Resistance on the plantation : the impossibility of owning the human spirit
Graduation Date
2005
Document Type
Project
Program
Other
Program
Thesis/Project (M.S.S.)--Humboldt State University, Emphasis in American History, 2005.
Committee Chair Name
Delores Nason McBroome
Committee Chair Affiliation
HSU Faculty or Staff
Keywords
Humboldt State University -- Projects -- Social Science, Humboldt State University -- Projects -- Teaching American History, Slavery--United States--Historiography., Slavery--United States.
Abstract
As a girl growing up in suburban Southern California in the 60's, I learned about the horrors of American slavery as part of my studies of American history. I learned about the cruelty, indignity, greed, inhumanity, and victims. I learned a bit about slave revolts, but mostly about those that came to a terrible end with little positive result. However, I never remember learning about how, in the words of Ira Berlin, "slaves never relinquished the right to control their own destiny." I never learned about the many ways that African-American slaves, like all oppressed people, developed coping strategies which helped them maintain their own unique culture and sense of personhood. While not as readily available as information about slaves who endured silently and those who ran away or led armed insurrection, ample evidence does exist to show that most slaves actively asserted their right to some control through various means, including theft, purposely (and clandestinely) becoming literate, poor performance on the job (to the point of work stoppages), suicide, feigned illness, fighting back with overseers or other disciplinarians, and finally surprisingly deft negotiation. Again, in the words of Ira Berlin, "The slaves' history—like all human history—was made not only by what was done to them but also by what they did for themselves." Eugene Genovese once wrote, "slaves...rejected the essence of slavery by projecting their own rights and values as human beings." Enslaved African Americans, living on plantations and in cities before the Civil War, were survivors who struggled to maintain their dignity and the integrity of their families and communities. Central to the historical debate about slaves and their reactions/adaptations to life under slavery is the perspective from which future generations view the events of the past. For many years, in fact well into the 20th Century, white historians tended to view the institution of slavery though the lens of the slaveholder, using documents generated by those same slaveowners, but over the last 40 years, this perspective has shifted dramatically. More recent scholarship turns the lens instead on the slaves themselves. For the purposes of this discussion then, this evolution of historical research along a continuum of changing perspectives from slaveowner to slave when viewing slave resistance on the plantation will be discussed and analyzed at length. In addition, a second key focus for this work will be the ways in which enslaved Africans and African-Americans acted on their own behalf, as well as that of their family and community, to transform their experience and somehow, against all odds, lead lives with some level of dignity and control. This part of the discussion will focus on the "demonstration of the beauty and power of the human spirit under conditions of extreme oppression" found in analyzing slave actions on and around the plantation. This evidence, found embedded in various forms of slave resistance, will be explored here in detail and offered as an antidote to the bigotry, and underlying hate, found in the apologist's remaking of the past.
Recommended Citation
Hartline, Anne., "Resistance on the plantation : the impossibility of owning the human spirit" (2005). Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects. 1754.
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/etd/1754
https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/r781wj51g