Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Paperback)

by Ira Berlin (Author)
Key Phrases: charter generation, plantation revolution, saltwater slaves, Upper South, Mississippi Valley, South Carolina (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Eminent historian Berlin revisits and extends by a century the territory of his honored and groundbreaking Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in America (1998), incorporating the "vast outpouring of new research in this field" in the brief period since its publication and mirroring that book's structure. In 150 or so pages here, Berlin recapitulates the argument of his earlier, prize-winning work, delineating "the making and remaking of slavery" as a matter of "Generations": the "Charter Generations," who managed "to integrate themselves into mainline society during the first century of settlement, despite their status as slaves and the contempt of the colony's rulers"; the "Plantation Generations," living in a world where "blackness and whiteness took on new meaning," who managed "to forge new communities as `Africans,' an identity no one had previously considered or even knew existed"; and the "Revolutionary Generations," beneficiaries, victims, and participants in both the "revolutionary ideology [and] evangelical upsurge" of the period. Berlin, president of the Organization of American Historians and an editor of the Remembering Slavery project, is attentive to place as well as time, and focuses first on New Netherland, the Chesapeake, and the North, followed by variants in Florida, the Lower Mississippi Valley and Low Country South Carolina. New to this book are "the Migration Generations," who suffered a Second Middle Passage with the accelerated transcontinental "transfer" of slaves between 1810 and 1861. An epilogue introduces the "Freedom Generations," reaching into the 1860s. While preserving the terrible complexity and diversity of North American slavery, Berlin offers a compact scholarly account of the transformation of a society with slaves into a slave society. He reveals without condescension or simplification the inspiring social structures that arose from a horrific history. While it may not get the attention of Many Thousands, this book follows up with grace and determination.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
Although American slavery is generally thought of as dominating and being dominated by the culture, politics, and economics of the South, Berlin charts the dynamic quality of American slavery by placing it into the changing context of American history and various generations overall. The experience of the original settlement population adapting to their new environment produced what Berlin calls the chartered generation. Most often associated with slavery is plantation life and the plantation generation, which reflected the western and southern expansion of the nation as cotton became king of the economy. Following the plantation generation was the revolutionary generation, when worldwide views on slavery and freedom influenced domestic politics and culture. Berlin reflects on the contrasts between the southern experience of slavery and the north's experience and challenges with its freedmen. The Chesapeake, or upper south, was for a period the region that dominated the internal slave trade and facilitated further regional redistribution of slaves. Finally, Berlin examines the migration generation, the substantial shift in the black population to the north and west. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press (September 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674016246
• ISBN-13: 978-0674016248
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #169,825 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative but too general, June 21, 2003

By	matthewslaughter "matthewslaughter" (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Hardcover)

This review is written by someone who has just became acquainted with many of the details of the enslavement of [African][-][Americans] on the land that would eventually become the United States of America. "Generations of Captivity" introduced me to this long and tragic history. Written in a simple narrative format, helpfully broken up into five generations of African American slavery--the Charter [~1600-1720], Plantation [~1720-1776], Revolutionary [1776-1812], Migration [1812-1861] and Freedom generations--as well as geographical regions, Berlin's narrative of this ugly spectacle in American history is easy to follow and extremely informative to newcomers to the subject like myself. That being said, the book appears to be an abridged version of his previous book, "Many Thousands Gone." There are very few direct quotes from primary sources, and the statistics provided during the narrative are general at best (though a table of statistics is provided in an appendix). While Berlin's book introduced me to many of the specificities of slavery in the United States, I got the nagging feeling that, while I was reading this, something was missing. I'm probably being too critical, as each generation he writes about has most likely been the subject of numerous book-length studies in and of themselves, and it is Berlin's job here to condense all of them into a single narrative. This book is a very good introduction to the topic and I feel I have some more insight into it now. But those who have spent plenty of time with this subject material might want to search elsewhere.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, November 25, 2003

By	Southern Historian (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Hardcover)

This book is a very disappointing work from the usually excellent historian Ira Berlin. This book is essentially an abridged (and slightly revised) version of Many Thousands Gone with the addition of a short section on the Antebellum period of black life in the United States. It is disappointing because the addition of the later period coupled with the clear limits that were placed on its lenght lead to a book that is very watered down to the point where the text dwells in generalities and is just not very interesting.

I would say that if you are at all knowledgeable about slavery in America skip this book and look at his other book Many Thousands Gone. If you are not knowledgeable, this book can be a useful introduction to the subject and a spring board to more in depth studies.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lively, well-written overview of US slavery, November 13, 2008

By	Richard Gibson "Rick Gibson" (Woodland Hills, CA) - See all my reviews

I have not yet read Berlin's other book, so I can not compare the two, as some reviewers have done. I thought that the book was quite good. It has a rather peculiar point of view, which was very helpful to me, although it might be hard to follow for someone not familiar with general American history.

What Berlin basically does is to give an intense look at how slavery changed over time. His approach is to go region by region, generation by generation. His focus is almost entirely on the slaves; he says little or nothing about the larger context (which is why his format might be hard to follow for those not familiar with the larger history.) This approach tends to highlight how slavery changed over time, and how it differed between the regions. He is particularly good in his description of the free black and creole communities which came to exist in different times and places.

I found, oddly enough, that he gave me a huge insight. We tend to see the Revolution as being profoundly hypocritical on slavery. How could the Founding Fathers have proclaimed the equality of all, yet not abolished slavery? Berlin showed me part of the answer. The Founders DID abolish slavery, in the North. It is easy to forget that slavery existed in the North, prior to the Revolution, and that abolishing it there was no small thing.