slavery Archives - Page 5 of 7

Slavery and Freedom in Savannah

By Leslie M. Harris and Daina Ramey Berry

Slavery and Freedom in Savannah puts African Americans and slavery at the center of the history of a popular tourist destination. The Telfair Museum’s Owens-Thomas House is the most-visited house museum in Savannah. We worked with the museum staff to bring together the latest historical research on the role of African Americans in Savannah and the importance of slavery to the life of the city.

Telfair Museums plans to build on this research by incorporating the history of slavery more fully into its interpretation of the history of the Owens-Thomas house and the people who lived and worked there. This project builds upon some twenty-plus years of collaboration among museum professionals, academic historians, and historical archeologists, enabling major landmarks and historic sites in this nation to begin to tell more fully the history of non-whites and non-elites.

Savannah is a prime location for understanding the centrality of slavery and race to the national and world economy, and the importance of the city to southern landscapes and the southern economy. Because of the great economic and social dominance of rural plantation-based slavery in the Americas, historians have long assumed that that slave labor was not suited to cities and therefore slavery in American cities was insignificant. But a re-examination of slavery in cities throughout the Atlantic World has demonstrated the importance of urban areas to the slave economy and the adaptability of slave labor and slave ownership to metropolitan regions, especially port cities such as Savannah.. Urban slavery was part of, not exceptional to, the slave-based economies of North America and the Atlantic world.

owensthomas19c — Unknown photographer. Late nineteenth-century image of the Owens-Thomas House. Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia

Urban communities such as Savannah incorporated slave labor into their economic, social and political frameworks, often from the very beginning of their existence. By the time the Georgia colony was founded in the first third of the eighteenth century, it was difficult for the colonists or the trustees to imagine a world without slavery. Although the trustees, led by James Edward Oglethorpe, instituted a ban on slavery in the colony’s early years, in fact those same founders also requested and received black enslaved laborers from South Carolina to help them construct the city. Despite their own use of slave labor, Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees vigorously opposed proslavery colonists during the 1730s and 1740s. But many colonial residents believed that slave labor was necessary to the success of the colony, and to their pursuit of wealth, and found ways to work around the ban, importing slaves for various uses. By the time the ban was officially lifted in 1751, there were already 400 slaves in Georgia.

Ch 7 Ph 27 — Going to Market- A Scene Near Savannah, Georgia. Harper’s Weekly, 1875 Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Miscellaneous Items in Hight Demand collection, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-102153

The slave population in Georgia grew rapidly after the ban on slavery was lifted in 1751. By the eve of the American Revolution, the colony held 16,000 slaves. Almost all of the forced migrants arrived in Georgia through the port of Savannah. Slave labor quickly became central to the economic success of the Georgia colony. Slaves were used to clear land, construct buildings, and cultivate rice and indigo.

Ch 5 Ph 18 — Olivia Alison, Owens-Thomas House Slave Quarters, West Façade Telfair Museums, Savannah, Georgia

The American Revolution and its aftermath was a time of great upheaval for the slave system in Georgia, and in the nation. For some, and particularly for enslaved blacks, it appeared that slavery might be on the verge of ending, even in the South. Despite the on-going struggle between slave-owning whites and blacks seeking freedom, the successful emergence of the slave-based cotton economy in the nineteenth-century in part guaranteed the continuation of slavery. Savannah grew to be the third-largest antebellum exporter of cotton in the South, behind New Orleans and Mobile. Rice and indigo were also important export crops that carried over from the eighteenth-century economy; rice reached its peak production in the region on the eve of the Civil War. Savannah flourished because of its location amid fertile coastal rice plantations, cotton plantations to the west, and Atlantic access to markets for raw materials, slaves, and finished products. The Savannah port also exported significant amounts of lumber and timber. The production of all of these goods involved the use of slave labor. Antebellum Savannah was one of the smaller southern cities by population, lagging far behind New Orleans, Baltimore and Charleston; only Norfolk, Virginia, was smaller in terms of major southern cities. But the enormous wealth produced by slaves is still evident in the gracious squares of the planned city.

1024px-Owens_thomas_house_savannah7323 — Owens-Thomas House today. Sloweking4 (via Wikimedia Commons)

On the eve of the Civil War, Savannah’s commitment to slavery was secure. But its economic success and political position in the south made its capture central to the Union army’s plan to crush the slaveholding republic. Although the city’s beautiful architecture was largely preserved, Sherman’s troops destroyed slavery and, temporarily at least, reordered the relationships between blacks and whites. Following the war, and in the face of strong and sometimes violent white opposition, blacks briefly gained access to the vote and political office, and expanded on antebellum institutions such as churches and schools. For the next forty years, blacks sought to negotiate their new roles as members of a wage-earning working class, hoping to carve a space in which to exercise their full rights as citizens. But by 1900, the gains blacks had made during Reconstruction had been replaced by legal segregation. Whites limited blacks’ access to the political realm, employment, and a host of other rights and privileges of citizenship. In response, Savannah’s blacks became active members of regional and national efforts to continue the march toward freedom and autonomy for African Americans, work that would not see fruition until the mid-1950s, when a series of Supreme Court decisions struck down legal segregation.

Featured image: Owens -Thomas House, Savannah, via Flickr by Denisbin

Here are Berry’s and Harris’s suggested further readings on urban slavery

Student Showcase – A Riot for Rights: Gabriel Prosser’s Slave Revolt

Kristina Delagarza
Hector Garcia Middle School
Junior Division
Individual Website

In August of 1800, Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved blacksmith from a Virginia tobacco plantation, organized a group of about 25 slaves to violently rise up against their masters–and then build an army. But, as was the case with so many slave rebellions, Prosser was betrayed and ultimately put to death for his actions. The rebellion failed, yet Prosser’s legacy lives on. Kristina Delagarza created a Texas History Day website that tells the harrowing story of Gabriel’s revolt and evaluates its place in U.S. history:

A portion of the letter that Mosby Sheppard, Gabriel's white master, sent to Governor James Monroe to warn him about the revolt (The Library of Virginia) — A portion of the letter that Mosby Sheppard, Gabriel’s white master, sent to Governor James Monroe to warn him about the revolt (The Library of Virginia)

Gabriel’s strategy was well-organized. Scheduled for Saturday, August 30, 1800, the revolt would begin with Gabriel seeking revenge on Thomas Henry’s family by killing them. Next, Gabriel would meet the conspirators and head to Richmond for the massacre, making a point to spare groups who were friends of the cause such as African Americans, lower class whites, Quakers, and Methodists. Once in town, Gabriel planned to divide and conquer. One group would start a fire along the shore to create a diversion. Another group would overtake the treasury. The final group would capture the Richmond arsenal to collect more supplies. Once these tasks were completed, the insurgents would march around Richmond, forcing everyone either to agree to the slaves’ liberty or be jailed. Gabriel would carry a flag that read “Death or Liberty”, until the governor of Virginia agreed to their freedom.

Account of Gabriel's execution from the Virginia Argus, Oct. 14, 1800 ( — Account of Gabriel’s execution from the Virginia Argus, Oct. 14, 1800

The night the conspirators returned home due to the storm, a slave named Pharaoh feared being caught. He confided in another slave, Tom, who was not involved with Gabriel’s rebellion. Together, the two men divulged Gabriel’s plans to their master, Mosby Sheppard. Sheppard sent a letter to Governor Monroe informing the governor of Gabriel’s insurrection. When the governor received this letter, he ordered the militia to protect the capitol in Richmond.

A woodcut illustrating the various stages of Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion, which was directly influenced by the actions of Gabriel Prosser (Wikipedia) — A woodcut illustrating Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Virginia, which took place 31 years after Gabriel Prosser’s (Wikipedia)

When Gabriel discovered that the militia was pursuing him, he escaped toward Norfolk, Virginia. He claimed to be a freedman from Norfolk and was allowed on a schooner named “Mary.” A slave named Billy, who was also aboard the “Mary,” knew that there was a $300 reward for Gabriel’s capture. Hoping to buy his freedom, Billy told Sheriff John Moss about Gabriel’s whereabouts. However, since Billy was a slave, he was given less money than what was promised, so he did not have enough money to buy his liberty. On September 23, Gabriel was captured and sent to the Richmond penitentiary. In October, while on trial, Gabriel refused to testify. However, Gabriel was convicted due to what others said in their trials. He was hanged on October 10, 1800 with around twenty-six other insurrectionists.

More great work from Texas middle and high school students:

An early pioneer for free press in America

A look at the brutal world of migrant work during the Great Depression

And how Treme became one of New Orleans’s most iconic neighborhoods

Show & Tell: The Video Essay as History Assignment

From the editor: As our thoughts turn back to teaching, Not Even Past turns back to some of our posts from 2013-14 about new and best teaching experiences. (August 15, 2014)

As the school year comes to a close, we end our series of monthly features on teaching history with a creative assignment devised by one of our US History professors. Instead of assigning only written or oral work, Robert Olwell was one of a handful of History faculty who asked their students to make video essays on specific topics related to the course. On this page, Olwell tells us about the assignment and we include some of the best of the videos his students created. Below we link to the instructions Olwell gave to the students. And throughout the month of May, we will post video essays our students produced in other History Department courses. (May 1, 2014)

By Robert Olwell

In the fall of 2013 I taught the first half of the US history survey course (HIS 315K), which offers a treatment of the major themes of American History from 1492-1865. There was nothing unusual in this. I have taught 315K at least once a year (and often twice) since I came to UT twenty years ago. The course is designed as a lecture course, with assigned readings, and four in-class essay exams. The enrollment is generally 320 students. This time however, my enrollment was capped at only 160. The relatively small number allowed me to conduct a pedagogical experiment. In addition to their individual written essay exams, I assigned each of my students the task of working with three classmates to create a short “video essay.” Their task might fairly be described as a producing a brief research report in which they present their findings not on paper but on the screen. My hope was to enlist students’ familiarity and fascination with digital media in the cause of history and pedagogy.

In order to keep control of the project, I made several command decisions. First, I divided the class into forty teams of four students each. I allowed students no choice of partners but simply used the class roll and the alphabet to make the groups (hence team members’ last names often start with the same letter). Second, I gave the groups no choice as to their topic. I created a list of forty topics that I deemed suitable (i.e., could easily be presented in a four-five minute video) and assigned one topic to each group.

As the rubric that I posted for the assignment indicates, by far the most important part of their task was the first one: writing the “script.” In late October, my Teaching Assistants and I poured over the forty, ten-page- long scripts. (Each TA looked at ten scripts and I looked at all of them.) Our aim was to offer historical critiques and suggestions, and to make sure the students were on the right track as regards sources, bibliography, and so on. We acted more as “historical consultants” to their projects than as producers. Having never made or posted a video myself, I could offer them little or no assistance in that regard. Instead, I relied on the students’ own facility with visual and digital media to carry them through. (Having watched my two teen-aged daughters produce videos both as school projects and for fun, I rightly suspected my students would be more than capable of fulfilling this part of the assignment on their own.)

Overall, I would judge the “video essay” project to have been a great success. In their peer evaluations most students agreed; some wrote that it was the most interesting thing they had ever done in a history class. The standard of the finished videos was quite high (the average grade was a B+). There were some difficulties, of course. Some of the groups did not work well together and some students did not pull their weight. The final part of the assignment, peer evaluation, was included to address this possibility. However, most groups did cooperate effectively and I used the peer evaluations as often to reward those students acknowledged by their teammates to have been project leaders, as to punish the slackers.

Would I do it again? Yes, but. Next time, I would probably make the project optional (perhaps replacing one of the written exams), and allow students to make their own teams and choose their own projects.

Here is the assignment sheet and rubric that I handed out to the students.

And here are the six video essays that I deemed the best of the forty produced by my students last fall.

Cahokia
By Valerie Salina, Jeffrey A. Sendejar, Victor Seth, and Sharmin Sharif

The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment (1863-65)
By Madeline Christensen, Nathan Cliett, Rebecca Coughlin, and Corbin Cruz

Anne Hutchinson
By Justin Gardner, Rishi Garg, Yanni Georghiades, and Rachelle Gerstner

The Book Of Negroes
By Will Wood, Anfernee Young, Qin Zhang, and Sally Zhang

Dr. Josiah Nott
By Salina Rosales, Felipe Rubin, and Hunter Ruffin

New Amsterdam
By Evan Taylor-Adair, Oliver Thompson, Kimberly Tobias, and Reynaldo Torres Arellano

Watch for more student videos in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, revisit Blake Scott’s examination of the coming of tourism to the Panamanian rain forest: I am Tourism/Yo soy Turismo

And check out other stories on teaching and learning:

Also by Robert Olwell, You Say You Want a Revolution? Reenacting History in the Classroom

Video assignments by Jacqueline Jones, Students Debating History: Another Look at the Video Essay

Penne Restad and Karl Hagstrom Miller on Teaching

Student Showcase – Faubourg Treme: Fighting for Civil Rights in 19th Century New Orleans

Ahnia Leary
Pin Oak Middle School
Junior Division
Individual Performance

Read Ahnia’s Process Paper

Treme is one of the most iconic neighborhoods in New Orleans. Its dynamic history, culture and music even inspired a critically acclaimed HBO drama. Ahnia Leary wanted to present the story of this vibrant section of the Big Easy for Texas History Day, particularly its long history of racial tension and black activism. Her performance uses jazz music to capture the diverse people, places and stories that make up Treme.

Residents of the Treme section of New Orleans (New Orleans Film Society)

After viewing the documentary, Fauberg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, I was both excited and intrigued by the fact that there were Free People of Color in New Orleans who in the 1800s, owned about 80% of the land in the Treme community. Under French and Spanish rule, slaves (primarily from Senegal and Senegambia) could also work to buy their freedom. This unique suburb also included Europeans from many Countries as well as free people from St. Dominigue (Haiti) . My curiosity peaked and I was inspired to find out more about Homer Plessy and the Comite des Citoyens (Citizens Committee) which included writers, business owners, newspaper editors and activists who fought to ensure their right to be free of Jim Crow laws. My interest in the topic increased as I wondered why this history is unknown, the reason for racial hatred and what can be done to get rid of it and heal the past.

Paul Poincy's "St. Claude and Dumaine Streets, Faubourg Tremé," 1895 (Louisiana State Museum) — Paul Poincy’s “St. Claude and Dumaine Streets, Faubourg Tremé,” 1895 (Louisiana State Museum)

The Performance category was chosen because it offers a creative way to present my research. My script was developed using primary source material (translations) and information from historians and interviews. I also prepared a short piano piece with the help of my piano teacher, Olga Marek, providing an example of Spanish influence to early jazz music inspiring Jelly Roll Morton, who lived in Treme.

Finally, the National History Day Theme is: Rights and Responsibilities in History. Free People of Color like Captain Arnold Bertonneau, Paul Trevigne, Homer Plessy and others exhibited extreme courage and personal responsibility in their fight for the rights of people of African descent, to participate fully in America as citizens, living its dream and demanding Color blind justice.

David’s Mighty Stone: How One Slave Laborer Restored Survivors’ Rights

Kacey Manlove
Rockport Fulton High School
Senior Division
Historical Paper

Read Kacey’s Paper Here

Nazi Germany was not only responsible for death and violence across Europe. The Third Reich also enslaved millions in their factories. In particular, the German industrial giant I.G. Farben, which produced the Zyklon B that murdered so many during the holocaust, enslaved thousands in order to make its deadly products. But after the war’s conclusion, Norbert Wollheim, formerly an enslaved laborer for I.G. Farben, demanded reparations–both financial and moral–for his country’s use of slavery.

Kacey Manlove, a student at Rockport Fulton High School, wrote a research paper for Texas History Day that tells Wollheim’s remarkable story. You can read two excerpts below and open the full paper above.

IG Farben factory near Auschwitz, 1941 (German Federal Archive)

By the time World War II began on September 1, 1939, Hitler had already annexed Austria and the Sudetenland, and his army then rapidly advanced through Europe, implementing Anti-Semitic laws and creating pools of available laborers. Farben followed the German army to lay claim to chemical industries in annexed or conquered countries, increasing its holdings and profits five-fold to become the largest chemical company in the world. Hitler’s Reich exclusively utilized Farben’s fuel for armament, its chemicals for medical experiments, and its Zyklon B pesticide for executing prisoners incapable of work. By November 1940, Farben’s quota for synthetic rubber (buna) exceeded what its plants could produce. To satisfy the Reich’s needs, Farben agreed to quickly build two new plants, one an extension of their current plant in Ludwigshaften, Germany, the other in Auschwitz, Poland, home of the Nazi’s largest concentration camp system (appendix D). Farben officials specifically selected the Auschwitz location to use raw materials from the nearby Furstengrube coal mines for energy and existing railways for easy shipping. The Auschwitz camp system also provided access to prisoners whom Farben utilized for slave labor in exchange for a nominal payment to the Schutzstaffel [SS]. Slave laborers built Buna/Monowitz, the first industry-based concentration camp, to accommodate Farben’s needs (appendix E), and by 1945, Farben utilized more than 100,000 slave laborers in its various plants. Nazi Labor General Fritz Sauckel authorized Farben’s employees to exploit prisoners “to the highest possible extent at the lowest conceivable degree of expenditure.” After the war, this policy would become the core principle in Norbert Wollheim’s suit against Farben for redress.

Labels taken from canisters of Zyklon B from the Dachau gas chambers (USHMM, courtesy of National Archives)

Norbert Wollheim’s suit and subsequent agreement with German industrial giant I. G. Farben not only reclaimed rights for survivors in Buna/Monowitz but also set a precedent for toppling other German industry giants that had used slave laborers to support Nazi Germany. Governments of both America and the Federal Republic of Germany played critical roles in concluding the reparations process that the Wollheim Agreement had begun. All German firms stipulated that their settlements represented a moral obligation, not an admission of any legal responsibility, but to former slave laborers, the monetary redress they received provided a sense of closure, exemplifying the justice they had been denied at Nuremberg. Against great odds, Wollheim’s civil suit had cast the first stone, defeating an industrial giant. The ripple effect caused by that defeat paved the way for additional settlements that have compensated over 1.6 million former slave laborers for their loss of rights during one of the greatest human rights violations in the twentieth century.

Check out the latest Texas History Day projects at Not Even Past:

O Henry Middle School student Maura Goetzel’s paper on liberty and security in early America

And a group of Westwood High School students’s website on America’s most dangerous moment

Mapping The Slave Trade: The New Archive (No. 10)

By Henry Wiencek

Roughly 12 million Africans were forcibly transported to Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Americas. It’s hard to conceptualize so many men and women being uprooted from their homes. But Emory University’s Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database helps users understand the vast proportions of this perverse exodus. The site pieces together historical data from 35,000 slave voyages between 1500 and 1900 and arranges them onto graphs and maps, offering readers a geographic, demographic, and even environmental context for the slave trade.

Screenshot of “Overview of the slave trade out of Africa, 1500-1900” (Emory University)

While people may assume that one singular “slave trade” took place, the database maps demonstrate that many existed. And not just across the Atlantic, but around the globe. Overview of the slave trade out of Africa, 1500-1900 charts the routes slave traders followed from Africa to various international ports. But you might be surprised at some of their destinations—traders ventured from East Africa to Arabia, Yemen, the Persian Gulf, and even various ports in India. Although the largest number of slaving ships do land in Brazil or the Caribbean, this map demonstrates that Africa’s slave trade was very much feeding a world market. The variety of international ports participating in the trade is also striking. This was not a black market undertaken by a depraved few, but rather a thriving worldwide industry that brought ships, employment and wealth to numerous communities on both sides of the Atlantic. The maps make this point visually with striking impact.

Screenshot of “Wind and ocean currents of the Atlantic basins” (Emory University)

The site also reminds readers that the process of moving enslaved Africans across the ocean was as much an environmental process as an economic one. The map, Wind and ocean currents of the Atlantic basins reveals how oceanic forces played a role in determining the travel routes for slave ships. Red and blue lines respectively denote winds and currents swirling between Africa and the Americas, facilitating particular geographic courses better suited for crossing the ocean. These natural forces effectively created two separate “slave-trading systems,” as the site identifies them: one originating in Europe and North America and the other originating in Brazil. Historians have certainly detailed the racism and greed motivating the slave trade, but comparatively little time examining the environmental processes that made it possible. Particular centers of trade emerged along the coasts of Brazil, the Caribbean and West Africa to meet an economic need, but also to harness the currents and winds essential to moving so many men and women such vast distances. And here too, the visual character of the map makes it easy to see how natural forces worked to shape the historical events.

Numerical timeline graphing the number of African captives in the trans-Atlantic slave trade between 1500 to 1866 (Emory University)

In addition to these visual aids, the site also includes a more quantitative rendering of this nefarious business. A timeline graphs the number of captives who embarked and disembarked between 1500 and 1867. Users can make the information even more precise by expanding or contracting the time frame or manipulating different variables, including sites of disembarkation, embarkation, and nationality of the slave ship. This visual tool reveals a steadily growing trade, with the number of embarked Africans peaking at around 115,000 in 1792. You will also find a chilling disparity between the number of “Embarked” and “Disembarked” Africans in the statistics—a powerful indication of the deadly voyages these individuals were forced to endure.

A white slave trader inspecting an African male up for sale, ca. 1854 (Wikimedia Commons)

The sheer numbers documented in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database are astonishing. With much of the globe participating, an elaborate network of ports, ships and trade routes uprooted millions of African souls with ruthless efficiency. Some users might find the site’s emphasis on graphs and maps to be sanitizing or dehumanizing to the enslaved individuals—too many numbers and figures, not enough people. But the story this site wants to tell is a big and highly important one. The African slave trade had a global reach; it was an environmental force as well as an economic one; and it displaced millions upon millions of men and women from their homes. Visualizing the statistics makes the global reach of their human toll palpable in new ways.

Earlier editions of the New Archive:

Charley Binkow reads through declassified CIA documents relating to the creation of Radio Free Europe

And Henry Wiencek explores a new, more visual, way of understanding emancipation in America

Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South, by Barbara Krauthamer (2013)

by Nakia Parker

For decades, scholars peered at the painful and complex topic of American slavery through a purely “black-white” lens—in other words, black slaves who had white masters. The sad reality that some Native Americans, (in particular, the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole, or “the Five Tribes”) also participated in chattel and race-based slavery, was rarely acknowledged in the historical annals. Only in the latter part of the 20th century did historians begin to address this oversight. Several groundbreaking studies recognized the momentous repercussions of this practice for Native and African American populations alike during the antebellum era and down to the present day. Barbara Krauthamer, a professor of Native American and African American history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, adds an exhaustive and compelling contribution to the research in this area. The first full-length monograph chronicling chattel slavery in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, Krauthamer amply demonstrates how both before and after the era of Indian Removal in the mid-nineteenth century slavery also intersected with issues of race and gender in complicated ways.

Krauthamer tracks white commodification and enslavement of Choctaw and Chickasaw bodies starting in the late seventeenth century and its transition to the commodification and enslavement of black bodies by Choctaw and Chickasaw slaveholders in the eighteenth century. In addition, Krauthamer adroitly debunks the myth that the main cause for American Indian participation in chattel slavery stemmed from their desire for European, and later American goods, unable to resist the inescapable forces of the market economy and capitalism. Krauthamer acknowledges the catastrophic economic consequences of the American seizure of Indian lands, of the racist rhetoric that Native Americans needed to be properly “civilized,” and of the exigencies caused by depletion of the deer population, which severely curtailed trade opportunities. But she persuasively argues that the decision to engage in chattel slaveholding resulted from a conscious and deliberate choice on the part of Indian slaveholders to embrace racial ideology that “degraded blackness and associated it exclusively with enslavement.” For some influential and wealthy members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, adopting race-based slavery provided the most efficient way to maintain an increasingly tenuous hold on political and cultural autonomy in the face of aggressive American expansion, while pursuing self-interested economic and diplomatic goals.

Holmes_Colbert — *Holmes Colbert, a prominent leader in the Chickasaw Nation and the owner of several enslaved African-Americans (Wikimedia Commons)*

Krauthamer also addresses the “leniency thesis” that many early scholars of Native American history advocated — that life under the yoke of an Indian master was somehow more “benevolent” than enslaved life under whites — but that has been successfully challenged, by Tiya Miles and Claudio Saunt among others. By the mid-nineteenth century, laws existed in both nations that banned intermarriage between blacks and Indians: for example, Choctaw lawmakers allowed white men to achieve citizenship through marriage to a Choctaw woman, but forbade “a negro or descendent of a negro” from enjoying the same privilege; likewise, in the Chickasaw nation, the punishment for “publicly taking up with a negro slave” was a steep fine, whipping, or the ultimate punishment, banishment from the nation and the dissolving of all kinship ties. Krauthamer also cites accounts from WPA slave narratives detailing instances of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Native American owners.

*Chickasaw Freedmen filing for allotment in Oklahoma (Oklahoma Historical Society)*

Krauthamer also shows that despite horrific conditions, enslaved people living in “Indian country” engaged in covert and overt forms of resistance. One particularly compelling experience of slave resistance concerns the story of Prince, who, angered that his Choctaw owner Richard Harkins failed to give his slaves a Christmas celebration, brutally murdered him and then unceremoniously dumped the body into the river in 1858. Prince finally confessed, but implicated his Aunt Lucy in the crime. Although Lucy denied her involvement and no evidence existed to prove that she participated in the murder, Lavinia Harkins, the widow of the murdered man and thus also Lucy’s owner, demanded that Lucy be burned alive along with Prince. This harrowing tale highlights the intersections of race, gender, and power relations that informed the interactions between “black slaves and Indian masters” in Indian Territory.

PI013 — *Peter Pitchlynn, or “Hat-choo-tuck-nee,” a Choctaw chief and later tribal delegate to Washington (LC-USZ62-58502, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C.)*

Even Emancipation and the end of the Civil War did not bring immediate relief to the enslaved living in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. Although the Choctaw and Chickasaw sided with the Confederacy during the conflict, the United States considered them to be separate political polities; therefore, the abolition of slavery as stated in the Thirteenth Amendment did not apply in Indian Territory. Instead, the Choctaw/Chickasaw treaty of 1866 outlined the details of emancipation, citizenship, and land claims for the Freedmen, but inextricably (and problematically) linked these issues with Indian sovereignty, land rights, and annuities—one could not be obtained without the other. This knotty situation became further complicated with the passage of laws enacted by Choctaw and Chickasaw political leaders that seem eerily similar to the “Black Codes” of the Reconstruction era South. Former slaves in Choctaw country who did not have a work contract could be arrested for “vagrancy” by the lighthorsemen (police force) and then be auctioned off to the highest bidder—slavery by another name. Once again, the now emancipated slaves in Indian Territory, in particular African-American men, engaged in resisting these harsh measures and formed groups that lobbied for political and economic justice before the Freedmen’s Bureau and Indian leaders.

Riverside, the home of Benjamin Franklin Colbert at Colbert's Ferry — *Riverside, the home of Benjamin Colbert in Colbert’s Ferry, OK (Oklahoma Historical Society)*

Black Slaves, Indian Masters proves a much needed addition to African American and Native American histories of slavery. Krauthamer uses an exhaustive number of sources to bolster her argument–slave narratives, government records, personal correspondence of Indian leaders such as diaries and letters, and official papers of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. Her work not only expands the lens of the study of slavery beyond the “black and white,” but also can provide insight into the current tensions and issues of citizenship and identity existing between descendants of the enslaved and nations such as the Cherokee and Seminole today.

In 2011, Dr. Krauthamer was a fellow at The Institute for Historical Studies at UT-Austin. During this time, she delivered a workshop “Enslaved women and the Politics of Self-Liberation.”

You can fin d Black Slaves, Indian Masters here. And be sure to explore Envisioning Emancipation, a powerful collection of photographs portraying the lives of enslaved and freed African-Americans that Dr. Krauthamer compiled with renowned photographic historian Deborah Willis.

iTunes Remembers Black History: The New Archive (No. 5)

By Charley S. Binkow

February is Black History month. It is a time for remembrance and reflection for all Americans, but for Historians it is also a rich period for study and research. iTunes U, the academic branch of Apple’s iTunes store, is featuring a vast collection of first-hand oral histories, interviews, and lectures on the extensive history of African Americans.

There are over two dozen podcasts and each one offers a unique perspective on black history: “The Louis Armstrong Jazz Oral History Project” explores the world of African American Jazz, The Gilder Lehrman Institute offers a diverse lecture series on the post Civil War age, and Stanford’s “Modern Freedom Struggle” collects videos on political thought during the Civil Rights movement. The most powerful, collection is Duke University’s “Behind the Veil,” which compiles 100 interviews with African Americans who experienced firsthand the world of segregation in places like Birmingham, New Orleans, Memphis, Albany (GA), and Muhlenberg County. These interviews are as personal and interesting as they are diverse. All the podcasts are free on iTunes and are well worth perusing.

The collection is of value for everyone, from professional historians to amateur history buffs. On top of the primary sources, subscribers can hear engaging and thought provoking lectures from renowned scholars like Eric Foner and James O. Horton. iTunes, is also offering customers a wide selection of outside reading options relating to the topic of Black History, with titles such as The Color Purple, Beloved, Fredrick Douglass’s My Escape from Slavery and Howard Zinn’s On Race.

Overall, the collection does a great job of honoring, remembering, and respecting the struggle of African Americans. The podcasts will keep listeners engaged for days and the interviews give historians hours of first-hand accounts.

If you enjoy these iTunes U collections, be sure to check out our own podcast, 15 Minute History

And explore the latest finds in the NEW ARCHIVE:

Maps and primary documents that change before your very eyes

Harry Houdini’s weird and wild scrapbook collection

Photo Credits:

Screenshot of the iTunes U podcasts and books being featured for Black History History Month

1867 engraving of African American freedmen in New Orleans voting for the first time (Image courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Collection)

Participants in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress)

The Cross-Cultural Exchange of Atlantic Slavery

by Samantha Rubino

An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World by Mariana Candido (2013)

Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World: Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade by Roquinaldo Ferriera (2012)

The Atlantic slave trade between Africa and the Americas connected merchants, Portuguese colonists, convicts, and slaves in cultural and economic relationships, reconfiguring the space of the southern Atlantic. The work of Mariana Candido and Roquinaldo Ferriera shows how creolization and the economic prosperity created by the slave trade was a two-way street.

In An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World, Mariana Candido traces development of Benguela (in today’s Angola) from the first Portuguese expedition in 15^th century until the mid-nineteenth century. She studies colonial documents, reports, official letters, censuses, export data, parish records, official chronicles, and oral traditions collected by missionaries and anthropologists. Candido stresses the role of the local population in the Atlantic slave trade. As the demand for slaves increased in Brazil, local interactions with Portuguese officials led to a constant reconfiguration of identity and community in the port city, based on political alliances and economic preservation. Political and social instability of the hinterlands in part led to the exponential growth of the slave trade, displaying the reverberating aspects of the slave trade within the Atlantic realm. Additionally, women played a major role in the development of the slave society within Africa. Mixed marriages became the rule, and African women seized on the chance to apprehend cultural practices and a space of power. These donas controlled a large number of dependents, widows or singles, and became involved in local business, investing in the slave trade after the deaths of foreign husbands. In this regard, Candido shows slavery as a process of negotiation, adaptation, invention, and transformation rather than complete annihilation of African communities.

Candido also argues that creolization was a social-cultural transformation rather merely than an incorporation and assimilation of Western values. Luso-Africans and colonial officials spread Portuguese customs and Catholicism beyond the littoral, accelerating creolization away from coast. Colonial outposts, such as Caconda, attracted people with cultural exchange and the elaboration of new codes transforming cultural diets and colonial institutions. African religion and cosmology remained strong in the hinterland and on the coast in Benguela because they offered explanations and solutions to everyday problems that Catholicism could not address. Additionally, local languages were extremely important to the construct of a slave society. Despite colonial laws against its use, the army, commerce transactions, and the church in the hinterlands used these languages.

Similarly, Roquinaldo Ferriera focuses on the bilateral connections between the Portuguese colonies of Brazil and Angola in Cross Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World. Through the lens of micro histories, Ferriera pushes back from the macro structural approach to the slave trade to examine the personal trials endured by Africans and their descendants. Throughout the text he suggests an argument similar to Candido’s, in which African institutions were transformed rather than unilaterally corrupted by the slave trade. For example, the use of the traditional African court systems (tribunal de mucano) displays the transformation of the court system and the fluid boundaries between freedom and enslavement in Angola. Additionally, the relationship between belief in the power of the supernatural and accusations of witchcraft as a form of entering into enslavement was employed by Luso-Africans and Portuguese officials alike. If an accused “witch” died, a number of the witch’s relatives were enslaved and sold. As Ferriera points out, the actual number of people enslaved through these accusations would be difficult to precisely enumerate, however, the connection between these accusations and commercial disputes was unmistakable. Moreover, such accusations provide insight into the commonalities between African and colonial officials’ worldviews. Thus, through the lens of micro history, Ferriera claims that Atlantic history is a pluralistic entity in which individuals created their own spaces without strict adherence to the Portuguese institutions.

These two historians transform the way we view the impact of the slave trade. By emphasizing the role of the African populace as well as the Portuguese in the flourishing slave trade, Mariana Candido and Roquinaldo Ferriera redistribute the economic and cultural burden of the Atlantic. Candido and Ferriera demonstrate the cultural exchange between the Portuguese and African, altering the way historians conceptualizes creolization and the formation of slave societies.

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Photo Credits:

Cross-section of a Brazilian slave ship, taken from “Notices of Brazil in 1828 and 1829” (1830) by Robert Walsh (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Portuguese officials meet with the Manikongo, who ruled the African Kongo Kingdom (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

A slave ship heading to Brazil, 1835 (Image courtesy of New York Public Library Digital Gallery)

Recently arrived slaves in Brazil on their way to the farms of the landowners who bought them, 1830 (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

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