Interatrial Relationships in America
Before the Civil War
Interatrial Relationships in America
Before the Civil War
The film industry has presented extreme pictures of the treatment of slaves in America. On the one hand films like Gone with the Wind present images of the idyllic plantation, with paternalistic owners and happy loyal slaves eager to serve their masters. On the other hand, films like Twelve Years a Slave presents the brutal treatment inflicted upon slaves in southern plantations (Brook, “Slavery on Film: What is Hollywood’s Problem”). These extreme representations of the treatment of slaves fail to capture the varied conditions under which many blacks lived before the Civil War. Another fact about slavery not commonly known is that black slaves were not always the main source of labor for landowners, at least in early colonial America. The readings that helped craft this essay demonstrate that in the early years of the colonies, land owners relied on American Indians and European indentured servants to cultivate the land. It was the growing agricultural economy that made it necessary to import and enslave blacks (Kolchin 7). Finally, film and literature have portrayed slave traders as greedy, merciless and cruel. Yet, African tribes themselves also contributed greatly to the slave trade that forcibly brought blacks to America (Kolchin 19) .It is the purpose of this essay to present a picture of interatrial relationship before the Civil War.
Historically in many parts of the world, slaves have served in many capacities such as government officials, tutors, eunuchs and concubines. In colonial America, however, slaves met the demands of agricultural development that resulted when colonial landholders tried to grow large scale staple crops such as sugar, tobacco, rice and cotton (Kolchin 5). It is important to note, that before English settlers resorted to widespread importation of black slaves, they experimented with two sources of unfree labor: American Indians and indentured servants (Kolchin 7). The problem with American Indians, was that they were ill suited for agricultural tasks which they perceived as being women’s work; more importantly however, Indians knew their territory well and it was easy for them to run away. In addition, the Indian population was insufficient to meet the demands of agriculture, especially since a substantial number succumbed to diseases brought by English colonists (Kolchin 8). Indenture servants were a much better alternative. Indenturing, a form of apprenticeship common in Europe, acquired a different meaning in America; it evolved into a system whereby poor Europeans desiring to come to America sold themselves into temporary servitude to pay for their transportation to the New World (Kolchin 8). In this way, landowners received large quantities of cheap labor to meet their needs, at least temporarily. Beginning in the 1680s mainland colonies experienced a significant shift from indentured servants to slave labor. Kolchin (11) cites the following figures to illustrate the trend: between 1680 and 1750 the proportion of blacks in the population increased from 7^% to 44% in Virginia, and from 17% to 61% in South Carolina. Due to economic and political stability in England after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 the inflow of indentured servants began to decline as the demand for labor was rising in the colonies. By the end of the seventeenth century, it was evident that European indentured servants could no longer meet the needs of the Southern colonies (Kolchin 12).
Until the end of the seventeenth century the blurred distinction between blacks and lower class white servants would have shocked Americans of the post-reconstruction period: “Indentured servants wee subject to many of the same constraints as slaves and the two groups often lived together, worked together, play together, and sometimes slept together and ran away together” (Kolchin 16). After Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, the demand for slaves increased dramatically. Contrary to the common belief that most Southerners owned large plantations worked by hundreds of slaves, most agricultural units up until the Civil War were small farms with 20 to 30 slaves each (Boston, “The Slave Experience: Living Conditions”). The interesting point concerning race relations is that regardless of the size of the plantation, the lives of whites and blacks were inextricably linked, for
Inside the mansion house slaves often slept alongside, or even shared their master and mistress’s beds. Outside, black and white children shared the intimate rough and tumble of play. A black nurse supervised white charges, a personal maid attended her mistress. . . Like it or not, slave and slaveholder were locked in a macabre embrace from which neither could extricate himself Everett 109).
Boston asserts that the relationships of slaves with one another, with their masters and with other free whites were, to a certain extent, shaped by the unique circumstances of life experienced by each slave. Often, house slaves, for instance took on their masters’ interests instead of those of fellow slaves. Many female house slaves formed strong attachments to their mistresses. Black and white children tended to form strong bonds with each other as in the case of Thomas Jefferson and his slave companion Jupiter (“Slave Experience: Living Conditions”). Once white children matured, they would learn to understand the class system prevalent in the South and would make the appropriate adjustments in their relationships with their slaves. While Thomas Jefferson felt great appreciation for Jupiter, he never considered granting him freedom (“slave Experience”).
While the constant threat and fear of being raped by their white masters loomed large on slave women’s lives, Everett (116) points out that some attachments developed into true love affairs. Some masters set their slave mistresses in town houses and lived with them openly or in secret. Everett (117) continues to point out that the daily contact with attractive young black males led to equally strong attachments between black slaves and upper class Southern women. Surprisingly, black men in these cases were not subjected to lynching and white men took this matters in stride, a situation which would not have occurred in later years as race relations hardened (Everett, 117). While this essay has focused on the less brutal relationships between blacks and whites, there is no attempt whatsoever to deny the horrific aspect of slavery: work and sexual exploitation, deprivation of liberty, harsh living conditions, physical abuse, family separations through sales—all these abuses have been well-documented in primary and secondary sources. The question that must be answered is why the racial gulf became so deep. The complex answer to such a question is beyond the scope of this brief essay. Perhaps, as slaves became increasingly necessary to fuel the Southern economy, slave holders attempted to justify the existence of slavery, claiming that blacks were inferior to whites and that they were best fit to serve as slaves only, lacking the ability to be responsible for themselves. . After the Civil War, when the plantation system was destroyed by the war and the emancipation of the slaves, holding blacks as inferior beings was a way for white Southerners to assert their superiority. Repressing the civil rights of black people was a way to maintain their own privileges. It is ironic that as blacks forgot their African roots and became more identified with their new country, they were denied their most basic civil rights and were subjected to violent racist acts such as lynchings and beatings. Understanding the historical evolution of race relations in America is essential to understand the wave of violence that still plagues American society today.
Works Cited
Boston, Nicholas, “The Slave Experience: Living Conditions”) Slavery and the Making of America. PBS Series, 2004. Web 31 May, 2016.
Brook, Tom. “Slavery on Film: What is Hollywood’s Problem?” BBC Culture. 21 October 2014. Web, 27 May, 2016.
Everett Susanne. History of Slavery. Edison, N.J.: Chartwell Books, 1997.
Kolchin, Peter. American Slavery 1619-1877. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993.
