texas

death: 1978

location:

father: James Jonathan Colley

mother: Rosa Adrian

spouse: Charles Archie Thompson

spouse: Robert Clarence West

spouse: Johnny L Fletcher

1920 census

1930 census

marriage to Robert Clarence West

1940 census

marriage to Johnny L Fletcher

burial

children with Charles Archie Thompson: 

Dorothy Nell Thompson - 1927

Jimmie Rose Thompson - 1928

Annie Ruth Colley Thompson marriage to Robert Clarence West

location: Van Zandt County, Texas

date: October 11, 1935

"Texas, County Marriage Records, 1837-1977," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV1H-P5FL : accessed 12 May 2015), R C West and Ruth Thompson, 11 Oct 1935, Marriage; citing Van Zandt, Texas, United States, Citing county clerk offices, Texas.

James J Colley - 1920 census

1920 census

location: Ben Wheeler, Van Zandt County, Texas

date: January 20, 1920

J J Corley  head  male  white  41  married  Mississippi  farmer

Rosie Corley  wife  female  white  38  married  Texas

Ruth Corley  daughter  female  white  8  single  Texas

Jim V Corley  son  male  white  4 8/12  single  Texas
Sylvan Philen  stepson  male  white  22  single  Texas  farmer

"United States Census, 1920," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MC9L-D1F : accessed 12 May 2015), J J Corley, Justice Precinct 7, Van Zandt, Texas, United States; citing sheet 10A, family 184, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,821,854.

Charles Archie Thompson - 1930 census

1930 census
location: Ben Wheeler, Van Zandt County, Texas
date: April 15, 1930

Charles A Thompson  head  male  white  26  married  Texas  farmer
Annie R Thompson  wife  female  white  19  married  Texas
Dorthy N Thompson  daughter  female  white  3 6/12  single  Texas
Jimmie R Thompson  daughter  female  white  2 2/12  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:H2JN-3W2 : accessed 12 May 2015), Annie R Thompson in household of Charles A Thompson, Precinct 7, Van Zandt, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0025, sheet 9A, family 176, line 28, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 2405; FHL microfilm 2,342,139.

Annie Ruth Colley and Johnny L Fletcher marriage

location: Van Zandt County, Texas
date: June 27, 1968

"Texas, Marriages, 1966-2010," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VT5Q-54M : accessed 12 May 2015), Johnny Loranzer Fletcher and Annie Ruth Colley, 27 Jun 1968; citing Van Zandt, Texas, United States, certificate number 061762, Vital Statistics Unit, Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin.

Robert Clarence West - 1940 census

1940 census

location: Van Zandt County, Texas

date: May 1, 1940

R C West  head  male  white  42  married  Texas  farmer

Ruth West  wife  female  white  29  married  Texas

Leland West  son  male  white  19  single  Texas

Dorthy Thompson  stepdaughter  female  white  13  single  Texas

Jimmie Thompson  stepdaughter  female  white  12  single  Texas

"United States Census, 1940," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K4Q7-FGC : accessed 12 May 2015), R C West, Justice Precinct 7, Van Zandt, Texas, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 234-24, sheet 4A, family 64, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 4155.

John Adams Research Paper

“Facts are stubborn things.” 

When America’s Founding Fathers are thought of, many people automatically think of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Hancock. While they were great men with lasting contributions to our country, John Adams is sometimes overlooked in favor of the more famous Founding Fathers. It is important that today’s Americans remember Adams not only for his participation in the founding of our country, but also for his legacy in the American legal system. Adams’ virtuoso defense of the British soldiers charged with murder in what later became known as the Boston Massacre remains one of America’s supreme legal performances in history. The Boston Massacre trials launched Adams into Early National American politics, and laid a foundation for his belief in democratic government and liberty. This essay will briefly examine the events leading up to the Boston Massacre, the trial of British Captain Thomas Preston, and the trial of the British soldiers, all with Adams serving as the connecting cornerstone. 

After the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766 and the passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767, British troops were sent to Boston to attempt to keep order in the city (Zobel 65). Not only did the British soldiers patrol the city, many lived and worked part time in Boston warehouses and barracks. Because of the taxation and presence of British soldiers on the streets of Boston, riots and protests were common in those tempestuous times (John Adams Heritage Blog). Matters culminated on the night of March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston. A lone sentry, posted in front of the Custom House, was being taunted by a group of men and boys. After a church bell started ringing (a signal for fire), the streets were suddenly filled with several hundred citizens. The sentry was reinforced by eight British soldiers and their captain. The crowd quickly began shouting, cursing, and throwing ice, snowballs, sticks, oyster shells, and stones at the soldiers (McCullough 65). One soldier, Hugh Montgomery, was struck twice, the second time so hard that he was knocked to the ground. With tensions rising, “Fire!” was heard and the soldiers began shooting at the citizens. When the smoke finally cleared, four citizens were shot dead and one more died five days later. Captain Preston was afterward remembered as furious that his men had fired a single shot without his order (Zobel 287). So who gave the command to fire? 

The day after the shootings, the British soldiers began to seek legal representation. Given the sour taste of British relations, Boston attorneys did not want to represent the soldiers and their captain. After several tries at obtaining council, Josiah Quincy, Jr. agreed to assist in the representation under the condition that John Adams would join him (Donovan 23). “Adams accepted, firm in the belief, as he said, that no man in a a free country should be denied the right to counsel and a fair trial, and convinced on principle, that the case was of utmost importance” (McCullough 66). Robert Auchmuty created the triumvirate of the Captain’s defense team as he joined Quincy and Adams in the biggest trial any of the men had ever been involved (John Adams Heritage Blog). 

Three weeks after the shooting, the British soldiers and their captain were indicted for the murder of the Americans, including the mixed-race mulatto Crispus Attucks (John Adams Heritage Blog). Waiting for tensions to cool, the trials did not begin until late-November. In the meantime, a propaganda war began. A committee in charge of submitting an official account of the murders produced a one-sided account, entitled A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston (John Adams Heritage Blog). The Narrative spanned an ocean in readership. In addition, Samuel Adams, a distant cousin of John Adams, co-authored another heavily prejudiced account of the shootings. Another example of this early-American propaganda war is Paul Revere’s poignant engraving of the massacre, notable for it’s lasting emotional significance. Within a few days of the shootings, a young man named Henry Pelham produced a dramatic drawing depicting the events on King Street on the night of March 5, 1770. Never mind that the drawing was grossly inaccurate, Paul Revere was somehow able to obtain, without permission or attribution, the drawing and engrave it for mass reproduction (Zobel 211). The engraving, coupled with heavily biased accounts of the shootings on King Street, fanned a flurry of anti-British sentiment. Adams later remarked that representing the soldiers and their captain caused him to be the target of “suspicions and prejudices” from the people of Boston (McCullough 66). Above all, Adams hated public scorn. 

Adams and his team of two councilors immediately faced a dilemma that if not handled properly, could potentially cost Captain Preston and his men their lives. The problem arose from one major fact: Captain Preston had not killed anyone. He stood accused of ordering his men to fire without enough reason. Captain Preston needed to argue in court that he had never given a command to fire. On the other hand, the soldiers needed to show that in pulling their triggers, they had only followed orders (Zobel 241). Against some of the soldier’s wishes, Adams decided on the legal strategy of holding two trials, one for Captain Preston and one for his soldiers. John Phillip Reid has argued that John Adams separated the trials in order to prevent any mutual finger-pointing by either the soldiers or Captain Preston (Reid 196).

Captain Preston’s trial began on October 24, 1770, a mere seven months after the Boston Massacre (John Adams Heritage Blog). Until Captain Preston’s trial, no criminal case had ever required more than one day to try (excluding jury deliberations) (Zobel 248). Attorneys for the crown (the prosecution in modern terms) opened the case. The crown needed to prove that Preston gave the order to fire, or in the very least, could have prevented the shootings all together (Zobel 248). Over two days, the crown called fifteen witnesses alone who testified that they heard Captain Preston give the order to fire. However, on cross-examination their testimony appeared contradictory (ja historical society). If anything, the testimony of the crown’s witnesses strengthened the upcoming defense’s argument “that the crowd’s violence and taunting had provoked the tragedy” (Zobel 251).

Next, as junior attorney to the defense, John Adams was tasked with opening the defense’s case and questioning witnesses. No notes or transcripts remain of Adams’ opening, but his initial tactic was to set the scene of the event: a cold March evening, where British soldiers were being taunted and heckled beyond bearing, that finally culminated in the deaths of Boston citizens (Zobel 254). Calling twenty-two witnesses on day three of Captain Preston’s trial, Adams created a scene of confusion, noise, and verbal threats (Zobel 256). Adams did not call Captain Preston’s men to testify on his behalf even though they could have done so. Hiller B. Zobel points out that the men could have provided accounts that the townspeople had provoked the soldiers and Captain Preston was left with no other option that to command the soldiers to fire (Zobel 255). 

Finally, on October 27, 1770, the defense rested (Zobel 260). Adams next rose to give his summation. Beginning the legendary summation Adams laid a framework rooted in law. “It is better five guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should die” (Zobel 260). Following that, Adams dissected the crown’s evidence. With a legal finesse, Adams had an answer for the witnesses of the crown who claimed they had heard Captain Preston issue the order for fire: instead, townspeople had not heard Captain Preston’s entire command of “Fire by no means!” (Zobel 261). Whether truth or merely speculation, with this simple suggestion Adams was able to raise serious doubts of Captain Preston’s utterance of that infamous command. Adams also had an answer for the conflicts of evidence on who actually issued the order to fire. He argued that since the mob caused the soldiers to fire, then the mob could have also caused witness accounts to be unreliable (Zobel 262). Perhaps sensing defeat, the attorney for the crown who gave the prosecution’s summation, Robert Treat Paine, could barely be heard during the summation (Zobel 264). 

On October 30, 1770, the jury returned with a verdict in the case of Captain Thomas Preston: not guilty (Zobel 265). John Adams had successfully defended his client, but now the work began to save Captain Preston’s men from execution. The Captain’s acquittal made the soldiers’ defense more difficult (Zobel 268). The crown had an easier time proving that the soldier’s acted on their own accord by firing into the townspeople. 

Samuel Quincy led off for the crown in the trial of the soldiers that began on November 27, 1770 (John Adams Heritage Blog). With the five deaths that occurred as a result of gunshot wounds on March 5, 1770, the crown was faced with a much easier job by only having to prove that the soldiers were there and that they fire their weapons (Zobel 271). Unfortunately for the crown, several of its witnesses hit sour notes. One witness recalled that it was the townspeople who were yelling “Fire!” (Zobel 273). The majority of the crown’s witnesses testified to a crowd of armed sailors and missile-throwing boys attacking and possibly knocking down an armed soldier (Zobel 274). 

As the crown’s case came to an end, Quincy kept his closing remarks simple. He named each soldier individually, and reminded the jurors of each witness who was able to identify each. He reviewed in explicit detail each witnesses testimony (Zobel 276). Quincy closed, “confident on the evidence as it now stands” (Zobel 277). 

Junior attorney Josiah Quincy, and younger brother to the crown’s junior attorney Samuel Quincy, started the defense case for the soldiers. His job was to desensitize the emotions which the crown’s testimony was able to incite (Zobel 278). Not every citizen on King Street on the night of the shootings witnessed the soldiers acting out of hatred by firing on the citizens. In fact, the defense witnesses nearly all testified that the British soldiers were in real peril (Zobel 283). One witness specifically remembered seeing the now-dead Crispus Attucks reach into a woodpile and pull out two large clubs (Zobel 283). The defense’s climax came in the form of star witness Dr. John Jeffries. Dr. Jeffries was present on the deathbed of the soldier who died five days after the shooting (Zobel 285). According to Dr. Jeffries, the soldier stated that he did not blame the British soldiers for firing into the crowd. He seemed incredulous that the soldiers had not fired sooner than they actually had. Not only that, but the dying citizen did not blame the soldier who fired the bullet that would ultimately kill him (Zobel 286). This testimony wrapped up the defense’s case, powerfully aided the defense, and happened to be John Adams’ exact legal strategy (Zobel 284). 

Unlike the first trial, Adams did not play the role of junior attorney. He did not call and question witnesses, but he did give one of history’s greatest speeches with his summation. Returning in part to strategy used in Captain Preston’s case, Adams again reminded the jury that innocence be protected at the expense of guilt being punished (Zobel 289). It is worthy to note that by conceding this point, Adams admitted to the guilt of at least some of the soldiers. Furthermore, Adams was faced with the problem of bloodshed. Eighteenth-century Americans were convinced that blood required blood. Adams reminded the jury of a time in Colonial American history where enemy forces had been slain, but colonists did not call for the blood of the aggressors (Zobel 289). 

In another strategic move, Adams addressed the law of self-defense. Adams argued that if the mob had throated the lives of the soldiers, then the soldiers had a right to deprive the lives of the mob. Making an exact legal point, Adams posited that even if the killings might not have been entirely justifiable, still they were no more than manslaughter (Zobel 291). After making this point, court adjourned for the day. 

The next morning, Adams turned to the evidence and testimony from the trial. He left no stone unturned as he examined each witness’s testimony in minute detail. Nothing escaped his attention. At no point did Adams explicitly call witnesses liars, but he inferred that given the mob mentality, it was no wonder that few of the crown’s witness’s testimony reliably matched. Regarding Montgomery, the British soldier who had been knocked to the ground Adams asked: “What could he do? Do you expect he should behave like a Stoick Philosopher lost in Apathy?” (Zobel 292). Adams closed his summation with his famous lines that “Facts are stubborn things.” He coasted to the finish by reminding the jury that the law is “deaf, inexorable, inflexible” (Zobel 293). 

Finally, it was Paine’s turn to provide the summation for the crown’s prosecution. Almost comically, rather than establishing his own legal points, Paine refuted or denied the defense’s. Paine’s attempts were not enough. On the afternoon of December 5, 1770, the jury returned its verdict in the case of the Boston soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre. Six soldiers were found not guilty, while two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. Because they had never been in any legal trouble before, both guilty soldiers claimed benefit of the clergy, had their thumbs branded with an “M”, and were released (John Adams Heritage Blog). 

John Adams’ successful representation of Captain Preston and his soldiers made Adams in the long run more respected than ever (McCollough 68). Just a short time later, Adams was elected to the Boston city legislature, an appointment which clearly indicates the respect the thirty-four-year old had earned the previous Fall (Zobel 298). The trials earned Adams much esteem not only in the courtroom, but in New England and abroad. His defense of liberty remains one of America’s greatest treasures. 

Bibliography

Adams, John, and Frank Donovan, ed. The John Adams Papers. Cornwall, New York: The Cornwall Press, Inc., 1965.

McCullough, David. John Adams. New York: Touchstone, 2001. 

Reid, John Phillip. “A Lawyer Acquitted: John Adams and the Boston Massacre Trials.” The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Jul., 1974). pp. 189-207. 

The John Adams Historical Society Blog; “Events that led to the Boston Massacre.” www.john-adams-heritage.com/events-that-led-to-the-boston-massacre/ (accessed May 4, 2015).

Zobel, Hiller B. The Boston Massacre. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Ltd, 1970. 

Book Review: Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market

Walter Johnson’s Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market provides an incredibly in-depth look at the interstices of Antebellum slave pens, mainly those in New Orleans, Louisiana. He examines the daily activity of the slave pens, from the perspective of all participants: the slaves, slave buyers, and slave sellers. Johnson demonstrates how the sale of human beings was a complicated process and he guides readers through the motions of the typical transactions. While many historians focus on the plantations as the center of slave life, Soul by Soul provides a new perspective with the slave pens taking center stage in the history of the antebellum South. 

To begin, slave narratives played a dominant role in the evidence used by Johnson to recreate the slave pens. Johnson cited three strategies he employed to decipher the three versions of the slave pens: slave narratives read in tandem with sources produced by slaveholders and visitors to the South; slave narratives read for traces of the experience of slavery antecedent to the ideology of slavery; and the slave narratives read for symbolic truths that stretch beyond the facticity of specific events. In short, Johnson did not solely rely on the words of former slaves themselves, but instead analyzed the slave narratives while fact-checking with other versions of the same story (10).  In addition, judicial records were an invaluable source, even though slaves themselves were never allowed to physically testify in a court of law (11). Many slaveholders communicated in letters to family and acquaintances about the intricacies of slavery, and Johnson combed through these for correlations (13). Relying on the most “chillingly economical descriptions of slave sales,” Johnson used the notarized Acts of Sale to reconstruct a historical point of view (14). Truly, no stone is left unturned in Johnson’s rendition of the transaction process within slave pens.  

Johnson brings into sharp focus the human reality of the Southern slave trade by explaining the chattel principle. “Any slave’s identity could be disrupted as easily as a price could be set and a piece of paper passed from one hand to another” (19). Slaves were dehumanized based on the price they would bring at a slave sale. These humans had a value that could be abstracted from their bodies and cashed in when the occasion arose (26). Children were not exempt from this facet of chattel-life, either. In fact, Johnson argues that the bodies of slave children were forcibly shaped to their slavery (21). Whippings were designed to correct slave children’s deficits in “character”, or their vices. These slave children would have lived in daily fear of being separated from their families and sent to a slave pen.   

One of the most interesting facets of Soul by Soul is Johnson’s claim that antebellum whites used slavery, slave ownership, and slave auctions to assert themselves into Southern society. Undoubtedly, slaveholders were looked upon by their contemporary antebellum counterparts as the elite social class of the time period. In general slaveholders had more money, more property, better housing, more luxury personal items, and more slaves than any other social group. Many slaveholding men and women viewed slave ownership as an indicator of wealth. Johnson’s example of a probable newly-acquired slaveowner aboard the steamship F. W. Downes is a perfect example of slaveholders using slavery as a means to climb the antebellum social ladder. A Mr. J. B. Alexander was witnessed frantically shuttling around the steamship bragging about his recent purchase of “negroes.” Johnson claims that “one of the ways white men made friends with one another was by talking about the slaves they had just bought or sold” (198). White men would also judge other white men on their supposed ability to purchase worthy slaves. Again aboard the F. R. Downes, Mr. Alexander was judged to have made a poor business decision. “When he boarded the F. R. Downes with his new slave, a man he did not know walked up and “remarked to him that he had bought a dead Negro” (201). Slaveholders daily gambled their own fantasies of freedom on the behavior of people whom they could never fully commodify (214). 

In addition, slaveholding women were not to be left out of projecting a higher social class based on their ownership of slaves either. One woman had her twelve-year-old slave beaten when his nose dripped blood on dinner napkins (206). A slave’s bloody mess would have been mortifyingly embarrassing for a white woman. 

Soul by Soul hits its stride when Johnson explores the various ways in which the slaves themselves were sometimes able to subtly control their own destinies. Historically, slaves in a slave pen have been looked upon as helpless when it came to their sale or salability. Johnson contends that slaves would intentionally try to manipulate slave buyers and sellers. Some slaves used their own skin color to resist slavery. Johnson provides the story of Robert, a light-skinned slave who boarded a steamboat out of New Orleans and escaped slavery. His fellow passengers thought he could have been of Spanish origin. Robert’s skin color, along with his general comportment, allowed him to pass into white society and out of slavery. Another slave, Alexina Morrison, was described as being too white to be a slave. Her blue eyes and blonde hair helped as well. Alexina was able to escape her buyer and sue him for her freedom in the courts of Louisiana. “One after another, her supporters came into court to testify that she was white in ‘her conduct and her actions’ (156). 

Furthermore, Johnson points out that slaves were the people with the information. “Slaves were the information brokers in the slave market” (176). Slaves knew what the traders wished them to say and what the holders wished to hear. Sickness would have been the easiest form of resistance many slaves could carry out. Slave buyers had an eye out for even the smallest signs of illness in slaves. “Buyers were searching for vitality and responsiveness” (178). Rather than constant acts of rebellion, slaves used subtle, calculated methods to resist the “peculiar institution.”

Many slaves were bought on a trial basis. This would have provided some with an excellent opportunity to feel their new slave holder out for temperament, anticipated abuse or lack thereof, and general welfare, as well as allowed the buyer to determine if they had made a smart purchase. An advertised cook could have decided to cook poorly. Johnson speculates that one slave, Daniel, may have faked his deafness in order to be brought back from Texas to New Orleans. Johnson also argues that purchasing slaves on a trial basis gave white women an opportunity to participate in the slave trade. Though not able to accompany men to the slave pens, if bought on trial slaves could be brought home and tested out  (182). 

Soul by Soul brings back to life the New Orleans slave market. As the largest slave market in the South, New Orleans served as the shining example of slave pen life. What Walter Johnson is able to recreate is a testament to his intensive research and his exemplary writing ability. Soul by Soul is a balanced and readable account of America’s most shameful days. I highly recommend!

W. R. Bonner - obituary

December 23, 1930
W. R. Bonner, 95, Dies.
Special to The News
CORSICANA, Texas, Dec. 23. - W. R. Bonner, 95, resident of the Phillips Chapel community for many years, and native of Tennessee, died Monday night and the funeral services were held Wednesday afternoon with burial in the Hamilton Cemetery. Several children survive.

Source: Corsicana Daily Sun, Tuesday, December 23, 1930, page 13.