Genovese

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Sat Oct 14 14:23:38 PDT 2000


On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 16:59:02 -0400 Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> writes:
>
>
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2000 13:36:27 -0400 Yoshie Furuhashi
> <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
> writes:
> As if by serendipity, the newest issue (November 2) of the NY Review
> of
> Books has a
> piece by George Frederickson on American slavery which covers many
> of the issues in contention in this thread.

Concerning the debate over Genovese Frederickson has this to say:

"Perhaps the time has come to get beyond the debate between the

two schools of thought about the nature of antebellum slavery -

the seemingly unresolvable disagreement over whether it can be best

understood as resting on a "paternalistic bargain" between masters

and slaves or simply on the application of force and fear in the

service of economic gain. The reality reflected in the slave narratives

and other primary sources is of great variation in plantation regimes.

What proportion might be classified as paternalist and what proportion

was based simply on "arbitrary power, distrust, and fear "cannot

be quantified; it is a question that can be answered only on the basis

of general impressions that will differ, depending on which sources

are deemed representative and which anomalous. The side that

a historian supports might be determined more by ideology or theoretical

approach than by a careful weighing of the evidence."

"It also seems possible that many slaveholders could fancy themselves

as paternalists and act in ways that were totally at odds with their

self-image. Walter Johnson's book on the slave market, *Soul by

Soul*, in effect transcends the dichotomy by showing that a culture of

paternalism and a commitment to commercialism were not

incompatible. He also undermines another persistent and

contentious either/or of Southern historiography, one that also

involves the status of paternalism as ideology and social ethos.

This is the question of whether "race" (inequality based on

pigmentation) or "class" (stratification based on premodern

conceptions of honor and gentility) was central to the culture

and social order of the Old South."


>
> Jim Farmelant
>
>
>
________________________________________________________________ YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET! Juno now offers FREE Internet Access! Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list