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To Have and to Hold: Slave Work and Family Life in Antebellum South Carolina

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Hudson has addressed several key questions in an effort to expand on our knowledge of the life of the American slave outside of the daily brutalities that sometimes overshadow understanding of microcosmic economic conditions, family life, and personal property. It is not that Hudson dismisses the horrors of slavery, but rather he expands on the story of the "humanity, endeavor and creativity of the enslaved" (p. xiii). To Have and to Hold is a fundamental work for the study of American slavery; a backbone on which all further study of slavery will build and be judged against.

Any class involving antebellum African-American History ought to integrate this utterly fundamental work into its selected readings list. A syllabus lacking this work would provide for an incomplete and skewed discussion of American Slavery.