The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South

Rating:
Summary: Straight forward account of plantation slaves
Review: A historical analysis of an institution is always a difficult thing to write. Extensive works must be read and analyzed, both primary and secondary in order to find trends within similar institutions. Furthermore, the longer the institution was in existance, the more documentation exists that must be sifted over in an effort to see how the institution has evolved over time.

With the difficulty of the task in mind, John Blassingame has done an excellent presenting his research in "The Slave Community." He successfully has used primary accounts of plantation owners, slaves and visitors of the Antebellum South to illustrate how plantation life really was. I use the term, "illustrate" as opposed to "paint a picture" because it more accurately describes what Blassingame has done in his book. He is straight forward in his approach. His attitude is "this is how it is. Here is how I know."

But more than explain how plantation life was for the slave, he shows how African-American culture assimilated to general European-American culture over the generations. He also makes extensive use of other social science disciplines including anthropology and psychology (especially when examining how plantation owners maintained order on their farms and how the slaves resisted the plantation owners). Furthermore, I admire how Blassingame has respect for his reader. In his forward style, he resists the temptation to moralize about the condition of the slaves and/or the barbarity of the whites. Instead, he has respect enough for his reader to let him make up his own mind about the various aspects of the "peculiar institution." After reading this book, I have a hard time picturing anyone attempting to support the plantation owners.

Rating:
Summary: Straight forward account of plantation slaves
Review: A historical analysis of an institution is always a difficult thing to write. Extensive works must be read and analyzed, both primary and secondary in order to find trends within similar institutions. Furthermore, the longer the institution was in existance, the more documentation exists that must be sifted over in an effort to see how the institution has evolved over time.

With the difficulty of the task in mind, John Blassingame has done an excellent presenting his research in "The Slave Community." He successfully has used primary accounts of plantation owners, slaves and visitors of the Antebellum South to illustrate how plantation life really was. I use the term, "illustrate" as opposed to "paint a picture" because it more accurately describes what Blassingame has done in his book. He is straight forward in his approach. His attitude is "this is how it is. Here is how I know."

But more than explain how plantation life was for the slave, he shows how African-American culture assimilated to general European-American culture over the generations. He also makes extensive use of other social science disciplines including anthropology and psychology (especially when examining how plantation owners maintained order on their farms and how the slaves resisted the plantation owners). Furthermore, I admire how Blassingame has respect for his reader. In his forward style, he resists the temptation to moralize about the condition of the slaves and/or the barbarity of the whites. Instead, he has respect enough for his reader to let him make up his own mind about the various aspects of the "peculiar institution." After reading this book, I have a hard time picturing anyone attempting to support the plantation owners.

Rating:
Summary: A Good Treatment of an Unwieldy Topic
Review: Blassingame wrote this book in the face of the insurmountable problem that a community can only be fully understood through tapping the thoughts and feelings of its members. Since slaves thoughts and feelings were so seldom recorded, the book tends to be based mostly on observations by whites. Nevertheless, even in observations of how slaves behaved, there is much that is not well understood. As a result, Blassingame devotes a lengthy section of the book trying to determine the degree of basis in fact of the stereotypical image of slave as demure and subservient. Ultimately Blassingame uses the example of Nazi-operated concentrated camps in World War II to reason through analogy to try to arrive at some kind of definitive conclusion.

This portion is not the bulk of the text, but there are several other points of discussion in the book that seem equally inconclusive in this same way. Nevertheless, there are also some very enlightening discussions such as the structure of marriage and the family, religion, slave rebellions, and miscegenation.

I found Blassingame's writing style very easy to read, and the material compelling. Despite my belly-aching on the inconclusiveness of many of the points in the Slave Community, I felt that this was a shortcoming imposed by the subject of the book, and not Blassingame's fault per se, and I still think it deserves four stars.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Leisure Reading and as a Reference Guide
Review: I read this book for my history of American slavery class and I really enjoyed it. It is one of the books I did not sell back to the college when the semester ended. Blassingame focuses on the slave culture and uses such sources as folk songs, fugitive wanted posters, slave interviews and correspondence, diaries, and memoirs (from slaves and slave holders) to bring insight on life on the plantation. The author offers an extensive, well-organized bibliography which, alone, makes this book valuable.

The chapters cover the topics of enslavement and acculturation, the Americanization of the slave and the Africanization of the South, slave culture, family, rebels and runaways, stereotypes and institutional roles (i.e. the "Sambo" role), plantation realities, and slave personality types. This work also includes appendixes on such subjects as African words, numerals, and sentences used by former slaves, and a comparative examination of total institutions. The book is well-written and also offers numerous illustrations.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Leisure Reading and as a Reference Guide
Review: I read this book for my history of American slavery class and I really enjoyed it. It is one of the books I did not sell back to the college when the semester ended. Blassingame focuses on the slave culture and uses such sources as folk songs, fugitive wanted posters, slave interviews and correspondence, diaries, and memoirs (from slaves and slave holders) to bring insight on life on the plantation. The author offers an extensive, well-organized bibliography which, alone, makes this book valuable.

The chapters cover the topics of enslavement and acculturation, the Americanization of the slave and the Africanization of the South, slave culture, family, rebels and runaways, stereotypes and institutional roles (i.e. the "Sambo" role), plantation realities, and slave personality types. This work also includes appendixes on such subjects as African words, numerals, and sentences used by former slaves, and a comparative examination of total institutions. The book is well-written and also offers numerous illustrations.

Rating:
Summary: The Slave Community
Review: This is a very helpful book if you want to know how slaves lived their lives. It reinforces a lot of the information you learn in school, but also clearifies some things that have been disputed. Overall, it was a good book, and would be great for a report.