American Slavery, American Freedom [Paperback]

Edmund S. Morgan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2003 | ISBN-10: 9780393324945 | ISBN-13: 978-0393324945 | Edition: Reissue

"Thoughtful, suggestive and highly readable."—New York Times Book Review

"If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country. With a new introduction. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize and the Albert J. Beveridge Award.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Thoughtful, suggestive and highly readable. -- New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Edmund S. Morgan is the Sterling Professor Emeritus at Yale University and the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, and the American Academy’s Gold Medal. The author of The Genuine Article; American Slavery, American Freedom; Benjamin Franklin; and American Heroes, among many others, Morgan lives with his wife in New Haven.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (October 17, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780393324945
• ISBN-13: 978-0393324945
• ASIN: 039332494X
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #47,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #7 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War > Abolition
  • #8 in Books > History > World > Slavery & Emancipation
  • #20 in Books > History > Modern (16th-21st Centuries) > 17th Century

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

68 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant October 1, 2001

By Sandra Parke Topolski

Format:Paperback

This is an excellent, in depth survey of Virginia�s colonial experience, with an emphasis on how the seemingly contradictory institutions of slavery and equalitarian republicanism developed simultaneously. Indeed, Morgan argues that Virginians� definition of freedom, and their very ability to establish a republican political system, rested upon the creation of African slavery. Morgan shows that institutionalized slavery did not necessarily have to become part of British colonization; the earliest Englishmen to dream of a colonial empire hoped for the establishment of a utopian community in which natives could benefit from enlightened English governance that recognized the inherent rights of all men. Early English explorers even helped to organize revolts against the Spanish by their slaves in Latin America, and while they were motivated by their own interests in doing so, they clearly were willing to treat their slave co-conspirators as equals. However, the utopian phase of colonization died with the failed settlement at Roanoke in the 1580s. The founders of Jamestown quickly learned racism towards the Indians, whom Morgan speculates they goaded into warfare out of frustration at their own inability to support themselves.

The settlement eventually became prosperous as the colonists learned to produce tobacco for market, but it was hardly the ideal society envisioned by the founders. Labor shortages were endemic, as to make a profit planters needed to control a large number of indentured servants. Unfortunately (for the planters), laborers needed only to serve for a limited period before setting up business for themselves, and thus creating competition for the planters.... To check this competition, planters made it difficult for freedmen to buy lands of their own (land was plentiful, but acreage with access to shipping had been almost totally monopolized by the large planters), which resulted in freedmen foregoing planting, and becoming lazy, shiftless, and at times rebellious. Moreover, planters treated their indentured servants so poorly that as news of their condition drifted back to England, fewer of the mother country�s poor were willing to indenture themselves, especially as the burdens of overpopulation were being reduced at home.

By the 1670s, conditions were ripe for the importation of African slaves, as planters had accumulated capital from past harvests, the supply of indentured servants had slackened, life expectancy had increased to the point where buying a servant for life was cost efficient, and the increasingly rebellious nature of English freedmen convinced the colony�s leaders that to encourage growth in the ranks of Virginia�s poor could be disastrous. At first, African imports faced restrictions no different from those of white servants, except that their terms of service were fixed for life, and poor whites and black slaves even formed friendships, recognizing the commonality of their interests. This sense of camaraderie alarmed the colony�s leaders, who early in the 18th century sought to differentiate the interests of black and white laborers, codifying special discriminations against blacks and fostering a racist attitude towards them. Lower class whites were now allowed to rise in social and economic status, since planters needed them to think in terms of the unity of whites as a social class, rather than in terms of economic class. At the same time, the new emphasis in England upon legislative supremacy and the �rights of Englishmen� carried over to Virginia, leading planter-legislators to curry the favor of lower class voters.

Popular political participation provided the roots of republicanism, as racial slavery allowed whites across social classes to see themselves as political and social equals. Poverty was seen as a threat to republicanism, since the poor would owe their votes to their creditors and benefactors, and must therefore be kept out of the political system. Racial slavery was the perfect way to identify the poor and keep them subdued and out of politics, thus ensuring the liberty of property owners of all economic levels. Blacks took on (at least in the eyes of whites) the attributes that had always been assigned to England�s poor, and identifying those negative qualities with race only made it easier for committed republicans to justify their inequality. Thus, in Virginia, contempt for the poor became contempt for blacks, and while northerners could decry slavery, they could also accept that republicanism rested upon keeping the poor and landless down. Read more ›

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Contradictions at the Heart of AMerica May 7, 2006

By M. Friedman

Format:Paperback

There is, Edmund Morgan observes in American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, a contradiction at the heart of the American Revolution: the greatest champions of liberty in 1776 were, themselves, slave owners. However, far from finding a contradiction in the paradox, Morgan sees the institution of slavery as an essential precondition for Virginians' ultimate embrace of revolutionary republican ideology. "To a large degree," he writes, "it may be said that Americans bought their independence with slave labor." (5)

Morgan locates the origins of this paradox in the economic development of the Virginia colony in the 17th century. Although the colony was originally supposed to be self-supporting, and capable of producing a wide range of crops and products for export to Britain, the introduction of tobacco cultivation a decade after its founding determined the evolution of the colonial economy. A highly prized commodity, tobacco provided the colonists with a stable economic foundation, despite the initial resistance of the Crown, and would soon become their dominant cash crop.

However, tobacco cultivation required considerable manpower, and the leading men of the colony - who were, after all, according to Morgan, disinclined to hard labour themselves - solved the problem through the importation of large numbers of indentured servants. "Most workers were either tenants or servants bound for a period of years," Morgan writes. "Servants were what the planters most wanted." (106)

According to Morgan, coerced labour, initially in the form of indentured servitude, was a necessary precondition for Virginia's tobacco economy. However, by the middle of the 17th century, the system had run headlong into two problems.... The first was that the economic conditions that had encouraged Englishmen to indenture themselves to the Virginia colony had eased, resulting in a reduction of the number of servants available. The second, and more serious problem, was that, with the improvement of conditions within the colony, freed servants were living long enough to form a substantial dispossessed class that threatened its stability.

While other strategies for minimizing class antagonism failed, the importation of African slaves was eminently successful. Morgan notes that "the substitution of slaves for servants gradually eased and eventually ended the threat that freedmen posed: as the annual number of imported servants dropped, so did the number of men turning free." (308)

Morgan argues that was not a "necessary ingredient of slavery," but "it was an ingredient." (315) Indeed, by creating a perpetually un-free workforce distinct from, and thus not entitled to the rights of Englishmen, Virginia was able to establish a kind of class solidarity. With former freedmen becoming small planters, and with the elimination of an exploited white workforce, the white classes of Virginia could see mutual interests. The poorer white colonists "were allowed not only to prosper, but also to acquire social, psychological, and political advantages that turned the trust of exploitation away from them and aligned them with the exploiters." (344)

With the introduction of Whig ideas to the colony following the Glorious Revolution in 1688, that alignment fostered a sense of common cause against tyranny and political equality based on slavery. Indeed, Morgan notes that "Aristocrats could more safely preach equality in a slave society than in a free one." (380)

Morgan makes a convincing case for his argument with a painstakingly detailed analysis of the economic structure of Virginian society, revealed principally in the legal and financial records of the colony. However, American Slavery, American Freedom has some curious flaws. Though Morgan devotes a fair amount of space to discussing a similar trajectory to slavery in Barbados at about the same time, he never quite explains what made the Virginia experience special. Why, after all, did Bermuda not join the American Revolution?

More serious is his failure to connect the slave-based class accommodation of the early 18th century with the apparent contradiction of Jefferson and Washington defending freedom while owning slaves. Although he begins the book with a desire to explain "the seeming inconsistency, not to say the hypocrisy, of slaveholders devoting themselves to freedom," (4) Morgan's one-page treatment of Jefferson himself never quite answers the question. While he expertly documents the foundation of the revolutionaries' ideological paradox, he fails to elucidate its content. Read more ›

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars American Slavery, American Freedom April 24, 2006

By J. Lindner

Format:Paperback

I first read this book in graduate school over fifteen years ago. That it is still in print is testimony to both the content and the author's skillful ability to convey his message. When asked to pick three favorite historians, I included Edmund S. Morgan on my list. He states his points clearly and succinctly and his books are very readible for people of varied acedemic backgrounds. one does not need to be a scholar to appreciate his works.

In American Slavery, American Freedom, Morgan traces the interconnectivity of those who drafted our founding documents and the slavery they all accepted and participated in. Because they owned slaves, they had the opportunity to spend their time forging our "free" society. Obviously there is a paradox here, and this is the main focus of Morgan's work.

This book will be of interest to any who enjoy studying American history in general, the colonial period, black history, revolutionary America and so forth. This book ought to remain in print for years to come and it is worth the time for any interested in the period or the topic.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing Questions July 7, 2003

By Aldo Matteucci

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Racism became an essential, if unacknowledged, ingredient of the republican ideology that enabled Virginians to lead the nation." writes Edmund S. Morgan in 1975, and ends this book with the rhetorical question: "Is America still colonial Virginia writ large?"

These are deeply disturbing questions - questions one is compelled to ponder as one reads this lucid and dispassionate presentation of the how primitive accumulation in Virginia at the beginning of the 17th century was replaced a century later by an orderly and opulent society based on slavery. The answer to such questions is not made easy by the realisation that the only other successful republican experiment - the Athenian democracy - blossomed too on a bed of slavery.

Do these questions matter today? Have we not moved on from racism? I'm afraid not. Again the voice of Morgan: "In the republican way of thinking, zeal for liberty and equality could go hand in hand with contempt for the poor and plans for enslaving them." Sounds eerily familiar? Just as today's language used to describe terrorist threats is redolent of the rhetoric that once surrounded the lynching of black bodies. Racism (albeit globalised) is re-visiting the land today, and so are republican virtues and values.

The book is long, and in some ways, too detailed. Morgan delights in the telling particular, and at times one wishes he would not linger on some specifics. But this has a purpose. He wants to show the imperceptible and surreptitious mechanisms by which a society acquires its ugly and immoral traits until they become so natural as to be invisible. Step by step, event by event, law by law a construction emerges that would have horrified its founders. Yet, at the time, it seamed the logical, and the right thing to do....

A strong point in Morgan's narrative is the links he highlights between the developments in Virginia and the Britain's commercial interests, migration policies, population growth and control, state revenue, and political history or thought. One can better appreciate the import of Virginia for Britain and the mother country's fixation and fascination for the North American colonies.

Brash and brutal, Virginian slavery stood openly as godmother at the foundation of the American Republic. Other aspects of slavery also contributed significantly - but as they were indirect, they remained veiled and are hardly recognised even today. New England benefited greatly from its cod trade to the Caribbean, where the product that was found to be unfit for European markets was fed to the slaves, thus freeing up land that otherwise would have been used to sustain them. When will we get a total picture of slavery's import for America's economic foundations? Read more ›