John Wesley Blassingame is an American historian, writer and scholar whose work on African American is recognized till date. He discarded earlier theories on African slaves that they were willingly serving their masters. John Wesley studied the issue deeply and done a number of researches to find a true picture of slavery among this community. He presided over as chairman of African American studies for almost a decade.
The author in his book The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South has tried to thrust aside earlier version of historians that African slaves are happy to serve their masters in the antebellum, south. His purpose was to portray the pain of these slaves and to reveal that they were not willingly serving their masters.
The book is about African American’s slavery and the author has presented the excellent and analytical account of the problem. The author has touched all the aspects of slavery that how the system of slavery was established, how it was cultivated and how blacks were made slaves without any rights and human treatment.
This book is very important as it provides an authentic version of the story. This book covers all the relevant aspects of African slavery. The author is not biased in portraying the facts and a number of evidence has been produced to corroborate his version. The book is a credible because of the facts and evidences used in the book. It gives the readers complete information about the society of that era.
The book is very valuable and recommendable to others. The book can be recommended to any body from the youths to the researchers and from students to teachers. This is very informative and useful.
Reference
Blassingame, J. W. (1979). The slave community: plantation life in the antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press.
