beardedwisdom

Edward B. Rugemer, in The Problem of Emancipation: The Caribbean Roots of the American Civil War, argues that the American Civil War is an Atlantic story, not simply a North American one.  Using a transnational approach, the author shows that ideas and movements from abroad easily influenced the young United States, including examples of abolitionism from Haiti and Britain’s Slavery Abolition Act.  Rugemer engages earlier scholarship that linked the Caribbean experience to that of pre-Civil War America: Alfred Hunt’s work, Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America (1988), connects the Haitian Revolution and abolitionism to the same in the young American republic.  Rugemer’s account is much more detailed, taking Hunt’s previous work and broadening its scope.

As presented in the title, the “problem of emancipation” for Rugemer was the competing economic interests of American slaveholders with the liberal ideas of equality as expressed in the republic’s founding.  Britain’s rhetoric of emancipation in the 1830s is of particular importance for Rugemer, for it is here that he places the beginning of disunion in the United States over the issue of slavery.  The idea that the origin of the split of antebellum America began largely with the importation of British anti-slavery ideology is a major break from previous scholarship that places disunion much later in the nineteenth century.  Further, situating the discussion in the larger Atlantic framework (to include abolitionism in the Caribbean) helps solidify his claims.  Rugemer wants to build upon other historical works that chronicle the transmission of ideology across the Atlantic world, such as Richard Blackett’s Building an Anti-slavery Wall (1983).  Where Rugemer differs from this work is his use of transnational anti-slavery movements as an analytical framework for understanding the build up to the Civil War (but he does not go into a detailed examination of the Civil War itself).  Interestingly, Rugemer is somewhat ideologically deterministic, for he places great power in ideas; the Civil War seems inevitable, given the ideas about slavery that were spreading.  “For twenty-seven years American abolitionists had advocated the peaceful path, but the rest of the country had not listened, and now the war had come.” (p. 290)  The polemic nature of anti-slavery ideology served to deepened the rift between the North and South.

The Problem of Emancipation fits into many different historiographies—the American South, Caribbean slavery, Atlantic abolitionism, etc.—and its transnational approach gives it greater versatility.  Historians of all parts of the Atlantic world will find this work useful and informative.

In Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World, Sam W. Haynes argues that the young United States showed signs of much apprehension and unease about its nationhood, despite having a grand rhetoric of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism.  To show this, the author examines the United States from its inception to 1850, and in particular, American concerns about Great Britain’s power and imagination of British culture.  Many Americans in the young republic were still Anglophiles, looking to Great Britain for culture, taste, and refinement.  On the other hand, those that did not admire British society saw the Crown as the gravest threat to the United States; the War of 1812 solidified this view in American minds for years following the war.  Regardless of who in the early republic admired or hated the British, Americans as a whole were very sensitive to the perception of their nation abroad.  Americans were constantly asking foreigners this question: “What do you think of our country?”  Often the answer to that question made Americans even more self-conscious of how they were perceived. “I do not like them.  I do not like their principles, I do not like their manners, I do not like their opinions,” was Frances Trollope’s (who was British) well-known reply. (p. 34)  The seeming lack of manners and cultural sophistication compared to Great Britain gave Americans an inferiority complex that spread to many areas of American life.  Ironically, Haynes shows that the young American nation sought somewhat desperately for validation and acceptance from the imperial power that used to rule them.

In the first two chapters, the author examines the pull of Britishness in American literature and the backlash against that pull.  “Who reads an American book?”  In the early republic, very few did, which led Ralph Waldo Emerson to issue a proclamation calling for original American literary works that were not based on books or writers from abroad.  He advocated the development of “literary nationalism,” a uniquely American body of work that would help create a distinct American culture. (p. 51-76)  The author then moves the discussion to politics and international relations.  In government, both the Democratic Party and Whig Party tried to fuel suspicion and fear of all things British to further distance the early republic from its colonial master.  Territorial disputes created further unease because of perceived British hostility in the disputes.  Americans feared that the British were meddling with the efforts to admit Maine, Florida, and Texas into the United States, as well as the status of the Oregon Territory, but that proved to not be the case. (p. 230-250)  Nevertheless, it generated great anxiety over the strength of the young nation even as the United States was manifestly marching to the Pacific.  The Anglophobia in America waned once the United States reached the West Coast, which dispelled the fear of Europeans encircling the United States in the west.  Haynes does an excellent job of illuminating Britain’s role in shaping early American society, by both acting as a disinterested role model and as an international agitator that spurred the development of a distinct American culture.  He shows that Great Britain’s influence lasted well beyond the last military engagement between the United States and the Crown in the War of 1812.[1]

Unfinished Revolution actually fits well with Jack P. Greene’s article, “Colonial History and National History: Reflections on a Continuing Problem,” for Haynes’ narrative provides evidence for some of Greene’s claims.[2] For example, Greene notes that English settler colonies in particular were deeply attached to the metropole, and those settlers often reproduced the policies, social structures, and culture of the imperial power, reproductions that lasted beyond direct British control of the settler colonies.  Haynes shows this to be the case in his discussion of American literature and political system as being British-inflected.  Further, Greene argues that the development of the early American republic was characterized by state, local, and community action, and that scholarship should emphasize this; the overall narrative of Unfinished Revolution focuses on the formation of local communities as he suggests, not the development or role of the federal government.  The chapter on Texas is constructed as to show a process of colonization, both in the initial settlements of whites and later annexation of the region, which supports Greene’s claim that colonization didn’t end with the expulsion of the British.  Rather, it continued on into the west as territories were annexed and Native Americans expelled or subjugated.  (Adam Rothman’s critique of Greene’s emphasis on the primacy of state over federal history is interesting, for Rothman points out the federal government’s critical role in the annexation of states, which is something that Greene and Haynes neglect.)[3] Haynes’ work is valuable in that it partly does what Greene suggests: Unfinished Revolution interweaves colonialism, colonizer-colony relations (including post-independence relations), and nation building into a continuous narrative without trying to separate these processes.  It also provides excellent insights into the early American imagination, an imagination dominated by Great Britain and Anglo culture.

[2] Jack P. Greene, “Colonial History and National History: Reflections on a Continuing Problem,” William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 2 (April 2007).

[3] Adam Rothman, “Beware the Weak State,” William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 2 (April 2007).

At the heart of Eugene Genovese’s work, Roll Jordan, Roll, is the author’s interpretation of paternalism and hegemony in American slavery.  For Genovese, paternalism was a two-way street between master and slave, an arrangement of responsibilities and mutual obligations not unlike a medieval feudal system.  Slave masters expected work, productivity, and gratitude from their slaves in exchange for their protection, guidance, and patronage.  On the other hand, slaves expected some sort of reciprocity from their masters for their work, according to Genovese.  For example, slaves expected some level of autonomy to create communities and preserve their culture, as well as a reasonable standard of living (for a slave, at least).  Enslaved blacks did manage to preserve some measure of privacy in their social interactions and family relations.  Oddly, the author posits that black slaves negotiated paternalism on their own terms rather than on their masters’ terms; hence, slaves did not actually think that they should feel grateful for their masters’ patronage.  Genovese suggests that enslaved blacks in essence rejected their status as slaves because slaves do not have any inherent rights or ability to control their own futures.  Christianity played a role in this for it helped give slaves an expression of their dignity and humanity that whites could understand.

The author supports these interesting assertions with very detailed accounts of the interaction between masters and slaves, using both white accounts and slave testimonies and WPA narratives extensively.  He notes that the quality of life for slaves on smaller plantations was very similar to that of their counterparts on large plantations; further, Genovese argues that slavery in the Deep South was not any more brutal than was slavery in the rest of the South.  Most importantly, however, slaves, regardless of location or occupation, supposedly had the same consciousness and black identity as free blacks.  This commonality is key because it supports Genovese’s argument that slave culture laid the groundwork for, or at least did not prevent the development of, a common black identity that would develop later.  The author does not differentiate between those slaves who actively resisted and those who accommodated slavery, saying that resistance and accommodation were merely two sides of the survival process.  One of Genovese’s aims in Roll, Jordan, Roll was to radically alter traditional views of master-slave relations and slave communities, giving slaves greater control over their own communities and affairs.[1]

Situating Denmark Vesey into Genovese’s account of slave life is an intriguing exercise at this point, particularly since the account of Vesey and his conspiracy have been under debate.  Michael Johnson notes that Vesey’s conspiracy might not have actually been a conspiracy at all, for “rather than revealing a portrait of thwarted insurrection, witnesses’ testimony discloses glimpses of ways that reading and rumors transmuted white orthodoxies into black heresies.”[2] The emphasis of the narrative of Vesey’s conspiracy should be on the white reaction to the conspiracy, not on the failed revolt itself.  (This is not unlike the account of slave conspiracy in Adams County, Mississippi, that Winthrop Jordan presents in Tumult and Silence at Second Creek, which shares some similarities.)  Johnson argues that the previous historiography of Vesey, such as works by Egerton, Robertson, and Pearson, misread the court documents and paint an erroneous picture of Vesey.  A rereading of Vesey’s story, however, would not substantially change the application of Genovese’s arguments in Roll, Jordan, Roll to Vesey’s conspiracy.  Vesey, once a slave and then a free black, exhibits the black consciousness or identity that Genovese presents in his work, as well as some measure of autonomy and agency.  As regards agency in Roll, Jordan, Roll, Walter Johnson says “there are a lot of things to say about the failings of Roll, Jordan, Roll, but the commonplace that it is a book which ignores the ‘agency’ of enslaved people…is not one of them.”[3] He argues, however, that Genovese’s notion of agency is more limited, because it makes a clear distinction between individual and collective agency.  Regardless, Genovese appears to be correct in his assessment of enslaved agency, at least to a degree.

[2] Michael P. Johnson, “Denmark Vesey and His Co-Conspirators,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd. ser., 58, no. 4 (2001), 916.

[3] Walter Johnson, “On Agency,” Journal of Social History 37, no. 1 (Fall 2003), 117.

In “We Ask for British Justice”: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain, Laura Tabili examines black workers in Great Britain in the 1920s and 1930s.  She looks at union practices, labor relations, and work policy in British merchant shipping, making her book partly a work of labor history.  The most compelling part of her narrative, however, is the interplay of race and the waning imperialism in interwar Britain.  During this period, many blacks formed communities in several British port cities, creating racial tension and labor issues for British shipping.  To incorporate black seamen on the ships, the British had to reconstruct traditional, imperial racial categories left over from the Victorian period to maintain a distinct difference between black and white; myths of exoticism and inherent inferiority kept black seaman from earning the same wage as did their white counterparts.  Labor unrest among white seaman plagued the shipping industry in the interwar years, and the shipowners and captains thought that keeping black seamen separate would prevent further tension and reduce costs.  To do this, whites in the shipping industry needed the British state’s assistance to set up legal distinctions based on the race of British seamen, which the government did.[1]

The author notes that several groups developed their own construction of race to further their own ends.  On one hand, shipowners wanted to keep their cheap labor and prevent their operational costs from increasing before and during the Great Depression years, hence race was used as an excuse to pay blacks extremely low wages.  On the other hand, some government offices sought to salvage Britain’s damaged imperial reputation by at least appearing to treat its subjects of different races equally.  Tabili portrays the British state as sympathetic to black seamen’s unequal treatment, but very vulnerable to outside pressures, such as the shipping industry (pp. 58-80).  The author suggests that a new black political identity emerged as a reaction to the racial subordination that black seamen experienced, but that they largely failed to organize in any effective way (pp. 135-160). “We Ask for British Justice” documents how the construction of race in early-twentieth-century Britain could be manipulated for economic and political ends.  For Tabili, race is purely ideological, which echoes Barbara Fields’ essay.  Fields argues that race is not a physical thing, even though it seems that historical writing has treated race as such.  The case of black seamen in Britain certainly supports this description of race, for the shipping industry and the state were able to easily construct race based on region of origin, not just physical appearance.  Fields and Tabili do not agree, however, concerning the place of class in relation to race.  Fields contends that class is not in the same analytical field as race, but Tabili often speaks of class and race in the same intellectual manner, as if they are equal categories of historical analysis.  Despite this, their two works portray race in similar ways.[2]

“We Ask for British Justice” also fits well with Martha Hodes’ article, “The Mercurial Nature and Abiding Power of Race: A Transnational Family Story,” which chronicles the life of Eunice Connolly and the changing nature of race across international and cultural borders.  Connolly found that she was not racially categorized in the Caribbean as she was in New England; her racial identity was dependent on where she was and to what community she belonged.  Perceptions of appearance, behavior, class status—all these things helped shape racial identity, and these perceptions often change from culture to culture.[3] For Hodes, race is a powerful concept precisely because it is malleable.  In Britain, most of the black seamen came from British territorial holdings in Africa, where perceptions of race and identity was much different.  Hodes and Tabili’s transnational approach to race helps illuminate the fluidity of the concept of race across borders.  Further, Peter Kolchin’s survey of the historiography of “whiteness” reinforces the ever-changing nature of race from the perspective of whites, noting that white identity is just as fluid as any other racial construct.  It is not clear from Tabili’s work if the same white Britons engaged in debate about their own racial identity while assigning such to blacks, but the British did have the “one drop rule” at this time.  Having any non-white ancestry, regardless of how small or distant, kept one from being classified as white.  Kolchin contends that the use of race as a category in historical works tends to explain everything or nothing.[4] In “We Ask for British Justice”, race explains everything, for it is the tool that enabled subordinating practices in the shipping industry.  The historical narrative of black Seamen in Britain would be nearly impossible to tell without a thorough examination of race in the context of British society.

[2] Barbara J. Fields, “Ideology and Race in American History,” in Region, Race, and Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of C. Vann Woodward, ed. J. Morgan Kousser and James M. McPherson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 143-177.

[3] Martha Hodes, “The Mercurial Nature and Abiding Power of Race: A Transnational Family Story,” American Historical Review 108, no. 1 (February 2003), 84-118.

[4] Peter Kolchin, “Whiteness Studies: The New History of Race in America,” Journal of American History 89, no. 1 (June 2002).