Peculiar Institution

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This is an essential book for the understanding of our Nation's history. Those looking for an introduction to the Ante-Bellum South could not do better than to read this book. Mar 17, Ushan rated it it was amazing. When I took American History in college 20 years ago, the professor recommended this book; it is in fact really good. It is a short but comprehensive history of slavery in the antebellum Southern United States, drawing upon a large quantity of diaries, letters and other documents.

Only about a When I took American History in college 20 years ago, the professor recommended this book; it is in fact really good. Only about a quarter of Southern families owned slaves again, this proportion varied from state to state , and half of these had fewer than five, but slavery was none the less a sine qua non of Southern economy and society.

The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South by Kenneth M. Stampp

The purpose of slavery was the extraction of labor from the slaves. The stereotype of a Southern gentleman-cavalier notwithstanding, successful planters were shrewd businessmen, organizing their captive labor force like a factory owner. A yeoman farmer who owned one slave could do all farm jobs together with him; a large plantation had specialization. Some slaves were skilled coopers and carpenters; some domestic servants; however, even the work of the looked-down-upon farm laborers required skill. In , a free black New Yorker was kidnapped and sold into slavery; freed in , he wrote a memoir; when told to pick cotton, he picked "not half the quantity required of the poorest picker.

Both free blacks and whites who associated with slaves were transgressing the racial hierarchy, and thus threatening the established order; there were motions to expel or enslave the former and punish the latter.

Where brainwashing failed, force succeeded: True, and there were tens of thousands of runaways, but why were there so few slave rebellions, even in the face of the advancing Union Army? There are fascinating yet disgusting discussions of the slaves' yearly cycle of labor, of their personal life, of the sale and purchase of slaves one slave trader made his human merchandize pluck out the gray hairs or dye them black so they would look younger , of their health infant mortality among the slaves was about twice that among the whites. Overall, the peculiar institution made business sense, which is why it took a bloody war to destroy it.

Feb 26, Tyrone Everett rated it it was amazing. Be prepared to be educated by a book that was banned in the south until ! There seems to be some confusion about this book. Certainly, since it was published in , it could be considered out of date in various ways. But, at its heart, this book is a careful and comprehensive description of slavery based on very wide research into contemporary documentation-newspapers, agricultural periodicals, census numbers, plantation records, letters, travel books, legal documents, etc..

Since it attempts to provide a description of slavery roughly from the American revolution t There seems to be some confusion about this book. Since it attempts to provide a description of slavery roughly from the American revolution to the civil war, and across the entire slave-holding south from Delaware to Texas, it is necessarily a general description omitting details and nuance across the whole system of slavery.

But it is, in my view, extremely strong and valuable as basic history. I found this book extremely good at providing a concrete picture-or rather, a series of pictures-of the social system of slavery, how it worked, how slaves, masters, overseers, and non-slave-holding whites lived. The book is also an examination of the cultural beliefs and mentality that lay behind the institution of slavery.

In this sense the book becomes more novelistic and also more philosophical. Stampp tries to understand the experience of slavery for everyone involved: In doing so he considers the arguments of slavery's defenders, as well as their more frank admissions, with a spirit of inquiry that could be offensive to readers who are not carefully considering his methods. To them it might seem he is giving standing and credibility to loathsome and odious beliefs that should only be deplored. They might feel-with some reason-that such arguments don't even deserve the respect of being heard.

That's not what this book is about. However, I didn't notice a single instance where Stampp agrees with the various pro-slavery arguments he considers. Here are some examples: Stamp comes to the opposite conclusion-that it was consistently profitable across the whole antebellum period, and also, that slave agriculture in particular was able to dominate the market.

Smaller farmers either got more slaves and expanded or withered away in general. Stampp shows this was simply not true across most of the ante-bellum period. It is not unlike James H. Hammond's confident assertion that "our slaves are the happiest human beings on whom the sun shines"; or his complaint that "into their Eden is coming Satan in the guise of an abolitionist. For this reader that makes his case more devastating, because it is based on a mastery of the historical evidence balanced with careful critical thinking.

Because ultimately his rejection of the pro-slavery argument is married to a clear-sighted view of the southern class distinctions that built on and were propagated by the system of slavery: The "rights of property" before the "rights of humanity. Aug 03, Brian Anton rated it liked it.

In the book The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Antebellum South, Kenneth M. Stampp provides deep insight into the institution of slavery. Stampp neatly organizes his argument that slav In the book The Peculiar Institution: Stampp neatly organizes his argument that slavery had a negative effect on the south into ten chapters. Plantations needed laborers, and due to their cost, blacks were eventually enslaved.

Slavery did not occur all at once but was built slowly over a period of years, step-by-step and decision-by-decision. He explains that southerners made themselves feel better about slavery by explaining that they did not come up with the idea and they were not the first to use it. Finally, he writes that slavery was a failure because of the negative social consequences that it created.

Stampp writes that they would say whatever they thought would make their master happy in order to avoid discipline. Alternatively, they would show their discontent with working conditions by doing their work poorly, or faining sickness, which the author believes, proves that bondsmen were unhappy with their condition. Some examples of this include proving their superiority over slaves with the use of force, psychologically with the use of solitary confinement, and with the use of religion and the Bible as the justification of slavery.

They were treated as personal property and when the owner did not provide the necessities, there were very few instances where they would be punished. Because slaves were considered personal property, they could legally be sold. Stampp details the facts that this was not true by using subjective methods and writing that records were confusing and that household expenses were often added to business expenses in ledgers. In essence, he writes that whites experienced better conditions than blacks because they had the choice to do so.

Because of its interpretation of slavery, the book received mixed reviews. In essence, he uses broad and sweeping generalizations instead of detail to prove his thesis. On the opposite side, other reviewers applaud his use of primary sources, writing style, format, and editing. After reading reviews it is easy to determine that they were biased toward one side or the other, lending to their positive or negative reaction to the book.

He tells the stories of slaves with many primary sources, especially those of Frederick Olmstead who ventured through the south and had much to say about its environment and conditions. The topic alone is a popular and interesting one lending to a good read. One of his goals in the book was to make a connection of past racial issues with those in the Civil Rights Era and he does a good job of accomplishing it. His negative view of slavery is very believable and the support that he provides is sufficient.

Coming out of the early Civil Rights era the book dealt with a significantly pertinent topic that is still relevant today. The study of the philosophy, ideas, causes and effects of slavery are interesting topics on their own and Kenneth M. Stampp does an excellent job of portraying all of them in The Peculiar Institution. Dec 18, Nate rated it it was amazing. An inescapable text if you wish to understand slavery as it existed. Oct 04, Daniel rated it really liked it. In his work "The Peculiar Institution," Kenneth Stampp systematically investigates the structure of slavery within the larger society of the antebellum South.

While sometimes considering the role of the master, the text primarily emphasizes the position of slaves themselves. In this respect Stampp methodically categorizes the principal components of the average bondsman's life, and discusses in detail the nature of these functions.

Often including fascinating anecdotal evidence culled from a myr In his work "The Peculiar Institution," Kenneth Stampp systematically investigates the structure of slavery within the larger society of the antebellum South. Often including fascinating anecdotal evidence culled from a myriad or primary sources, this approach provides insight into the full range of the slave experience. Ultimately the text blends these accounts to convincingly construct a portrait of slavery's presence as a whole.

Unlike many scholars, Stampp does not view the rise of slavery as the dominant economic force in the antebellum South as inevitable. Instead, he believes this manifestation was a consequence of various conscious decisions made by Southern political leadership. These choices were not dictated exclusively by crops, weather, or geography as some have suggested, but rather by a combination of all the attributes particular to the region.

This argument is strengthened by statistics which reveal that most of the Southern population did not even own slaves. In fact, three-fourths of southerners neither owned slaves, nor were related to someone who did. Instead, slavery was sustained by whites who feared "the social and economic competition of negroes," enjoyed "concrete evidence of membership in a superior caste," and believed in the "chance perhaps to rise into the planter class.

Masters sought to realize the maximum profit from the least amount of expense, while slaves endeavored to exert the minimum effort necessary to avoid punishment. This resulted in an expanse of contrasting approaches to maintaining discipline on plantations. Many owners accepted benevolence to be the most efficient means of governing their slaves.

See a Problem?

While this approach often produced healthier, if not happier laborers, it was also accompanied by a certain amount of risk. Even those owners who wished to manage their property with a more paternalistic approach, were often confronted with the necessity of applying brutality to maintain control.

As Frederick Douglass noted, "Give him a bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master. While some slaves gave no explicit indication of their discontent, others engaged in a passive form of resistance which included actions such as feigning illness and destroying crops. The most defiant slaves engaged in dangerous acts such committing violence against their master or attempting to escape to freedom. While such enterprises typically resulted in serious punishment, and even execution, Stampp correctly notes the exceptional is as critical to understanding slavery as the mundane.

As he asserts, "the historian of any group properly devotes much attention to those members who did extraordinary things As the American Revolution produced folk heroes, so also did southern slavery - heroes who, in both cases, gave much for the cause of human freedom. How did whites justify a system of savage bondage, and why did blacks tolerate a practice which held them in perpetual servitude.

As the Arkansas Supreme Court clarified, slavery inarguably had its basis "in an inferiority of race. As Stampp observes, few masters believed bondage was a naturally born characteristic in their property. They recognized slaves must be taught to accept their condition of subordination. Furthermore, whites often accepted the intelligence and skill of bondsmen schooled in artistic trades.

Thus, slavery was inescapably an entity predicated upon hypocrisy. The same cannot be said of the slaves who recognized the injustice of their subjugation, but were powerless to prevent it.

As Stampp contends, "The survival or slavery They longed for liberty and resisted bondage as much as any people could have done in their circumstances, but their longing and their resistance were not enough even to render the institution unprofitable to most masters. Feb 09, Zippergirl rated it really liked it Shelves: In the mids, Jim Crow was still commonplace in the South, Brown vs.

Board of Education made integration mandatory, and blacks refused to move to the "back of the bus," leading the United States Supreme Court to condemn Alabama's segregated public transportation. Stampp wrote The Peculiar Institution; Slavery in the Ante-bellum South during the infancy of the civil rights movement. Stampp's book refutes the Gone With the Wind view of the paternalistic slaveowner and his "cheerful and acquiescent" bondsmen. Pro-slavery writers used "religious, historical, scientific, and sociological arguments to demonstrate that slavery was a positive good for both Negroes and whites.

He finds an "important form of protest" in the advertisements for runaway slaves, "managerial inefficiency" not "evidence of the unprofitability of slavery" in the account books of debt-ridden planters, and heartrending humanity in the letter of one slavewoman who, sold away, begged for her daughter, Jennie, to be restored to her, after their separation. Stampp reserves his strongest arguments for his penultimate chapter, Profit and Loss. Slavery's defenders protested that slavery was unprofitable, in an effort to strengthen their claims of benevolent paternalism.

The author's careful review of "the business records which many masters kept, and in the reports which some prepared for various publications," he finds slave labor produced handsome profits, even for the small owners with just one or two slaves.

The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South

The bottom line is slavery was profitable, and continued to be profitable until emancipation. If free labor, or divestment of slaves and land, had proven itself to be a more profitable venture, surely the "peculiar institution" would have found few adherents.

A more honest book on the slave experience had likely never been written when Kenneth Stampp took up the task. In his well-written and exhaustive history, he re-affirms the historian's "article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present. The copy read was from the library.

The major social crises I was aware of while growing up were the Cold War, overpopulation, nuclear contamination, environmental destruction and domestic race and class relations. Under the rubric of the Cold War are included the various cases of aggression by our government against such countries as Cuba, the This was the first history of slavery in the USA which I ever read, it having been recommended in junior year American History at Maine South High School.

Peculiar Institution

Under the rubric of the Cold War are included the various cases of aggression by our government against such countries as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Laos, Vietnam etc. While still a grade-schooler I pretty much took everything the way the Chicago Daily News, Time and Life covered them. By high school, however, the mainstream media and my understandings of the nature of these problems had radically diverged.

My nuclear family lived in unincorporated Kane County until I was ten, but Dad's mom and her husband, grandfather having died, lived in Park Ridge, next to the city. Weekend visits to their home on Prairie Avenue were common. When there, often spending the night, one of my jobs was to go to Thompson's grocery for the paper. Much of my existential understanding of what was going on in the South during the fifties and early sixties comes from reading those papers on the way home. The pictures especially got to me: It was incredible, upsetting and it instilled in me a prejudice against the southern states at an early age.

Martin Luther King had yet to come to Daley's Chicago and the extent of northern hostility was as yet unapparent to me.

PECULIAR INSTITUTION

By the time I got to high school American history and Stampp's book, things had changed. Black power and black separatism contested with Gandhian integrationism both in the political movements I identified with and in my own heart. My natural inclinations have always been nonviolent and peaceful. Stampp helped me understand why so many black people were so fed up.

Jul 08, Robert Merriwether rated it it was amazing. The book was for Stampp not only about 19th century history but a necessary examination for Americans in the s because "it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present," and "one must know what slavery meant to the Negro and how he reacted to it before one can comprehend his more recent tribulations" vii. Later work by other historians qualified certain of Stampp's findings, [ citation needed ] [ clarification needed ] but The Peculiar Institution remains a central text in the study of U.

King describes Stampp's "fascinating" depiction of "the psychological indoctrination that was necessary from the master's viewpoint to make a good slave. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. Where Do We Go from Here: Slave Narrative Collection Captivity narrative. Lovisa von Burghausen — Olaudah Equiano c. Jewitt England — United States. Wilson Zamba Zembola b.

Puerto Rico — Venezuela. Retrieved from " https: Views Read Edit View history. This page was last edited on 28 June , at

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