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Power and Agency in AntebellumSlaveryWilliam Dusinberre aa Department of History , University of Warwick , Coventry, UKPublished online: 08 Sep 2011.

To cite this article: William Dusinberre (2011) Power and Agency in Antebellum Slavery, AmericanNineteenth Century History, 12:2, 139-148, DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2011.594648

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Power and Agency in Antebellum Slavery

William Dusinberre*

Department of History, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

This essay synthesizes conclusions about the agency of enslaved people drawnfrom three books by William Dusinberre: Them Dark Days; Slavemaster President;and Strategies for Survival.

Keywords: slavery; agency; rice; James K. Polk; Virginia

My purpose is to assess the balance between the masters’ power (legally almost

completely unlimited) and the slaves’ agency � their ability to fashion their lives and

institutions in ways that alleviated the burdens of their situation.1

I have written several books about antebellum slavery. One of them concentrated

on some rice plantations in the Carolina and Georgia lowcountry. The next book

focused on a single cotton plantation in Mississippi � the one owned by President

James Polk. The third book discussed slavery in tobacco-producing Virginia, based

mainly on WPA interviews in 1937 � by black interviewers � with very old former

slaves.2 Thus, the project considered disparate regions of the Old South and different

crop regimes. I want now to suggest several statements that might be valid for all of

these regions.

I shall make four assertions with conviction. Then I will consider four other topics

where I wish simply to pose questions.

First, I think it is obvious � but nevertheless worth saying at the outset � that

slavemasters held slaves for their own economic benefit and to secure and improve

their own social status. Thus, when in 1834, James Polk (who was then a

congressman) announced to his wife that he was shifting his plantation operations

from western Tennessee to northern Mississippi, he explained that he was doing so

for economic reasons � in order to ‘‘make more money or loose [sic] more.’’3 When

Robert Allston � a successful rice planter who later became governor of South

Carolina � wrote in 1846 to James Hammond to congratulate him on the publication

of a proslavery pamphlet, Allston used the language of a proud entrepreneur: Allston

declared that he, ‘‘as a planter . . . representing others who like himself, have half

their Capital invested in slaves . . . [sends to Hammond his] warm and grateful

acknowledgements.’’4 ‘‘Half their Capital invested in slaves’’: I think it is not necessary

for historians to assert that planters were ‘‘capitalists’’ � that all depends on how one

defines ‘‘capitalism’’; but I think it clear that these were businessmen who owned

*Email: wdusinberre@compuserve.com

American Nineteenth Century History

Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2011, 139�148

ISSN 1466-4658 print/ISSN 1743-7903 online

# 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14664658.2011.594648

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slaves, and invested in more of them, to enhance their own economic and social

position. No doubt many planters sought to explain their actions by wrapping

themselves in the robes of a paternalist ideology. But I think it is important to start a

study of slavery with what the masters were actually doing, not with the theories by

which they sought to justify what they were doing.

Next, in all of the principal crop regions the slave regime was terribly harsh �though for somewhat different reasons in each region. On an island in the Savannah

River, eight miles upstream from the city of Savannah, I found a rice plantation where

in the mid-nineteenth century the child mortality rate was 90%.5 Ninety percent: of

every 100 children born there, 90 died before age 16. At any one time during the

1850s there were about 100 slaves on this plantation, and the adults died there too in

astonishing numbers. Over a nearly 30-year period about 150 babies were born, while

about 300 slaves died. The only way the owner Charles Manigault (who was from a

very prominent Charleston family) could keep the plantation going was to buy fresh

supplies of new slaves in Charleston, and to ship them � often to early deaths � to his

Savannah River plantation.6 He continued to do this, despite the death toll, because

the profits on his capital investment (including even his investment in slaves who

died) averaged, over a 30-year period, more than 10% per year.7 This plantation was

particularly deathly; but I believe child mortality rates throughout the rice kingdom

were even worse than those on Caribbean sugarcane plantations.8

In Virginia, the mortality rate of enslaved children was less grim than in the rice

kingdom; but slavery’s harshness in Virginia took an additional form. Many

thousands of Virginia slave families were broken up by the sale, or forced migration,

of husbands away from their wives and children, or of young children away from

their parents. When James Polk was secretly, during his presidency, buying more

slaves to work his Mississippi plantation, he required his agents to purchase for him

only bondpeople between the ages of 10 and 21 years. This requirement made it

impossible for the agents to buy any child with its parents. Polk’s agents bought for

him eight children aged 10�13 years (as well as other children somewhat older).9 It

was the existence in the cotton kingdom of this kind of demand for young slaves,

unencumbered by their parents, which led to the breakup of so many Virginia slave

families. ‘‘No white man ever been in my house,’’ a 91-year-old former slave in

Virginia told her black interviewer in 1937. ‘‘Don’t ‘low it. Dey sole my sister Kate. I

saw it wid dese here eyes. Sole her in 1860, and I ain’t seed nor heard of her since.

Folks say white folks is all right dese days. Maybe dey is, maybe dey isn’t. But I can’t

stand to see ‘em. Not on my place.’’10

Planters were self-interested businesspeople, and the slave regime was harsh. My

third assertion is that the slaves’ discontent with this harsh regime expressed itself

mainly through nonviolent dissidence. Flight from the plantation � for days, weeks, or

months in the local woods or swamps � was common, whereas acts of violence were

not common. Violence was likely to lead to the death of the violent resister, and most

slaves wanted to stay alive. In the decade to 1861, at least 24 slaves fled temporarily

(several of them more than once) from Charles Manigault’s Savannah River

plantation, but there were no recorded instances of violent resistance.11 There may

possibly, however, have been two exceptions to this statement. In 1854, a slave named

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Anthony fled from the plantation, and according to the terse note in the plantation’s

annual slave list, he ‘‘died from it, died in Charleston.’’ In the previous year the same

fate had befallen a fugitive named Joe.12 Probably Joe, and then Anthony, died from

illness caused by exposure, or from snake-bite, when they were hiding in the swamp;

or perhaps they died from a severe whipping after they were captured; or possibly

they violently resisted capture and were shot by their pursuers. But even if one or

both of these slaves resisted violently, their fates help to explain why violent resistance

was so rare. I was surprised to find that on this plantation, where during the malaria

season there were about 100 bondpeople supervised by only one white overseer, the

overseer entrusted one of the slaves with a shotgun with which to scare away

the bobolinks � ‘‘rice birds’’ � that would otherwise have eaten the rice. What the

overseer was afraid of was that he might lose his crop to the rice birds, not that the

enslaved birdminder would turn his shotgun on the overseer. Overseers had a lot to

worry about, especially when a flood came roaring down the Savannah River from

Augusta, Georgia, threatening to inundate most of the island; but mutiny from the

enslaved laborers does not appear to have been, during peacetime, much of a worry.13

Similarly, at James Polk’s cotton plantation, temporary flight was common, but

violent resistance rare. Polk held about 60 bondpeople on his plantation, and during

a 22-year period at least 18 of these slaves ran away temporarily.14 Some of them fled

repeatedly, and altogether there were 50 recorded instances of flight, but only two

cases of violent resistance, neither with a lethal weapon.15 In 1834, a middle-aged

slave named Chunky Jack fled from a particularly brutal overseer named Ephraim

Beanland, and the slave struck his pursuer with a stick. Beanland carried a knife, and

he stabbed Chunky Jack twice, bringing him down. Jack was lucky to survive his

wounds.16 Six years later the plantation’s best worker, Henry Carter, submitted for a

while to what he thought an unjust whipping, but eventually Henry rebelled. The

flogging was inflicted by a fairly new, and not very imposing, overseer; and when

Henry � naked and unarmed � refused to be whipped any more, and began to run,

the unarmed overseer grappled with him, but Henry Carter escaped. During the next

10 days the fugitive acquired some clothes, and he travelled 110 miles (no doubt

walking at night); he then turned himself in, voluntarily, at a West Tennessee

plantation owned by Polk’s brother-in-law, to whom the fugitive complained about

the overseer’s conduct. Polk was at this time governor of Tennessee, ambitious to

embark on a national political career, and the last thing he wanted was publicity

about disorder on his plantation. Polk promptly sacked the overseer for failure to

govern the slaves properly; and a few years later President Polk took Henry Carter’s

young son to Washington as the only one of his slaves to join the rest of Polk’s

domestic staff in the White House. Here was an instance when violent resistance paid

off; but Henry Carter did not use a weapon at all; he and his family were favored

slaves; and he was confronting an incompetent overseer.17 The fact remains that

instances of violent resistance were rare on this plantation, far outnumbered by the

cases of flight to the local woods. And as for Virginia, although I was mistaken about

slave violence in Richmond during the 1850s (because I overlooked decisive evidence

in James Campbell’s book), I nevertheless believe that the interviews � and other

evidence � confirm my view that violent resistance, during peacetime, was rare, while

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nonviolent dissidence (especially by flight to the local woods) was virtually

ubiquitous.18

I think we historians tend to expect that, even during peacetime, slaves ought to

have been willing to die in hopes of gaining their liberty; but this is demanding too

much of them. Of course, hundreds of slaves did take big risks every year to try to

escape permanently (especially from the Upper South), and Richard Blackett proves

that the number of such fugitives was even greater than what has been previously

believed.19 But the number of bondpeople who fled temporarily to the local woods

was far greater than the number who sought permanent escape. Temporary flight was

one thing, and it might possibly be punished relatively leniently; but violent

resistance was something different, and it was likely to be punished with draconian

severity. We ought to respect the vast majority of slaves who chose to stay alive by

directing their discontent into nonviolent channels.

There existed, among some slaves, a tradition of individual self-development,

especially among skilled workers such as midwives, seamstresses, some female, and

some male house servants; and among carpenters, blacksmiths, and drivers. For

example, the former slave William I. Johnson, Jr. � you can hear his family pride even

in his name � testified in 1937 that, when the Civil War broke out, he had been a

young butler on a plantation near Richmond, Virginia. His master, and the master’s

four sons, all joined the Confederate army, leaving the butler, William, in charge of

protecting the white women in the Big House. William performed this duty

‘‘faithfully’’ for a couple of years, after which one of his master’s sons (a Confederate

army officer) took William along to the front as a body servant. When opportunity

presented itself, William fled to the Union Army, where he was recruited for the rest

of the war into the Quartermaster Corps (presumably because of his skills as a

butler). In 1865 he returned to Richmond, became a bricklayer, was soon promoted

to foreman, and eventually set up his own building contracting business, by means of

which he prospered. He stated proudly in 1937 that he had educated his children

(including college for those who wanted it) and had helped to educate his

grandchildren and great-grandchildren. ‘‘The Lord is just blessing me, that’s all,’’

he concluded.20 Here is one of the origins of the twentieth-century black middle class:

a slave who seized the opportunity to become a skilled house servant; who fled to

freedom as soon as a good chance presented itself; and who � after developing an

artisan’s skills � eventually became a successful businessman. The concept of ‘‘cultural

autonomy’’ does not fit William Johnson’s career, because initially he depended on

his master to offer him training as a skilled butler, and he won the trust of his

master’s family, before he fled to join the Union army.

A tragic variant of this story appears in the Manigault records. For seven years

before 1844, Charles Manigault elevated a slave named Robert to the privileged

position of being an upmarket house servant in South Carolina. But Robert was a

‘‘very determined’’ bondman, by which apparently was meant that he had a mind of

his own; and Robert fell out with his master. Charles Manigault was a stern

disciplinarian, and he aimed to teach Robert, and the other slaves, a lesson by

deporting Robert to the Savannah River rice plantation, where Robert was demoted

to menial field labor and was separated indefinitely from his wife and child. Robert,

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instead of sulking, set to work with a will. The overseer soon reported, with

astonishment, that Robert was doing amazingly well in the field, considering that he

had been accustomed to the relatively soft life of a house servant. Robert quickly

learned everything that was there to learn about raising a rice crop � when to flood

the fields, when to drain them, and so on. After four years, Manigault rewarded

Robert’s hard work and his self-development by making him driver of the plantation,

with managerial authority (under the white overseer) over the other slaves. Once,

when a new and relatively inexperienced overseer had been appointed, Manigault

expected this overseer to follow the advice about irrigating the fields that Robert (and

another trusted slave) could offer him; and when the new overseer failed to achieve

the desired output of rice, Manigault instituted an enquiry into whether the overseer

had been following the good advice available from Robert and the other trusted slave.

Robert’s chosen path was not that of ‘‘autonomy,’’ because his master had the power

to sack him from his privileged position as a house servant, and the only sure way

Robert could escape spending the rest of his life in mind-numbing drudgery, and

could exercise his intelligence and managerial skill, was to regain his master’s good

will. But the story had a tragic ending, because in 1857 (after nine years as driver)

Robert suddenly died, pretty surely by suicide. Did he regain his master’s respect at

the expense of losing his own self-respect?21

A less unhappy variant of Robert’s career of self-development � but also sad in its

own way � appears in President Polk’s records. At Polk’s father’s small plantation in

central Tennessee � near Nashville � there had been a skilled blacksmith named

Harry, who came into James Polk’s possession. Harry had an ‘‘abroad’’ marriage with

a woman who lived in the neighborhood; but her master removed her and her

children to northern Mississippi, threatening the permanent destruction of the

enslaved family. Harry prevailed upon Polk to let him go to Carroll County,

Mississippi, near his wife and children, but 35 miles away from Polk’s own plantation

farther north in Mississippi. Polk rented Harry, on an annual contract, to a white

man in Carroll County. Polk was willing to do this because Harry had become such a

skilled blacksmith that his annual rent was large; and blacksmiths were in greater

demand in newly settled northern Mississippi than in long-settled Tennessee: Harry

in Mississippi earned more money for Polk than he had done in Tennessee. The

arrangement secured a kind of independence for Harry (e.g., Harry was able to earn a

good deal of money for himself by working in his free time there); but everything

depended on Harry’s retaining Polk’s good will, so that Polk would be willing to

renew Harry’s rental arrangements from one year to the next. To keep Polk sweet,

Harry had letters sent to his master full of the most egregious flattery. Harry seems to

have associated with white men in Mississippi and to have placed bets with them on

the outcome of Polk’s election campaigns, with Harry of course betting that his

master would win. Harry had lost money when Polk was defeated � twice � for re-

election as Governor of Tennessee; but the blacksmith won his bets grandly when Polk

triumphed in the presidential election of 1844. Harry’s magnificent winnings

included � besides $25 of cash � 11 pairs of boots, one barrel of flour, lots of

tobacco, and 40 gallons of whiskey. Harry seems to have arranged for most of the

whiskey to be distributed in advance of the election, by white allies, to influence the

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voters. Harry’s letter assured Polk that Harry had ‘‘treated [the whiskey] all out in

Electionaring for you through my friends who stood by me in Electionaring Troble. I

tell you Master Jimmy that I made some big speaches for you and though an humble

negro I made some votes for you . . . . You may be assured my dear Master Jimmy

that I have done all in my Power for you.’’ Harry was as eager to ingratiate himself

with the President-elect as the dozens of white would-be officeholders who addressed

similar letters to Polk at the same time. Yet, by 1848, Polk ended Harry’s

independence, and required him to live henceforth on Polk’s own Mississippi

plantation, evidently breaking up Harry’s marriage to his second wife and separating

him from his children.22

Thus, for some slaves, a strategy for survival was to accept from a well-disposed

master the opportunity to develop one’s skills as a house servant, or as an artisan, or

even to exercise one’s managerial talents as a driver. This was not the path of a Nat

Turner, nor was it a route that secured a slave’s autonomy from the white man’s

world, though it might secure at least temporarily the sort of limited independence

that Blacksmith Harry tasted. This was a deep-rooted tradition among some of the

bondpeople. I cannot help feeling admiration for a person like the butler, and later

building contractor, William Johnson; I feel sorrow at the death of Driver Robert,

which suggested the cost of his regaining his master’s esteem; and I find some

sympathy even for the transparent flatteries of Blacksmith Harry.

***

Now to mention briefly four areas where I want to pose questions.

The first is religion. Everyone agrees that the slaves’ religion was an African

American amalgam. The question remains about the balance between these two

elements. In the Carolina and Georgia lowcountry the African elements were

conspicuous. But by 1860 fewer than 5% of Southern slaves lived in the Carolina and

Georgia lowcountry, and too much weight may have been placed on the distinctive

situation there.23 In Virginia, I was surprised to find how far the antebellum slaves’

religion appeared to be suffused with conventional Christian doctrine. The Christian

promise of salvation on Judgment Day offered hope to slaves who had all too little to

hope for in this world. Its doctrine of turning the other cheek helped to impel some

bondpeople to make the compromises that, though unpalatable, were usually

necessary for survival. Christianity’s implication that there might be a higher law

than that of man emboldened many bondpeople to acts of nonviolent dissidence �embarked upon with confidence that a just God would approve, and that brave slaves

would surely be rewarded in heaven, whatever the outcome of their earthly

enterprises. Slaves drew their own conclusions from these Christian doctrines, but

the tenets themselves appear to have been similar, to a surprising degree, to the

doctrines held by evangelical white Southerners. How far, we might ask, did the

slaves’ religion, by 1860, resemble the contemporary evangelical religion of Southern

white people?24

Secondly, the bondpeople’s family lives have been much scrutinized. There appear

to have been two strong family institutions among antebellum slaves: a vigorous

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nuclear family model, which coexisted with a subordinate, yet substantial, matrifocal

model (i.e., one where the family was centered on the mother). Many of the Virginia

interviewees had grown up in nuclear families and had cherished strong emotional

attachments to their fathers as well as to their mothers. But many other interviewees

virtually never mentioned their fathers, who at best appear to have been shadowy

figures in their lives. ‘‘Abroad’’ marriages (where the husband lived on a different

plantation from his wife) were numerous in Virginia. If the husband lived very near

his wife and children, these marriages might function like a nuclear family. But

usually an abroad husband lived so far from his wife that authorized visits could

occur no more often than once a week. Many of these marriages were likely to have

functioned somewhat like a matrifocal family, placing extra responsibilities for child-

rearing on the mother, and perhaps lessening some fathers’ sense of responsibility for

their children. At slave sales the standard family unit on offer was a woman

accompanied by a young child or children, but seldom by the children’s father.

Southern legislators � by never legalizing slaves’ marriages, and thereby failing to

provide legal support for the slaves’ nuclear family institutions � weakened those

institutions.25 Emily West has argued forcibly that in South Carolina abroad

marriages worked well, while other writers have declared that uncles or fictive kin

could adequately compensate for absent fathers in matrifocal families.26 Recently,

Anthony Kaye � using records of the U.S. Pension Bureau � has thrown new light on

the slaves’ family customs, and on how bondpeople tried to protect their nuclear

families.27 The last word may not yet have been written about the slaves’ family lives.

We might continue to ask: How far did the slaves successfully resist the forces tending

to weaken their family institutions?

Thirdly, I want to consider the issue of community solidarity. In the book about

rice plantations, I argued that Charles Manigault’s Savannah River slaves were all in

the same boat, with no firm divisions between field hands and ‘‘privileged’’ slaves.28

But while that may have been true at that plantation, I now suppose that the situation

there arose because the plantation was absentee-owned, with no resident planter

around whose dwelling a group of ‘‘privileged’’ slaves could be clustered. The Virginia

interviews indicate that the lives of some privileged slaves differed substantially from

those of ordinary slaves. While there is nevertheless clear evidence of community

solidarity across class lines, I am now more struck than I used to be by the class

divisions within the black community.29 Just as two distinct traditions � of nuclear

families and of matrifocal families � coexisted, so also two distinct traditions � of

community solidarity but also of class division � appear to have coexisted. We might

continue to ask: How far did the slaves successfully resist the forces that tended to

divide some ‘‘privileged’’ slaves from the other bondpeople?

Finally, how may one assess the slaves’ morale? In the book about Virginia I have

stressed the slaves’ resilience: in the face of oppression, they kept up their spirits

reasonably well, sustained by their religion, by their vigorous culture of dissidence, by

their family loyalties, and by the tradition of self-development cherished by some.30

But in the book about rice plantations I argued (based largely on the Journal of the

English actress Frances Kemble) that the rice slaves’ morale was battered. For

example, Kemble became well acquainted with a privileged slave named Israel � a

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wagon driver � whose father knew how to read; but Israel himself had never learned

to read. Kemble asked him why he had never got his father to teach him. Israel cried

out, ‘‘Missis, what for me learn to read? me have no prospect.’’ Israel’s self-confidence

was undermined: he felt he was in a hopeless situation, where there was no point in

his striving to improve himself.31 Can both things have been true? Can a good deal of

resilience have coexisted with widespread low morale?

Perhaps the answer is ‘‘Yes.’’ Persuaded by Kemble’s first-hand account, I may have

underestimated the slaves’ capacity to endure, without their suffering devastation to

their spirits. But considerable resilience may have coexisted with a substantial

weakening of many bondpeople’s morale. We might continue to ask: How far did the

slaves maintain strong morale against the forces tending to undermine it?

Here, then, is a way of looking at antebellum slavery that � although not

comprehensive � is I hope reasonably coherent. The masters were businessmen and

women, who held slaves for their own economic and social benefit. In every major

crop region of the South the regime was dreadfully rigorous. (Surely Richard Follett

and Michael Tadman would agree that this was also true of Louisiana’s sugarcane

region.32) The slaves’ culture of resistance found expression primarily through

nonviolent dissidence, especially through flight, sometimes destined to achieve

permanent freedom, but much more often aimed simply at gaining the respite of

several days, weeks, or months in the nearby woods or swamps. Among some slaves

there flourished a tradition of self-development that obliged participants (such as the

butler William Johnson, Driver Robert, and Blacksmith Harry) not to seek cultural

autonomy, but rather to depend on offers of special privilege from their masters.

In most parts of the South, the slaves’ religion, while distinctive in significant

ways, was nevertheless a recognizably Christian doctrine that comforted and inspired

many of its adherents. Two different family institutions coexisted among the slaves,

the nuclear family tradition being more common, but the matrifocal model being

also pervasive. Similarly, two strong, somewhat contradictory traditions coexisted,

that of community solidarity and that of something like class differentiation between

ordinary workers and a much smaller group of relatively privileged bondpeople. The

resilience of the slaves against their oppression was great, yet low morale may have

been widespread. The slaves’ agency was substantial, and stories of their valor and

strength were abundant. But the masters’ power was great, and the scars left by

slavery were ineradicable.

Notes

1. This talk was given at the annual BrANCH conference in Liverpool, England, October 9,

2010.2. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days; Dusinberre, Slavemaster President; Dusinberre, Strategies for

Survival.3. James Polk to Sarah Polk, September 26, 1834, in Slavemaster President, 15.4. Robert Allston to James H. Hammond, July 24, 1846, Easterby, South Carolina Rice

Plantation, 95, in Them Dark Days, 301.5. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 50�6.6. Ibid., 49�52 (esp. Tables 5 and 6); also 56�83.

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7. Ibid., 12�24 (esp. Table 1, column g).8. In the lowcountry rice kingdom, during the mid-nineteenth century, the child mortality

rate (to age 15) was about 66% (Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 537). In Jamaica, early inthe nineteenth century, it appears to have been ‘‘only’’ about 52% (Fogel, ‘‘Estimating theUndercount,’’ 289 [Table 42.2]). In the lowcountry rice kingdom, during the mid-nineteenth century, the annual number of births probably only slightly exceeded theannual number of deaths (Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 410�16). Part of the explanationis that enslaved women in the lowcountry rice kingdom were less fertile than thoseelsewhere in the American South (ibid., 415, 536 [note 78]).

9. Polk instructed his agents to purchase slaves aged 12�21 years, but the agents calculated(correctly) that the president would not complain if they bought younger slaves; and infact, among their purchases were one child aged 10 years and two aged 11 years. Hence mystatement that Polk ‘‘required’’ only bondpeople between the ages of 10 and 21 years.Among the eight children aged 10�13 years, I include the 13-year-old Calvin, whom Polk’sagent immediately sold for more than his purchase price, crediting the profit to Polk’saccount. Dusinberre, Slavemaster President, 16�22.

10. Perdue, Weevils, 128, in Strategies for Survival, 77.11. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 123, 142�58 (esp. 144).12. Ibid., 143.13. Ibid., 76, 103, 161�2.14. At Polk’s West Tennessee plantation he held (1832�1834) six slaves whom he did not move

to his new Mississippi plantation. At the Mississippi plantation there were 56 slaves in1849. Thus the total number of potential fugitives was about 62. Dusinberre, SlavemasterPresident, 32; 184, column j.

15. Five slaves fled from the West Tennessee plantation, and at least 13 from the Mississippiplantation, making a total of at least 18. As explained in the book, this record includesseven years (1850�1856 inclusive) when the plantation was owned by Polk’s widow; Polk’soverseer John Mairs continued in his post during these years. Dusinberre, SlavemasterPresident, 27�48 (esp. 33).

16. Ibid., 31.17. Ibid., 35�7, 25.18. Although James Campbell has demonstrated that, in Richmond, slave violence against

white people was greater during the 1850s than previously, the situation appears to havebeen different in the rest of Virginia. During the 1850s the average annual number ofslaves, per 100,000 slaves, convicted in that state of murdering white people (0.66) wassmaller than the average annual figure, per 100,000 slaves, from 1790 to 1850 (0.76).Campbell, Slavery on Trial, 82�7; Dusinberre, Strategies for Survival, 64�5, 224 n 45; seealso 153�62, 143�53.

19. Blackett, ‘‘Dispossessing Massa.’’20. Perdue, Barden, and Phillips, Weevils, 165�70, in Strategies for Survival, 193�4, 201�4

(quote at 203).21. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 95, 97�9 (quote at 97), 170�1, 194�5.22. Dusinberre, Slavemaster President, 110�15 (quote at 114: Harry to James Polk, November

28, 1844).23. In 1860 the enslaved population of 15 lowcountry counties (two in North Carolina, seven

‘‘districts’’ in South Carolina, and six coastal counties in Georgia) was 188,000. The totalU.S. slave population was 3,954,000. U.S. Census, 1860, Population. The counties (or‘‘districts’’) were: (North Carolina:) Brunswick, New Hanover; (South Carolina:) Beaufort,Charleston, Colleton, Georgetown, Horry, Marion, Williamsburgh; (Georgia:) Bryan,Camden, Chatham, Glynn, Liberty, McIntosh.

24. Dusinberre, Strategies for Survival, 121�40.25. Ibid., 73�84, 168, 170�9.26. West, Chains of Love, esp. 43�79.

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27. Kaye, Joining Places, 51�82.28. Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 178�201.29. Dusinberre, Strategies for Survival, 15�49, 180�6, 192�204.30. Ibid., 207�9, 121�204.31. Kemble, Journal of a Residence, 314; Dusinberre, Them Dark Days, 248�81 (quote at 271).32. Follett, The Sugar Masters; Tadman, ‘‘Demographic Cost.’’

References

Blackett, R.J.M. ‘‘Dispossessing Massa: Fugitive Slaves and the Politics of Slavery after 1850.’’American Nineteenth Century History 10 (2009): 119�36.

Campbell, James M. Slavery on Trial: Race, Class, and Criminal Justice in AntebellumRichmond. Virginia. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.

Dusinberre, William. Them Dark Days: Slavery in the American Rice Swamps. New York:Oxford University Press, 1996.

****. Slavemaster President: The Double Career of James Polk. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2003.

****. Strategies for Survival: Recollections of Bondage in Antebellum Virginia. Charlottesville:University of Virginia Press, 2009.

Easterby, J.H., ed. The South Carolina Rice Plantation, as Revealed in the Papers of Robert F.W.Allston. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945.

Fogel, Robert William. ‘‘Estimating the Undercount of Births and Deaths below Age Three.’’ InWithout Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery: Evidence and Methods,ed. Robert W. Fogel, Ralph A. Galantine, and Richard L. Manning, 286�91. New York:Norton, 1992.

Follett, Richard J. The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana’s Cane World, 1820�1860.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.

Kaye, Anthony E. Joining Places: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South. Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 2007.

Kemble, Frances Anne. Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838�1839. 1863.Reprint, ed. John K. Scott, New York: Knopf, 1961.

Perdue, Charles L., Jr., Thomas E. Barden, and Robert K. Phillips, eds. Weevils in the Wheat:Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1976.

Tadman, Michael. ‘‘The Demographic Cost of Sugar: Debates on Slave Societies and NaturalIncrease in the Americas.’’ American Historical Review 105 (2000): 1534�75.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. Eighth Census, 1860: Population. Washington, DC: U.S.Government Printing Office, 1864.

West, Emily. Chains of Love: Slave Couples in Antebellum South Carolina. Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, 2004.

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