Eugene Genovese\u2019s \u201cSlave Revolts in Hemispheric Perspective\u201d is a detailed analysis of why slave revolts in the Old South were much rarer than in other slave-holding areas.\u00a0 It is clear that Eugene is very well-versed on slave revolts and his research appears to be immense.\u00a0 I enjoyed how he approached the question of why large-scale slave revolts occurred in some areas, but not others.\u00a0 He provided several conditions that made slave revolts more favorable such as blacks outnumbering whites, economic struggles, the number of slaves approaching two hundred per farm, and political instability among the ruling class.\u00a0 Next, Genovese explores some of these conditions in particular and describes how specific situations accentuated his points.<\/p>\n
I particularly liked how Genovese described how political divisions could affect the potential for slave revolts.\u00a0 Genovese showed how the United States (specifically the elite Southern slave holders) held the appearance of one big unified structure.\u00a0 While European countries were constantly at war with each other (which dictated that they turn their enemies\u2019 slaves against them), the United States was on the other side of the Atlantic with a centralized government capital located far north.\u00a0 I just think that this reasoning was very effective because it showed a major contrast between the American states and the European powers that struggled to keep slave revolts down.<\/p>\n
I also thought that Genovese\u2019s analysis of the leaders of the major slave-revolts in the U.S. was strong.\u00a0 He took us into the minds and backgrounds of Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, and Nat Turner.\u00a0 He showed why each was fit as a slave-revolt leader.\u00a0 Vesey, in particular, had the credentials to lead.\u00a0 He spoke several languages, was well read politically, he had an outstanding group of men directly below his command, and had visited many countries while he was still a slave.\u00a0 Genovese did a good job of showing how these men were qualified to lead, which then made me realize that the lack of slave revolts may be due to a lack of these over-qualified leaders.<\/p>\n
Genovese mentions the slaves\u2019 religion a few times throughout the piece.\u00a0 He does an excellent job of explaining how the American slaves developed their own sort of Christianity that did not exactly promote rebellions.\u00a0 The slaves morphed their traditional African folk beliefs into a new Christianity of \u201clove and mutual support,\u201d that emphasized their value as human beings and encouraged an attitude of survival.<\/p>\n
Overall, I think that Genovese\u2019s article was detailed and explained exceedingly well.\u00a0 I do not think that his organization was first-rate, but once I followed where he was going, I bought his arguments.<\/p>\n
Ian Solcz (Rochester, NY) makes an interesting point at the end of his post next week.\u00a0 He compares and contrasts white and black rebellions and revolutions that we have studied thus far in class.\u00a0 I think he touches on an excellent point of freedom of speech.\u00a0 Slaves lacked the freedom to speak out against their condition, which is obviously a severe handicap for them.\u00a0 Yet, Ian says that their only option left to speak out was through rebellion.\u00a0 While rebelling was probably the most obvious and effective way, I believe that there were other things that slaves could do as well.\u00a0 Teaching each other to read and write, slowing down their pace of work, and organizing networks of communication with other slaves are just a few things that they could do to fight back.\u00a0 Ian makes a good point, I just think that there were more options (not great options though), than he lets on to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eugene Genovese\u2019s \u201cSlave Revolts in Hemispheric Perspective\u201d is a detailed analysis of why slave revolts in the Old South were much rarer than in other slave-holding areas.\u00a0 It is clear that Eugene is very well-versed on slave revolts and his research appears to be immense.\u00a0 I enjoyed how he approached the question of why large-scale … <\/p>\n