Customer Reviews

Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Personally, I found this book fascinating. This is a very uncomfortable subject for African-Americans and sympathetic whites, but it is a story that needs to be told. Admittedly, Larry Koger is heavy on graphs and the census, but it is important to show just who was involved in this business. Whenever an historian deals with subject matter as controversial as this, you need as much documentation as you can to prove your point.

Basically, the book shows slavery in its complexity that is often missing from books in films that are either by the political left OR right wing. We learn of William Ellison, a free black who eventually owned 63 slaves in Sumter County in 1860, whose sons actually tried to join the Confederatre Army! (they were rejected, for VERY obvious reasons)!

There is also the tale of the traitor Peter Desverneys, infamous to us black history fans as the "man" who "spilled the beans" on the Denmark Vesey slave rebellion. We learn that Peter was not only freed for life after this, but bought and sold slaves of his own afterwards!

I could go on and on, but read the book and see for yourself. As A Black South Carolinian, I grew up hearing a number of African-Americans claim that some of their ancestors were actually slave owners (why they would brag about this could form another book about indentification with one's oppressors, but that's another story). In either case, it's a story you are not likely to hear about on a widespread basis, but it is important in understanding the length of the tragedy and delusion caused by the transatlantic slave trade.

This subject is an important one to explore, but there must be a more interesting way to do it. The book is primarily a quantitative study that must have been the author's master's thesis. Names are transcribed from census records, and the difficulties in quantifying black slaveowners is explored. However, the author does nothing to take the reader beyond documented fact. Readers looking for a poignant journey should look elsewhere.

Most people believe that slave owners were white, rich, and evil. This book shows that lots of blacks were slave owners and they didn't have to be rich in order to own slaves. The book also proved that blacks didn't just own their family members in order to gain their freedom. Free Blacks owned slaves in order to further their own economic status because that was system of their day. A fascinating and insightful book which gave the other side of slavery. Well researched but at times repetitive.

It would not surprise me if this book/topic was considered controversial. Therefore, let me preface my review with a few comments.

I originally became interested in this topic during college, where as a history major one of my professors discussed the existence of free black slave owners in our area. Since I was pursuing a degree in history, I obviously had an interest in history and was really taken back because I had never heard of this topic and could not fathom how it could be true. I did some independent research and discovered that there was documentation of its existence in southeast Texas. I always intended to undertake more reading on the subject but didn't. Then, I read The Known World by Edward P Jones and my interest was piqued again.

According to Koger's work there were more than 10,000 slaves owned by free blacks in Louisian, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia. In this work Koger examines and documents the existence of free black (usually mulattos) who owned slaves in South Carolina during the 1800's and lays out the motivations for doing so. Often free blacks would purchase family members in order to grant manumission. However, when South Carolina passed a law that both houses had to approve an application for manumission (which was seldom done) family members would remain "slaves" but with a reunited family. However, this was not the only setting under which black slaveowners occured. There were cases where the purchase of slaves was done for the same "economic" reason that whites purchased slaves. I stated earlier that I couldn't fathom how this could occur. My thinking was, "how could blacks knowing the cruely that existed under this system participate in this sort of oppression." Koger argues that many of the free black slaveowner had never been a victim of the slave system as descendants of those who had gained their independence or they were slaves in the urban areas where the majority of slaves were household slaves rather than field slaves who, according to Koger, received the most severe treatment.

I gave this a three because the book is well documented (probably too much for many) and addresses some of the questions I have. However, you REALLY have to be a history person to get through this book as it is very dry, awash with statistic and documentation, and Koger is QUITE redundant. Koger meticulously cross-references census data with the local tax roles in an attempt (probably) to fend off any criticism that the case is overstated. While there are personal stories included, even they read like what I envision a medical case history reading.

A comprehensive and thoroughly researched book that examines an important aspect of American slavery that is often lost in today's remembering of the past. Koger's book looks at Black slave owners and argues that Black slaveowners were motivated by financial gain and just as invested in the slave system as whites and were not primarily motivated by benificence (though, as he points out, many undoubtedly were). He also examines the effects of interrace sexual relations that produced a class of light-skinned mulattos who, as a group, were often given financial assistance from their white fathers in the form of land and slaves and so formed the elite of the colored community and who often consciously excluded dark skinned black men from their associations (such as the Brown Fellowship) as an attempt to align themselves with upper-class whites by scorning the blackness of the slave caste. He then looks at how these various schisms between brown and black and slave master and slave played out in the attempted slave uprising of Denmark Vesey which failed because by no means were all Blacks anxious to overthrow the slave system. Indeed, several of them remained heavily invested in its maintenance right up until the fall of Charleston.

However, I would be remiss if I did not point out that this book is not an enjoyable read. Far from it. The style is rigid and the presentation of evidence is redundant. He occasionally tries to break out by attempting flashes of poetic eloquence, but they are so terrible that it's actually a relief when he slips back into dry pedantry. It's tedious, ponderous, and dull, but it is also one of the only books that examines this crucial subject of American History that has been obscured by time and politics. And for that it is worth your time.

I was a political science major and history minor in college. This book tells more than the all my classwork combined. It is not for the politically correct. It makes me want to go back to college armed with the real truth.

Found it very interesting. It makes me want to watch the silent movie "Birth of a Nation" again,now that I know how the black state representatives came to be. Sometimes the little statistics can be a little repetitious and boring(that is why 4 stars not 5).Book appears to be backed up with facts though.

This book is filled with falsified information and the title is obviously created like so in order to sell books... I should have known it was BS when I read about Black females who owned slaves and were head of households. This is obviously a load of crock! In the beginning of the book he gives a misleading rational for why his statistics (which is based on the census) may be off... This book is another attempt at the justification for the enslavement of black people. The rewriting of history to brainwash the people is nothing new - It is important to note that black people in this era had no rights and no money... Even free blacks were poor... not to mention the law of the land at that time totally contradicts this book... If you read this book you may find yourself falling for some of the misinformation contained in the pages... However anyone who goes around quoting this book will look like a fool...