Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Vintage (1976), 864 pages
Description
This landmark history of slavery in the South--a winner of the Bancroft Prize--challenged conventional views of slaves by illuminating the many forms of resistance to dehumanization that developed in slave society. Rather than emphasizing the cruelty and degradation of slavery, historian Eugene Genovese investigates the ways that slaves forced their owners to acknowledge their humanity through culture, music, and religion. Not merely passive victims, the slaves in this account actively engaged with the paternalism of slaveholding culture in ways that supported their self-respect and aspirations for freedom. Roll, Jordan, Roll covers a vast range of subjects, from slave weddings and funerals, to the language, food, clothing, and labor of slaves, and places particular emphasis on religion as both a major battleground for psychological control and a paradoxical source of spiritual strength. Displaying keen insight into the minds of both slaves and slaveholders, Roll, Jordan, Roll is a testament to the power of the human spirit under conditions of extreme oppression.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member mdobe
Genovese's is an account of slavery based upon a class-based system of dominance, reinforced by racism (p. 3). Dominance, he stresses, is not as complete as earlier historians thought. Slaves themselves limited the extent to which whites exercised dominance, for example by developing
Another source of resistance was embedded in the very relationship between overseer and slaves (p. 21). The slave might take their grievances to the master directly when treated badly by the master. Though they might be beaten for this. the end result was usually better treatment. Also the overseer was constrained as to the lengths he could go to in inflicting brutal punishment by the need to maintain morale in order to keep slave production high. A good crop meant that overseer kept his job (p. 15).
Another source of slave resistance stemmed from the ambiguities of the southern legal system (p. 28). The ambiguity existed primarily in this: slaves commit crimes against whites from time to time, if they are to be held accountable for this they must be judged to have wills (i.e., they must have a moral personality), and if they have wills they are human beings, so how can this be squared with chattel slavery? The result of this vicious circle was that masters appeared to their slaves as hypocritical, even weak. Slaves took advantage of this (p. 30).
Genovese's section on Slave work ethic is an especially interesting compliment to that of Herbert Gutman. Slaves too fought for control of production in a market-driven economy. Breaking equipment, refusing to do more than a certain amount of labor, they forced their masters to make accommodations. Wisely, enlightened masters recognized that they had to give the slave space. Resorting to a characterization of the slave worker as "lazy" and naturally averse to work, they justified the overtures they made to the slaves as "workers." Just as the northern factory manager needed to accommodate ethnic celebrations in order to curtail the worst abuses of blue Monday, so too the plantation owner allowed the slaves their corn shucking parties. Cotton production proceeded at a different pace than factories, and the nature of slave labor and the compromises it entailed were lost on the Northerners as they occupied the South after the war. In examining hegemony in the master-slave relationship, Genovese provokes a re-evaluation of what the new south would face in integrating slaves into industrial discipline.
It would also seem fruitful to look comparatively at the experiences of slaves in factories and immigrant labor in factories in the south. We read about yeomen farmers identifying with planter aristocrats out of race prejudice. At the North, Irish immigrants rioted in NY after the emancipation proclamation made the war "to free the slaves." It seems unimaginable that slaves in factories in the antebellum south would not have elicited the same negative response from immigrant whites.
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African-American religion (p. 6).Another source of resistance was embedded in the very relationship between overseer and slaves (p. 21). The slave might take their grievances to the master directly when treated badly by the master. Though they might be beaten for this. the end result was usually better treatment. Also the overseer was constrained as to the lengths he could go to in inflicting brutal punishment by the need to maintain morale in order to keep slave production high. A good crop meant that overseer kept his job (p. 15).
Another source of slave resistance stemmed from the ambiguities of the southern legal system (p. 28). The ambiguity existed primarily in this: slaves commit crimes against whites from time to time, if they are to be held accountable for this they must be judged to have wills (i.e., they must have a moral personality), and if they have wills they are human beings, so how can this be squared with chattel slavery? The result of this vicious circle was that masters appeared to their slaves as hypocritical, even weak. Slaves took advantage of this (p. 30).
Genovese's section on Slave work ethic is an especially interesting compliment to that of Herbert Gutman. Slaves too fought for control of production in a market-driven economy. Breaking equipment, refusing to do more than a certain amount of labor, they forced their masters to make accommodations. Wisely, enlightened masters recognized that they had to give the slave space. Resorting to a characterization of the slave worker as "lazy" and naturally averse to work, they justified the overtures they made to the slaves as "workers." Just as the northern factory manager needed to accommodate ethnic celebrations in order to curtail the worst abuses of blue Monday, so too the plantation owner allowed the slaves their corn shucking parties. Cotton production proceeded at a different pace than factories, and the nature of slave labor and the compromises it entailed were lost on the Northerners as they occupied the South after the war. In examining hegemony in the master-slave relationship, Genovese provokes a re-evaluation of what the new south would face in integrating slaves into industrial discipline.
It would also seem fruitful to look comparatively at the experiences of slaves in factories and immigrant labor in factories in the south. We read about yeomen farmers identifying with planter aristocrats out of race prejudice. At the North, Irish immigrants rioted in NY after the emancipation proclamation made the war "to free the slaves." It seems unimaginable that slaves in factories in the antebellum south would not have elicited the same negative response from immigrant whites.
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LibraryThing member Carolfoasia
I think the book could have been better organized. I felt like it started at the end talking about slaves leaving the plantations after the Civil War then going back to the history of paternalism among slaves. It made the first part very boring. Once I was into the history and the relational
I will say it was wonderful to have gone through The Well-Educated Mind book list prior to this book (it is one of the last on the list). I had read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Up from Slavery, Souls of Black Folk, Native Son, Song of Solomon, Invisible Man, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Battle Cry of Freedom, and poetry of Langston Hughes, Rita Dove, and the incredible Paul Laurence Dunbar (my favorite American poet!). It gave me a good foundation for reading Roll, Jordan, Roll because he references many of these books in his work.
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dynamics, I liked the book. It is very long, but it is a worthwhile read.I will say it was wonderful to have gone through The Well-Educated Mind book list prior to this book (it is one of the last on the list). I had read Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Up from Slavery, Souls of Black Folk, Native Son, Song of Solomon, Invisible Man, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Battle Cry of Freedom, and poetry of Langston Hughes, Rita Dove, and the incredible Paul Laurence Dunbar (my favorite American poet!). It gave me a good foundation for reading Roll, Jordan, Roll because he references many of these books in his work.
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LibraryThing member heidilove
A cornerstone to understanding the antebellum period in the US
LibraryThing member annbury
This is an interesting book, except for the fact that Genovese gives both sides of the argument and comes down squarely on each side.
He has obviously read and reviewed every diary or comment by any slaveholder, and any slave who gave an interview, and some of the evidence, for example how these
He has obviously read and reviewed every diary or comment by any slaveholder, and any slave who gave an interview, and some of the evidence, for example how these
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slaves could have obtained skills, is worthwhile. The Marxist slant, such as it is, does not condemn the book. JPH Show Less
LibraryThing member drsabs
In this massive work, Genovese uses Marxist categories to analyze the world the slaves created for themselves in the Old South. His theme, which is documented by intensive examination of primary sources, is that the hegemony of the southern planters over the black slaves was based not only on
The vast bulk of the book is devoted to examining a complete range of life experiences of the slave in the context of this analytical framework, which Genovese applies with a light touch and great sensitivity to the variations and differences in real life. He looks to statements of the slaves in their narratives and interviews as well as reminiscences after the Civil War. He also makes extensive use of the letters and other testimony of white slaveholders and white visitors from the North (e.g. Frederick Law Olmsted). He comes back again and again to the contradictions faced by both the slaveholders and the slaves. By law, the slaves generally had the status of mere objects, instruments of their owner. But in practice, slaveholders had to recognize that the slaves were full human beings that could not be managed purely as things. The slaves combined both accommodation and resistance in the relationships with their masters.
Genovese examines the complexity of these relations, and their inherent contradictions, in the law, religion, emancipation, the role of preachers and drivers, working in the “Big House” or the fields, life in the slave quarters, work ethic, marriage, funerals, cooking, language, surnames, children, old people, clothing and many more areas. He draws on West African roots, makes comparisons with slave culture in other parts of the Western Hemisphere including the Caribbean and Brazil and with the treatment of the working class in Europe and finds the roots of paternalism in medieval Europe. At the end he contrasts paternalist social values with the capitalist market economy in a short case study of Japan.
The paternalistic system consisted of reciprocal duties and obligations for both the masters and the slaves. Having persuaded themselves of their generosity and the slaves’ appreciation of it, the whites faced a rude awakening when the system collapsed and the slaves welcomed emancipation.
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physical power but on a paternalist ideology which the slaveholders adopted both to provide stability to a system ultimately based on violence and to salve their own consciences in justifying holding other human beings in bondage. Given the impracticality of insurrection, Genovese argues that the slaves accepted paternalism as an accommodation to their oppressive and harsh circumstances but turned it to their own use as a form of resistance to slavery. They turned the paternalistic gestures of the planters into non-legal rights or customs that became expectations that the planters could not ignore and in the process the slaves limited in various ways the scope of the planters’ power over them. The development of African-American Christianity played a key role in giving the slaves a sense of community among themselves that enabled them to face the challenges of slavery not just as individuals but as a collectivity and provided them a sense of self-worth which resisted the psychological demoralization that could so easily be the result of slavery. The result was the creation of their own world which became a part of American culture but also provided the basis for the development of black political culture to the civil rights era. (The book was published in 1972.)The vast bulk of the book is devoted to examining a complete range of life experiences of the slave in the context of this analytical framework, which Genovese applies with a light touch and great sensitivity to the variations and differences in real life. He looks to statements of the slaves in their narratives and interviews as well as reminiscences after the Civil War. He also makes extensive use of the letters and other testimony of white slaveholders and white visitors from the North (e.g. Frederick Law Olmsted). He comes back again and again to the contradictions faced by both the slaveholders and the slaves. By law, the slaves generally had the status of mere objects, instruments of their owner. But in practice, slaveholders had to recognize that the slaves were full human beings that could not be managed purely as things. The slaves combined both accommodation and resistance in the relationships with their masters.
Genovese examines the complexity of these relations, and their inherent contradictions, in the law, religion, emancipation, the role of preachers and drivers, working in the “Big House” or the fields, life in the slave quarters, work ethic, marriage, funerals, cooking, language, surnames, children, old people, clothing and many more areas. He draws on West African roots, makes comparisons with slave culture in other parts of the Western Hemisphere including the Caribbean and Brazil and with the treatment of the working class in Europe and finds the roots of paternalism in medieval Europe. At the end he contrasts paternalist social values with the capitalist market economy in a short case study of Japan.
The paternalistic system consisted of reciprocal duties and obligations for both the masters and the slaves. Having persuaded themselves of their generosity and the slaves’ appreciation of it, the whites faced a rude awakening when the system collapsed and the slaves welcomed emancipation.
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LibraryThing member leandrod
I just loved it as a Christian and as a History freak.
Based on extensive exploration of oral History and other records from slaves, slaveholders and observers of slavery in the US, what began as an exploration of how slaves influenced the world of slaveholders ended up, as the title hints, as a
Based on extensive exploration of oral History and other records from slaves, slaveholders and observers of slavery in the US, what began as an exploration of how slaves influenced the world of slaveholders ended up, as the title hints, as a
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record of the witness that preachers but specially slave converts gave of their faith and its power to change people and societies. Show Less
LibraryThing member tuckerresearch
Eugene Genovese, in his Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made, reinterpreted the history of slavery in the antebellum South. Genovese posited that slaves and masters lived in a type of symbiotic relationship, a paternalism “accepted by both masters and slaves” that “afforded a fragile
Genovese utilized a wealth of sources, most of them primary, to buttress his thesis. He cited numerous diaries, plantation records, and travel accounts to get the white side of the story and used court records and published interviews, many of them from the WPA, to get the black side. He even employed the cliometrical work of Stanley Engerman and Robert Fogel, then in its infancy (p. xxi). A helpful “Note on Sources” serves as a sort of bibliographical essay and accompanies his notes, though a separate bibliography would have been appreciated. Genovese’s command and grasp of this material shows both his familiarity with and mastery of the subject matter.
Genovese’s chief argument in Roll, Jordan, Rollis that the slaves were not, as traditionally thought, at the mercy of their all-powerful masters. Nor did the slaveowners necessarily control their captives through brute force but they imposed their collective will through what Gramsci called “hegemony.” The slaveholding class, like other ruling classes, held society together not by lone brute force, but through a set of hegemonic values and mores that kept the working classes, in this case black slaves, in check. The slaves in this case accepted the paternalism of their masters not because they “liked” or “accepted” slavery, but “by accepting a paternalistic ethos and legitimizing class rule, developed their most powerful defense against the dehumanization implicit in slavery” (p. 7). The paternalism of the slaveholders served not only to keep the slaves “happy,” but justified to themselves that they were good people—enlightened despots, in a sense. Genovese notes numerous instances were the masters lightened the burdens and punishments of slavery, perhaps to assuage their own moral guilt. Thus castration and other forms of mutilations as a form of punishment for a wide range of offenses nearly disappeared, to the point a Tennessee slaveholder in 1850 was punished for castrating a “turbulent, insolent, and ungovernable slave” (pp. 67-68). The slaves knew, according to Genovese and the evidence he amasses, that they could make their experience better by exploiting the paternalistic ideas of their masters. Genovese summarizes his thesis by stating: “Southern paternalism may have reinforced racism as well as class exploitation, but it also unwittingly invited its victims to fashion their own interpretation of the social order it was intended to justify” (p. 7).
The rest of Genovese’s Book One attempts to prove this thesis. He draws on various sources to show, what at first glance my be paradoxical, that in the thirty years before the Civil War opportunities for manumission decreased while working conditions got better. Genovese notes how paternalistic attitudes ensured that laws protected the humanity of the slave even as they denied them that humanity. He notes, for instance, the wrenchingly ambiguous ruling of Kentucky’s high court in 1836: “…although the law of this state considers slaves as property, yet it recognizes their personal existence, and, to a qualified extent, their natural rights” (p. 30). The first section of the second book details slave religion on this same theme. If religion was merely a tool of the masters to keep their chattel servile and docile, an opiate of the masses, Christianity would have been roundly rejected by the slaves. Instead, they created a syncretic Christianity, sometimes under the nose of their superiors, with a different salvific focus and eschatology. This religion was creative, vibrant, and, oftentimes, undermined the worldview of the slaveholders. Yet it was allowed to exist and even flourish. The last part of Book Two discusses how slaves were able to retain and create their own working rhythms even under the pressure of their owners: “The actual work rhythm of the slaves, then, had to be hammered out as a compromise between themselves and their masters” (p. 303). Genovese continues: “The masters held the upper hand, but the slaves set limits as best they could” (p. 303).
Book Three adds more evidence to substantiate Genovese’s main thesis. Slaves had vibrant families under a system that seemed dead set against allowing the institution to exist. It is yet another instance of slaves having “agency,” to use that well-worn word, in their lives. Book Four discusses various incidences of slaves directly challenging the authority of the master class. The most intriguing notion is explaining why large-scale slave revolts were relatively rare in the antebellum South when compared to other areas of the slaveholding New World. Genovese posits that slaves insurrections were uncommon not only because slaves were rather few in number or that they were kept down by a continuous, oppressive violence. Instead, perhaps, the lack of many rebellions indicates that slaves were quite able to carve out tolerable lives for themselves, without ever accepting or enjoying the institution of slavery itself (pp. 590-591). Still, revolts proved to Genovese that the Southern slave system was not one where owners held all the power and the slaves held none. The “very existence” of slave insurrections, he wrote, was the “ultimate manifestation of class war under the most unfavorable conditions” (p. 588).
All the evidence that Genovese covers in his book is aimed at portraying the master’s paternalism as a form of hegemony, a socio-cultural control mechanism by which the ruling class rules over the working class. In this Marxian paradigm, the slaves have agency, a modicum of power that can be used as a shield to blunt the blows of the slaveowners. The slaves were able to carve out a life for themselves under the umbrella of paternalism and they knew it. The slaves agitated for and often received “concessions” from their oppressors because they had some power to make demands. In the traditional paradigm of master-slave relations in the antebellum South, the paternalism of Ulrich B. Phillips for example, slaves had no power and lived at the whim of their owners. Genovese’s book provides a thesis and the attendant evidence to counter customary assumptions about slavery.
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bridge across… a society based on racism, slavery, and class exploitation” (p. 5). This idea of a “two-sided” paternalism stood in opposition to the earlier view, held by scholars like Ulrich B. Phillips, that slaveowners held unbridled power over their conversely powerless charges. Instead, slaves made their own world, adapting to their lot in life in various ways, from religion to family life. This often resulted in slaves seeking and retaining better living and working conditions for themselves. Though these ideas descend from Marx via Antonio Gramsci’s idea of social hegemony, and Genovese refers too often to the then recently passed social movements, often radical, of the late 1960s, his ideas must be considered by all who study the course and nature of American slavery.Genovese utilized a wealth of sources, most of them primary, to buttress his thesis. He cited numerous diaries, plantation records, and travel accounts to get the white side of the story and used court records and published interviews, many of them from the WPA, to get the black side. He even employed the cliometrical work of Stanley Engerman and Robert Fogel, then in its infancy (p. xxi). A helpful “Note on Sources” serves as a sort of bibliographical essay and accompanies his notes, though a separate bibliography would have been appreciated. Genovese’s command and grasp of this material shows both his familiarity with and mastery of the subject matter.
Genovese’s chief argument in Roll, Jordan, Rollis that the slaves were not, as traditionally thought, at the mercy of their all-powerful masters. Nor did the slaveowners necessarily control their captives through brute force but they imposed their collective will through what Gramsci called “hegemony.” The slaveholding class, like other ruling classes, held society together not by lone brute force, but through a set of hegemonic values and mores that kept the working classes, in this case black slaves, in check. The slaves in this case accepted the paternalism of their masters not because they “liked” or “accepted” slavery, but “by accepting a paternalistic ethos and legitimizing class rule, developed their most powerful defense against the dehumanization implicit in slavery” (p. 7). The paternalism of the slaveholders served not only to keep the slaves “happy,” but justified to themselves that they were good people—enlightened despots, in a sense. Genovese notes numerous instances were the masters lightened the burdens and punishments of slavery, perhaps to assuage their own moral guilt. Thus castration and other forms of mutilations as a form of punishment for a wide range of offenses nearly disappeared, to the point a Tennessee slaveholder in 1850 was punished for castrating a “turbulent, insolent, and ungovernable slave” (pp. 67-68). The slaves knew, according to Genovese and the evidence he amasses, that they could make their experience better by exploiting the paternalistic ideas of their masters. Genovese summarizes his thesis by stating: “Southern paternalism may have reinforced racism as well as class exploitation, but it also unwittingly invited its victims to fashion their own interpretation of the social order it was intended to justify” (p. 7).
The rest of Genovese’s Book One attempts to prove this thesis. He draws on various sources to show, what at first glance my be paradoxical, that in the thirty years before the Civil War opportunities for manumission decreased while working conditions got better. Genovese notes how paternalistic attitudes ensured that laws protected the humanity of the slave even as they denied them that humanity. He notes, for instance, the wrenchingly ambiguous ruling of Kentucky’s high court in 1836: “…although the law of this state considers slaves as property, yet it recognizes their personal existence, and, to a qualified extent, their natural rights” (p. 30). The first section of the second book details slave religion on this same theme. If religion was merely a tool of the masters to keep their chattel servile and docile, an opiate of the masses, Christianity would have been roundly rejected by the slaves. Instead, they created a syncretic Christianity, sometimes under the nose of their superiors, with a different salvific focus and eschatology. This religion was creative, vibrant, and, oftentimes, undermined the worldview of the slaveholders. Yet it was allowed to exist and even flourish. The last part of Book Two discusses how slaves were able to retain and create their own working rhythms even under the pressure of their owners: “The actual work rhythm of the slaves, then, had to be hammered out as a compromise between themselves and their masters” (p. 303). Genovese continues: “The masters held the upper hand, but the slaves set limits as best they could” (p. 303).
Book Three adds more evidence to substantiate Genovese’s main thesis. Slaves had vibrant families under a system that seemed dead set against allowing the institution to exist. It is yet another instance of slaves having “agency,” to use that well-worn word, in their lives. Book Four discusses various incidences of slaves directly challenging the authority of the master class. The most intriguing notion is explaining why large-scale slave revolts were relatively rare in the antebellum South when compared to other areas of the slaveholding New World. Genovese posits that slaves insurrections were uncommon not only because slaves were rather few in number or that they were kept down by a continuous, oppressive violence. Instead, perhaps, the lack of many rebellions indicates that slaves were quite able to carve out tolerable lives for themselves, without ever accepting or enjoying the institution of slavery itself (pp. 590-591). Still, revolts proved to Genovese that the Southern slave system was not one where owners held all the power and the slaves held none. The “very existence” of slave insurrections, he wrote, was the “ultimate manifestation of class war under the most unfavorable conditions” (p. 588).
All the evidence that Genovese covers in his book is aimed at portraying the master’s paternalism as a form of hegemony, a socio-cultural control mechanism by which the ruling class rules over the working class. In this Marxian paradigm, the slaves have agency, a modicum of power that can be used as a shield to blunt the blows of the slaveowners. The slaves were able to carve out a life for themselves under the umbrella of paternalism and they knew it. The slaves agitated for and often received “concessions” from their oppressors because they had some power to make demands. In the traditional paradigm of master-slave relations in the antebellum South, the paternalism of Ulrich B. Phillips for example, slaves had no power and lived at the whim of their owners. Genovese’s book provides a thesis and the attendant evidence to counter customary assumptions about slavery.
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Subjects
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
864 p.; 8 inches
ISBN
0394716523 / 9780394716527