SLAVE LIFE AND CULTURE

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SLAVE LIFE AND CULTURE
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White Views of Blacks as Slaves

• Sambo Stereotype
• Slaves Passive, Docile, Infantile and Lazy
• Slaveholders as Paternalists
• Evidence Supporting Southern Perspective
• --Slave Rebellions
• --Slave Personality

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Problem with Historical Evidence

• Few Slave Records
• Reliance on Records of Slaveholders

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Elkins Thesis

• Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery A Problem in American
  Institutional and Intellectual Life (1959)
• Parallel Between Slaves and Prisoners in Nazi
  Concentration Camps
• Two Common Traits
• Result Sambo Personality

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Flaws in Southern Stereotype and Elkins Thesis

• Slavery Did Not Destroy Slaves Personalities
• Slave Resistance
• Slaves Modified Be-
• havior of Oppressors
• Other Explanation for Slaves Passive Conduct

Massacre during Nat Turners Rebellion
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Slave Rebellions The Rejection of Slavery

• Relatively Few and Unsuccessful
• Gabriels Rebellion (Virginia, 1800)
• Denmark Veseys Rebellion (South Carolina, 1822)

Gabriel Prosser
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Nat Turners Rebellion

• Most Successful Rebellion
• Virginia, 1831
• Bloodshed and Murder

Nat Turner
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Absence of Rebellions

• Southern Conclusion Slaves Were Contented and
  Accepted Their Own Enslavement

Slaves Attending Church
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Historical Explanation for Absence of Rebellions

• High Ratio of Whites to Blacks in Southern States
• Geography Rugged Interiors
• Demography Slave Population and Leadership
• Conclusion Rebellions Unreliable Measure of
  Slave Resistance

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Opposition But Not RebellionOther Forms of
Slave Resistance

• Slaves Had Numerous Personalities
• Slaves Manipulated Captors
• Violent Forms of Non-Resistance
• Violent Forms of Resistance

Runaway Slave
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Slave Diets and Resistance

• Diet Deprived Them of Nutritious Foods
• Typical Diet
• Unbalanced
• Vitamin Deficiencies

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Vitamin Deficiencies
Vitamin A Shortages Cracked Lips and Loss of Sight
Vitamin C Shortages Scurvy
Vitamin D Shortages Rickets
Imbalanced Diets More Susceptible to Diseases (Scarlet Fever)
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Dietary Diseases Common Among Slaves

• Pellagra
• Cornmeal
• Symptoms
• Beriberi
• Rice Eaters
• Symptoms

Child with Pellagra, 1914
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Slave Health and Resistance

• Overcrowding and Insanitation
• Fostered Spread of Diseases Cholera, Typhoid
  Fever, Malaria and Dysentery
• Result Poor Health

Slave Quarters
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Slave Quarters
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Impact

• High Infant Mortality
• Lower Life Expectancy
• Incapacitated from Working
• Poor Diet and Poor Health as Explanations for
  Sambo Personality