The Struggle against Slavery: A History in Documents (Pages from History)

177 Pages·2002·16.44 MB·English

by  David Waldstreicher

The Struggle
Against Slavery
A History in Documents

The Struggle
Against Slavery
A History in Documents
David Waldstreicher
OXPORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
To Shane White—fellow traveler and honorary New Yorker
General Editors
Sarah Deutsch
Associate Professor of History
OXFORD
University of Arizona
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Carol Karlsen
Oxford New York
Professor of History
University of Michigan
Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai
Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Robert G. Moeller
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Professor of History
Sao Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto University of California, Irvine
Copyright © 2001 by David Waldstreicher Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
Associate Professor of History
Design: Sandy Kaufman Indiana University
Layout: Loraine Machlin
Picture Research: Lisa Barnett
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. Board of Advisors
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com Steven Goldberg
Social Studies Supervisor
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press New Rochelle, N.Y., Public Schools
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any John Pyne
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, Social Studies Supervisor
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. West Milford, N.J., Public Schools
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Waldstreicher, David.
The struggle against slavery : a history in documents / David Waldstreicher.
p. cm — (Pages from history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-19-510850-7
ISBN 0-19-510850-7
1. Slave insurrections—United States—History—Sources. 2. Slaves—
Cover: Harriet Tubman, on left, was photo-
United States—Social conditions—Sources. 3. Free African Americans—
graphed with a group of the former slaves she led to
Social conditions—Sources. 4. African Americans—Civil rights—
freedom. Text: From a North Carolina General
History—Sources. 5. Antislavery movements—United States—History—
Assembly bill to prevent slaves from being taught
Sources. I. Title. II. Series. to read or write, 1830.
E447. W35 2001
306.3'62'0973—dc21 Frontispiece: Abolition quilt from about 1853.
2001032941
98765 Title page: Jack and Abby Landlord, a slave
couple, who at the time of this photograph from the
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 1860s were 110 and 100 years old respectively.
Contents
6 WHAT IS A DOCUMENT Chapter Five
8 HOW TO READ A DOCUMENT 105 THE CONTINUAL STRUGGLE:
SOUTHERN SLAVES
AND MASTERS
Introduction
10 VANGUARDS OF FREEDOM 107 Private and Public Rebellion
116 Disobedience and Discipline
120 Subversion, Suffering, and Escape
Chapter One
15 THE MAKING OF
Chapter Six
AMERICAN SLAVERY
137 THE SECOND AMERICAN
17 Capture and Transport
REVOLUTION AND
20 Early Resistance
THE END OF SLAVERY
26 Slaves' Lives in the Colonies
138 Justified Rebellion
30 Rebels and Runaways
150 A Welcome War
156 Emancipation
Chapter Two
160 Liberation
35 THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN
REVOLUTION
164 TIMELINE
36 Liberty for All?
166 FURTHER READING
41 Lord Dunmore and the Promise
167 TEXT CREDITS
of Freedom
44 The Declaration of Independence 169 PICTURE CREDITS
and the Question of Slavery 171 INDEX
47 Revolutionary Soldiers
54 Equality Disputed
60 Revolutionary Ideals
Chapter Three
63 FORGING FREEDOM
AND FIGHTING SLAVERY
IN THE NORTH
66 First Steps to Freedom
70 An End to the Slave Trade
73 Opponents to Colonization
78 Free Blacks Speak Out
84 Another Independence Day
89 The Call for Civil Rights
Chapter Four: Picture Essay
97 SLAVERY AND FREEDOM.
DRESSING THE PART
6 THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SLAVERY
What Is a Document?
T
o the historian, a document is,
quite simply, any sort of histori-
cal evidence. It is a primary
source, the raw material of his-
tory. A document may be more than the
expected government paperwork, such as a
treaty or passport. It is also a letter, diary,
will, grocery list, newspaper article, recipe,
memoir, oral history, school yearbook, map,
chart, architectural plan, poster, musical
score, play script, novel, political cartoon,
painting, photograph—even an object.
Using primary sources allows us not
just to read about history, but to read histo-
ry itself. It allows us to immerse ourselves
in the look and feel of an era gone by, to
understand its people and their language,
whether verbal or visual. And it allows us
Cartoon
to take an active, hands-on role in (re)con- This political cartoon addresses the issue of church and
structing history. state. It illustrates the Supreme Court's role in balancing
the demands of the First Amendment of the Constitution
Using primary sources requires us to
and the desires of the religious population.
use our powers of detection to ferret out
the relevant facts and to draw conclusions
from them; just as Agatha Christie uses the
scores in a bridge game to determine the
identity of a murderer, the historian uses
facts from a variety of sources—some, per-
haps, seemingly inconsequential—to build
a historical care.
The poet W. H. Auden wrote that his-
Illustration
tory was the study of questions. Primary
Illustrations from
sources force us to ask questions—and children's books,
such as this
then, by answering them, to construct a
alphabet from the
narrative or an argument that makes sense New England
to us. Moreover, as we draw on the many Primer, tell MS
how children were
sources from "the dust-bin of history," we
educated, and
can endow that narrative with character, also what the
religious and
personality, and texture—all the elements
moral values of
that make history so endlessly intriguing. the time were.
7
WHAT IS A DOCUMENT?
Treaty
A government document such as this
i 805 treaty can reveal not only the
Map details of government policy, hut
A 1788 British map of India information about the people who
shows the region prior to signed it. Here, the Indians' names
British colonization, an indi- were written in English translitera-
cation of the kingdoms and tion by U.S. officials, the Indians
provinces whose ethnic divi- added pictographs to the right of
sions would resurface later in their names.
India's history.
Literature
The first written version of the Old English epic Beowulf,
from the late loth century, is physical evidence of the tran-
sition from oral to written history. Charred byfire, it is
also a physical record of the wear and tear of history.
8 THE STRUGGLE AGAINST SLAVERY
How to Read a Document
D
Documents are bits of the past
that have survived. They come
Authorship
in many shapes and sizes: texts Especially with controversial subjects such as slavery, it is impor-
(such as books, newspapers, tant to consider who authored the document and for what pur-
pose. John Allwood told readers of a Charleston, South Carolina,
magazines, and letters), pictures (such as
newspaper about the skills of his slaves because he wanted to
paintings, photographs, and prints), and make more money when he sold them. In other documents, slave
things (such as furniture, statues, and build- owners might downplay their slaves' abilities, because it was in the
owners' interest to do so.
ings). When we approach a document for
clues into the larger past, we ask questions
Detail
about what such a source can and cannot
In his advertisement, Allwood asks people who owe him money to
say. We ask: What does this document tell pay him before he leaves town so that he can pay his own debts.
He also describes some pictures he has for sale. But these are only
us? What were its creators trying to say or
afterthoughts to the descriptions of the slaves for sale. This could
accomplish? What does it not tell us? imply that the slaves were worth more money than the debts or
How we read a document, what we take the goods he had to sell.
from it, in other words, will depend on the
questions we ask. Advertisements for run- Story
These abolitionist trading cards, from a series of 12, tell the story
away slaves, for example, were written and
of a slave who is sold, separated from his family, and whipped. He
published in order to recapture fugitives, then runs away and joins the Union army during the Civil War.
These cards were created to celebrate black soldiers' war efforts.
but they also tell us, if we care to look,
The abolitionists wanted to encourage black service in the war
many interesting things about the slaves' and to transform what was a war against southern secession into a
skills, where they had been born and lived, fight against slavery.
and how they rebelled against the system.
Symbols
They do not tell us, however, why the
In their portrayal of slavery, abolitionists often focused on the
slaves ran away or what happened to them scene in which slave families were separated by the sale of one
after they became fugitives. family member. Breaking the hearts of his wife and child is as
bad as or worse than breaking the body of the slave. With such
When antislavery became a large-scale
images, abolitionists made the point that slavery was not for the
political movement in the 19th century, good of the slaves, as southerners maintained, and that slaves had
families just as whites did.
white and black abolitionists began to use
all kinds of evidence about slaves and their
Pose
lives to argue against slavery. Some of the
How people stand, or sit, the look on their faces, and the clothes
documents in this book, such as the narra- they wear are markers of status and identity. In 'The Sale," the
tives of former slaves Olaudah Equiano, slave is depicted as dejected, looking down with his hat in hand.
In "Make Way for Liberty!" the slave, now a uniformed soldier,
Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs, are
charges forward with a determined expression. Abolitionists want-
examples of the abolitionists' efforts to doc- ed to convey that the humility of the slave was a product of cir-
cumstances, not race.
ument the evils of slavery and the fact of
slave resistance. As documents, they tell us
about slavery, but they also tell us about the
nature of the fight against slavery.
9
HOW TO READ A DOCUMENT