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Slavery:  An Exercise in Propaganda

                 The narratives, which chronicle personal experiences under slavery, are generally accurate in that they seem to honestly depict what these people went through, but the choice of sources for the testimonies appears to demonstrate an inherent bias towards the very worst cases.  On the one hand, the abolitionists were likely to be more interested in narratives that demonstrate the harshest aspects of life under slavery, since that would better serve their goal of getting people to understand that slavery was wrong.  On the other, those most mistreated under slavery would have the most to say against slavery and the most motivation to agree to provide these narratives.

                 On the whole, life under slavery was not fair, not kind, and not morally justifiable, but it was also not quite as uniformly miserable as the anti-slavery narratives might lead the reader to believe.  Furthermore, when examined in contrast to contemporaneous working conditions for paid labor, slavery was sometimes comparable in its harm to factory work in the North.  This very issue is raised in some of the essays written in defense of slavery, providing one of the few biting arguments – unaddressed by the narratives – among the specious ones, and further showing the limitations of the narratives in providing a comprehensive understanding of the institution of slavery.

                 It might be expected that slave narratives would be objective because they’re simply the reports of real people.  However, these narratives were collected and published by abolitionists for a specific political purpose, not merely as a neutral record of the state of affairs.  Quite simply, they were looking for propaganda material to help get anti-slavery legislators into office, and they were largely successful.  It would be reasonable to conclude that they would want to seek out people with interesting and relevant stories rather than interviewing former slaves at random.

                 While the narratives published between 1835 and 1865, which numbered in excess of 80, were factual and primarily autobiographical, they developed over time into a distinct literary genre that made use of fictionalized dialogue, included trademark recurrent features, and was sometimes as much abolitionist treatise as memoir.  (Slave Narrative) This does not mean that the narratives presented false accounts, but that their origin compels us to consider the likelihood of selection bias on the part of the collectors, as well as a bias caused by self-selection among those who endured the worst that slavery had to offer.

                 One hint of such bias is the prevalence of accounts in which the slave is so horribly treated as to be maimed, which would seem to go against the owner’s interests.  An example of this is the case of Moses Roper, whose narrative, entitled “Among the Instruments of Torture Employed”, quite vividly depicts his torture (Roper).  While there’s no doubt that horrible incidents like this were all too common, if such treatment had been universal then there would not have been many slaves left who were still able to work.  It seems more likely that Roper was made an example of, both to discourage him from trying to escape again and, perhaps just as importantly, as a threat to keep others in line.  In other words, this may be more of an example of a cruel coercive technique than business as usual for the average person in captivity.

                 In 1788, Olaudah Equiano gave a vivid, bleak account of what it was like to come over on a slave ship from Africa under the most inhumane conditions.  Given that it closely matched other narratives and accounts, there is very little doubt of its truthfulness.  The picture it paints is an ugly one; “The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.  This […] brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died.”  In order to increase sympathy among readers, a point was made of reiterating that Equiano was deeply spiritual man, implying that he therefore deserved to be treated better than cattle, despite his race.  (Equiano)

                 Ten years after Equiano gave his account of the middle passage, Venture Smith talked about what it was like to be captured by slave traders and then marched to the coast for the middle passage.  “The invaders then pinioned the prisoners of all ages and sexes indiscriminately, took their flocks and all their effects, and moved on their way towards the sea. On the march the prisoners were treated with clemency, on account of their being submissive and humble. Having come to the next tribe, the enemy laid siege and immediately took men, women, children, flocks, and all their valuable effects.” (Smith)  The tone of Smith’s account is very similar to Equiano’s, and makes a lot of the same points, but does show that the cruelty of the captors was to some extent reserved for the insubordinate.

                 After the ban on bringing new African slaves into America was put into effect in 1808, the narratives began to take on a different tone.  Slowly, they became more about slaves who were mistreated and then escaped, particularly if they had a religious theme of redemption or purpose.  For a slave to have a published narrative after the ban, they had to have been mistreated even more than average, they had to have the will to run away, and they also had to have the intelligence not to get caught once they became escaped slaves  (Slave Narrative).  Narratives like the Confession of Nat Turner, and the aforementioned Moses Roper narrative, became more and more common.

                 Turner says in his Confession, “hearing the scriptures commented on at meetings, I was struck with that particular passage which says: ‘Seek ye the kingdom of Heaven and all things shall be added unto you.’  I reflected much on this passage, and prayed daily for light on this subject – As I was praying one day at my plough, the spirit spoke to me, [repeating that passage]’”  (Turner)  The religious theme was very important because it made the abolitionists’ cause about Christianity, instead of just economics or government.

                 Making slavery a religious issue was thought to be more likely to convince people to join the abolitionist ranks, which is why much care was taken in the selection and presentation of these stories.  Likewise, the persuasive essays in support of slavery took great care in the selection and framing of the issues such that the institution of slavery was put in the best possible light and compared to the worst problems of the North.

                 As a result, the arguments for and against slavery have one thing in common: neither actually addresses the point of the other.  It’s like two ships passing in the night, in that they both fail to notice what the other side is saying.   From the abolitionists come the narratives decrying the cruel practices of the slave owners, pointing out how unfair and unjust the institution of slavery is.  The slave owners do not answer these concerns, account for the cruelty of their practices, or speak of human rights.  Instead, they focus on how bad the lives of factory workers in the North could be, in an attempt to make slavery look good in comparison.  While this argument is guilty of the tu quoque fallacy, it’s still significant that the abolitionists don’t seem interested in explaining why they care so much employee relations in the South while turning a blind eye to the plight of their own workers.

                 The abolitionists found it easiest to focus on the physical violence done to slaves, but this meant they often missed the deeper mistreatments.  In Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, a slave named Isaac talks about how Thomas Jefferson sent him to become an apprentice to a tin smith.  “Isaac was the only black boy in Bringhouse's shop.  When Isaac carred the cups to his Old Master to show him, he was mightily pleased. Said, ‘Isaac you are larnin mighty fast; I bleeve I must send you back to Vaginny to car on the tin business.’” (Campbell)  While there is no violence in the narrative, the condescending attitude of Jefferson is very apparent.  Isaac is not allowed to make decisions about his career; he’s denied freedoms that even ten year old boys had at the time because, even under a master who wasn’t violent, an adult slave was considered inferior to a child.  Even if no slave was ever beaten, this is not possibly justifiable.

                 Apologists for slavery had a variety of arguments for their stance.  John Barbot, an agent for the French Royal African Company, offers the contention that, because blacks are sold by blacks, slavery under whites is justified.  He states that “… these slaves are generally poor and weak, by reason of the barbarous usage they have had in traveling so far, being continually beaten, and almost famish'd; so inhuman are the Blacks to one another…”  Barbot goes on to contrast this with how (comparatively) well whites treat the slaves, which he hopes people will somehow accept as sufficient justification for continuing to keep them enslaved.  (Barbot)

                 Not only is this argument invalid because the conclusion fails to follow logically, but the premises are questionable.  Despite his contention the enslaved are treated more humanely by the white owners, Barbot admits, “And tho' I must say I am naturally compassionate, yet have I been necessitated sometimes to cause the teeth of those wretches to be broken…” to allow force-feeding people who were so miserable that they preferred death to continued slavery (Barbot).  This points out failures at two levels, in that it both directly shows the level of brutality he finds acceptable to ensure that his precious livestock survives and indirectly indicates just how unlivable their conditions in captivity were.

                 Barbot also implies that whites are doing a favor to the people who would have been enslaved anyhow and suffered even more otherwise.  However, it turns out that the demand for slaves encouraged an increase in the supply.  The profitability of the slave trade was noticed by Africans and led to changes in their legal and economic structure.  One observer writes, “Since this Slave-Trade has been us'd, all Punishments are changed into Slavery; there being an advantage on such Condemnations, they strain for Crimes very hard, in order to get the Benefit of selling the Criminal. Not only Murder, Theft and Adultery, are punish'd by selling the criminal for a Slave, but every trifling crime is punished in the same manner.” (Moore).  Very clearly, the idea that the whites were rescuing people from a condition that they’d have been in anyhow is inaccurate.

                 Of course, the Africans were not the only ones to profit from slavery, even at the cost of radically altering their way of life in a way that makes slavery integral.  Fontaine writes, “But to live in Virginia without slaves is morally impossible” (Fontaine).  He goes on to argue that, since the price of farm products is set by the free market, people find the cost of necessities, such as food, so high that they are “thus obliged to purchase some slaves and land.  This, of course, draws us all into the original sin and curse of the country of purchasing slaves, …” (Fontaine).  The result, according to Fontaine, is that “we have no merchants, traders, or artificers of any sort but what become planters in a short time” (Fontaine).  In seems that his argument boils down to saying that slavery is an economic necessity, therefore acceptable.  Aside from what looks like the Naturalistic Fallacy, this ignores the simple fact that most Southerners did not own slaves, and yet they got by.

                 As time passed, slavery became more and more of an institution of Southern culture.  Race, a relatively modern sociological construction of the 15th century, needed more and more scientific justification during the Age of Reason.  Even though there was no evidence to suggest that blacks were inferior, the idea was needed to excuse slavery.  Thomas Jefferson fancied himself a man of science and did his best to provide such excuses in his book, Notes on Virginia.  He uses the following words, which speak for themselves more clearly than any summary could,

They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidnies, and more by the glands of the skin, which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This greater degree of transpiration renders them more tolerant of heat, and less so of cold, than the whites… They seem to require less sleep. A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning.  They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present… Their griefs are transient… In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection.  To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour…  Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior,… that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous… Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad…I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture.

 

                 Jefferson also wrote the Declaration of Independence, in which he said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”  Apparently, he somehow managed not so see any contradiction between these two writings.

                 In 1857, just three years before the civil war, George Fitzhugh wrote an essay that not only defended slavery but extolled its virtues.  This approach was in contrast to the earlier attitude in which slavery was sold as a necessary evil, rather than good, reflecting the polarization of the two sides.  He actually says that the “… negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care or labor.” (Fitzhugh)

                 This utopian vision is in stark contrast to the narrative of Moses Roper, who said, “the first thing he did was to pour some tar upon my head, then rubbed it all over my face, took a torch with pitch on, and set it on fire,; he put it out before it did me very great injury, but the pain which I endured was the most excruciating, nearly all my hair having been burnt off.” (Roper)  Not only does Fitzhugh fail to address the abolitionist concern about mistreatment of slaves, but he goes on to say, quite unconvincingly, that hatred of slavery is really a hatred of blacks.  (Fitzhugh)

                 Fitzhugh also defended slavery by saying that factory workers are treated much more harshly than slaves.  “The free laborer must work or starve.  He is more of a slave than the negro, because he works longer and harder for less allowance than the slave, and has no holiday, because the cares of life with him begin when its labors end.  He has no liberty and not a single right. . . .” (Fitzhugh)  While this downplays the fact that slaves were legally property and couldn’t quit, it does score a few points about real problems in the treatment of factory workers, which none of the abolitionist papers bothered to address.

                 On the whole, it just seems that both sides were more interested in attacking each other than in admitting to their own faults and rectifying them.  Each had a narrow focus that omits important human issues.  The abolitionists should have been saying, “Let’s find a way to guarantee rights to everyone, even factory workers.” And the slave owners should have been saying, “Let’s find a way to rid ourselves of the cruelty inherent in slavery, even if it means ending slavery itself.”  Instead, the two sides became increasingly inflexible and polarized, and the slave narratives that were recorded were true but not always representative, which limited their ability to provide a comprehensive understanding of the institution of slavery.

 

Works Cited

Barbot, John. “Prepossessed of the Opinion ...That Europeans Are Fond Of Their Flesh.”   Description of the African Slave Trade. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://housatonic.net/faculty/ABALL/PrimarySourceDocs/025.htm>.

 

Campbell, Charles. “Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, as Dictated to Charles Campbell by Isaac" (1847).” America Past and Present Online. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/chapter8/medialib/primarysources2_8_1.html>.

 

Equiano, Olaudah. “The Middle Passage (1788).” America Past and Present Online. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e /chapter3/medialib/primarysources1_3_1.html>.

 

Fitzhugh, George. “The Blessings of Slavery.” America Past and Present Online. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/chapter13/medialib/primarysources1_13_2.html>.

 

Fontaine, Reverend Peter. “Defense of Slavery in Virginia.” Africans in America. Public   Broadcasting System. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h6t.html>.

 

Jefferson, Thomas. “Notes on the State of Virginia.” America Past and Present Online. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/chapter6/medialib/primarysources2_6_1.html>.

 

Moore, Francis. “Travels into the Inland Parts of Africa.” Description of African Slavery, 1738. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://housatonic.net/faculty/ABALL/PrimarySourceDocs/027.htm>.

 

Roper, Moses. “Among the Instruments of Torture Employed.” Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://housatonic.net/faculty/ABALL/PrimarySourceDocs/037.htm>.

 

“Slave Narrative.” 1 Dec. 2004. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. 2 Dec. 2004 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_narrative>.

 

Smith, Venture. “I Then Had A Rope Put About My Neck.” A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://housatonic.net/faculty/ABALL/PrimarySourceDocs/034.htm>.

 

Turner, Nat. “Confession (1831)”. America Past and Present Online. 22 Nov. 2004 <http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/chapter13/medialib/primarysources2_13_1.html>.

 

Copyright 2004

by Amanda Evans

Date: 11/28/04