U.S. Slavery: The Perpetuation of an American Slavocracy
Nathan Huggins is a renowned historian for his works on African-American history, and being born during the depression his view on history is often laden with views of some of the ugliest of nature. In Black Odyssey, Huggins tone is one that is very scrutinizing of the actions of white Americans toward African-Americans. And this tone stays prevalent from his descriptions of the black odyssey across the Atlantic Ocean for the acquired slaves and grows stronger as he begins to talk about the deplorable nature of slavery. And while Black Odyssey is a book that goes into detail about how blacks were mistreated and unfairly punished, Huggins does open a more psychological aspect to the book by endeavoring into the minds and psyches of slaves in terms of how they are affected by the voyage across the ocean and during slavery. One such element of the psyche that Huggins touches on in his chapter titled “Master and Slave,” is that of “unfreedom,” where he says, “To the African mind, unfreedom was no outlandish condition.” Upon saying that he goes on to explain that while many African customs tied people to a place, a land, or a person, it never subjugated them to the likes of being deemed property of another human being.
Southern Honor is a historical text that delivers a very interesting point of view in terms of studying the slavocracy that was the Southern United States. In his book, Wyatt-Brown offers a perspective unique to the description of slavery, and one may say that his experience of the Civil Rights movement during 1960’s served a large part in developing the perspective that he conveys in Southern Honor. That perspective being that the reason for the continuance and ugliness of slavery is the slave-owner’s belief that he is predestined to be greater than the blacks due to a Euro-Christian belief of honor and gentility. He argues that the existence of honor prior to slavery is what caused slavery to occur, because white Americans viewed themselves distinct and different from Africans, and thereby deemed their way of life more honorable than the other. This view of supremacy led whites to institute slavery. However, Wyatt-Brown is clear to make the distinction that the south did not introduce slavery for slavery’s sake, but to perpetuate the Honor Code, or rule of honor, that they so heavily believed in. It is this very honor code that Wyatt-Brown believes to be the reason for the perpetuation of slavery and maltreatment of African-American slaves.
One of the major differences between the two schools of thought presented by Wyatt-Brown and Huggins is their perception of what slavery was about. That is to say, why did people allow slavery to last as long as it did? Of course the answer is what the answer is to almost everything in history, money. However, both authors go past the mere economic arguments on slavery, and into a more sociological endeavor. Wyatt-Brown turns to his theory of ‘Southern Honor’ to describe what slavery was about, saying that a system of primal honor instilled in society meant that if there were going to be people at the top of civilization than there had to be people at the bottom. Huggins, in the Black Odyssey, offers the opinion that whites wanted to establish the slave as nothing more than a creature of livestock, and that their human nature, unlike livestock, presented white’s with the opportunity to consider blacks as being “property and something less than human.”[1] So for Huggins, slavery was about establishing a difference between white and black, beyond their skin color that is. And in Black Odyssey, it comes across that the relationship that whites create with blacks is one of mal treatment toward African-Americans along with deplorable physical strains to hold them back. Treating slaves like property and livestock, as mentioned before, developed a relationship that basically established that whites were more powerful and in a position to inflict measures of immense pain that could lead to death if need be. Huggins also points out that the element of fear came into play in the relationship between whites and blacks because of the possible slave revolt, and thus physical punishment was often a tactic that came apart of the relationship in order to scare off any possible upheavals. The difference between this perspective and that of Wyatt-Brown’s is that, according to Wyatt-Brown, the relationship between whites and blacks was not to be one that established a physical threat, but that of a social and community collective precedence that whites were naturally superior to blacks. Wyatt-Brown’s honor system is not about physical threats, although he is quite aware that they exist, but the relationship between whites and blacks lies more heavily on the premises that the dominating Christian tradition of gentility had created a primal honor system that organized the relationships of the south with white people being more honorable than slaves. To uphold the honorability of whites over blacks, domination had to be inflicted, and that is where the physical element comes in for Wyatt-Brown, but nonetheless, he is partial to the fact that even the blacks were forced into behaving in a matter that relegated whites to a higher platform, which maintained the honor of southern whites.
For both authors, slavery was not only about something different from each others’ views, but in certain ways, it was something different. For Wyatt-Brown, slavery was like policing just one group of people in a means that left them unequally treated from the rest. Wyatt-Brown does not describe the viciousness in his accounts of slavery that Huggins does, and he speaks very offhandedly about the occurrences of slavery because it was really only a means to make blacks subordinate, to him, not just to keep them as slaves. Which is why it is important to Wyatt-Brown’s views’ on free blacks under the rule of honor, because free blacks were also scorned upon and treated just like slaves, just without the implementation of working for no income. For Huggins, slavery was a vicious process, not only physically but mentally. It was a cruel tactic created by the white man to institute his ability to subdue the African-American and establish that their differences, although negligible or non-existent, reigned whites more capable than blacks. And as mentioned before, physical punishment was of an institution dire to slavery, because it often extended to such means as killing a black man or woman if that’s what white society deemed fit. The treatment of slaves as property also made slavery more deplorable because of the fact that slaves could be bought and sold. Huggins tells the reader that blacks could hear their worth being bid on and argued over, and the African-American had no say in the matter. Auctioneers would literally describe faults and weaknesses of the slaves’ right in front of their faces, and then tell them that they would be separated from their family for a profit to the master. It was a devastating and vicious process, and Huggins lets it be known that the mere treatment of slaves as property was not far from the ill-likes of endless work and toil in the fields.
A vital distinction between the two author’s theories presented in the aforementioned books is what the whites in each text thought of their similarities, and quite frankly, their humanness, with the blacks. Under Huggins’ argument, they treated slaves as property, but they were not naÃ?¯ve nor blind, and so the realization that blacks were human beings and of no natural difference to whites other than skin color was very apparent to even the most avid of racist Euro-Americans. According to Huggins, whites often searched for facts that would distinguish them from blacks in order to justify their ill-treatment of an entire race, but of course no such facts existed. This resulted in the creation and manifestation of things that were false and of no merit, even in scientific practices. People turned to the Bible, ethnology, anthropology and created myths that said to have scientifically proved blacks to be lazy, prone to illness and of a “primate” nature in relative to the evolution of Euro-Americans. And as time grew on, blacks began to assimilate the practices, customs, and beliefs of the white society around them, and the traits and characteristics of each race were growing even more similar than their natural human attributes. It was because of this that Huggins believes some slave masters could not justify just ill-treating their slaves and developed at least a work rapport , on some levels, with their slaves so that they could communicate like the humans they were. But it is clear that Huggins finds that if the whites could figure out a distinct difference between them and blacks, they would have milked it to the bone to justify slavery and their dominance.
On the other hand, Wyatt-Brown does not necessarily buy that whites were personally convinced of their similarities with blacks. In fact, Wyatt-Brown argues that Euro-Americans believed themselves to be more honorable than any other race and was content upon the fact that Christian ideals seem to justify their beliefs. Thus, under the rule of honor theory, whites truly did view their manners, their claim to God, their social ranking and their collective superiority to be naturally true and that blacks were of no resemblance to them whatsoever. The interesting thing one can take from this standpoint on white perspectives’ on blacks, is that if whites saw blacks to be so different honorable-wise, than the superiority of whites not only existed at the master and plantation owner levels, but even throughout the rest of society and all departments of it, such as money, government, and law.
Law brings us to the next undertaking of looking at these two authors similarities. And one thing that both authors seem to agree on, through their text, is that law was used as a means to perpetuate slavery, and it is why African-Americans were treated so uncivilly for so long after slavery. Wyatt-Brown discusses the element of law in controlling slaves and even free blacks when it came to enforcing the rules of society. Because of the honor system, Wyatt-Brown asserts that African-Americans were held to a different standard of law than whites. Huggins is much along the same lines noting that slaves could be publicly punished unjustly and within no resemblance of the crime they may have committed and yet there would be no enforcing of the laws against whites. And without the government protecting blacks the same way they protected the humanness of whites, blacks were left defenseless to the cruel and unusual punishments that would disseminate the institution of slavery for years. However, it was not just the impact of blacks who were receiving cruel and unusual punishments for their crimes, but whites generally got off the hook for their wrong doings, and it demonstrated a clear glass ceiling. According to Wyatt-Brown, masters, and just about any white American in the South, could get away with killing a slave if they could just come up with some legible means for doing so. Wyatt-Brown tells the story of when a “Mr. Harley of Louisiana discovered that his driver IsaccâÂ?¦.had become a Milerite (a believer in the destruction of the world) and had persuaded fellow slaves to plce their bedding on the roofsof the cabinsâÂ?¦.Hearing the uproarâÂ?¦Harley waited on his front porch, shotgun across his kneesâÂ?¦[and] when [Isaac] was ten paces away, Harley fired both barrels.”[2] Wyatt-Brown goes on to say that at no point did Mr. Harley concern himself with legal ramifications because “both his honor and his life had been endangered” by Isaac. Such a mockery of the law system just established that there was nothing that a black slave could do that would overcome the honorability of a white man. Wyatt-Brown says in Chapter 14 of Southern Honor that, “the whiter the skin, the less punishment for the felonâÂ?¦” Huggins certainly would agree with such a statement due to the fact that he saw the punishments given to blacks as being unjust and worthy of more retribution that they often ever received.
As it has been discussed thus far, Huggins and Wyatt-Brown seem to differ on a several points and come together on at least one, but when you take a closer look at each of the author’s arguments, I think one can come upon the conclusion that while both authors attest to a different means of the perpetuation of slavery, they both reach the same deduction that the maintenance of slavery was a means to maintain white superiority and condemn the black populace. Some might want to contend that the continuance of slavery was nothing more than an economic decision that was spurn from financial pursuits and developed racial tendencies along the way, but one has to at least respect the notion that slavery was more than just an economic endeavor, because blacks were the only minorities being used as slaves when Indians, Cajuns, and other Old world races were present in the United States during the times of slavery. However, the reason that it can be concluded that the authors both would agree on the fact that the perpetuation of slavery was an attempt to maintain white supremacy, is because both authors allude to doctrines in society that gave whites every race vs. race advantage in the social order.
In the Black Odyssey, Huggins continually cites incidents and occasions where whites were faired over black people within the framework of the society. One example is in the discussion of interracial sexual relations between whites and blacks. Huggins mentions how masters and white men were regularly allowed to indulge in sexual intercourse with black slaves, but black men were not allowed to do so with white women. And in this patriarchal society, allowing the men of one race to do one thing, and not allowing the men of another race to do the same, is evidence of a double standard, despite the fact that black women were technically allowed to have intercourse with white men. Another example in which Huggins alludes to the superiority of whites through the perpetuation of slavery is when he discusses how slave masters were able to manipulate the education of slaves and thereby, in a way, brainwash slaves at a young age so that they would be more controllable and better tolerated by the white plantation owners. Masters could establish themselves as the central authority figure in a child slave’s life, and let it be known that he is the reason that they are able to maintain their existence; and such a strong detail at such a young age tended to have a lasting effect on young slaves, and makes them worth more at auctioning time. One other example of a perpetuant of slavery to maintain white supremacy in Black Odyssey is the dialogue Huggins has about death and isolation of slaves. By the frequenting of having parents removed from their children and vice-versa, slave masters were able to isolate slaves and damage their social beings. Even with out separation from the family, many slaves who already had no family were scared by the continuing dying of other slaves at very young ages. “Death made all peer into chasm,”[3] and it was a scary thing for blacks who were already void of so much agency, that to think of an enigma that could take their lives early with no agency put in their hands, while being at the mercy of white folks, it was an “upward trajectory cut before its zenith.”
In Southern Honor, Wyatt-Browns discussion of the perpetuation of slavery also leads one to believe that white superiority was the ultimate goal of slavery. After all, Wyatt-Brown does say that southern honor depended on domination, which could be understood to mean that slavery (the domination) in the south was a means to maintain respect (the honor). Wyatt-Brown also discusses in depth about how white society was ill-served by an ineffective-legal system. By allowing so many infringements upon common law to be committed without repercussion, it put white society in a sense of higher-being. Allowing foul actions against slaves and other blacks to go unnoticed and unpunished was a way of saying that white folks were more deserving of free life than blacks. Such a governmental system elevated white folks in the south to high honor. They were now above the law and it was clear that their actions, although detrimental to any humane society, were perpetuating a black inferiority. However, the inferiority of the blacks did not stop at law, but according to Wyatt-Brown it was also inherit in the ethical system of the south. Slaves were required to treat all people of the white persuasion with great respect and sincere honor. According to Wyatt-Brown, if slaves even appeared to be faking their respect for white folks, they were scorned and punished. Slaves were said to have had to go around certain white people in order to be able to suggest something of little importance because they were not allowed to just approach anybody.
Black Odyssey and Southern Honor both denote that many of the practices in the south and in the slavocracy of created a white superiority and little room for even the utmost of respect for the slaves of . Despite Huggins’ and Wyatt-Brown’s different explanations of how this white superiority was upheld, they both seem to concur on the fact that whites used various ways to create distance between them and slaves, and those ways were more often than not through the workings of slavery.
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[1] Huggins, Nathan; Black Odyssey (The African-American Ordeal in Slavery); pg. 118
[2] Wyatt-Brown, Betram; Southern Honor; Oxford University Press; 1983; pg773
[3] Huggins, Nathan; Black Odyssey; Pantheon Books; New York; 1977; pg. 138
