Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790 [Hardcover]

Robert Olwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1998

The slave societies of the American colonies were quite different from the "Old South" of the early-nineteenth-century United States. In this engaging study of a colonial older South, Robert Olwell analyzes the structures and internal dynamics of a world in which both masters and slaves were also imperial subjects. While slavery was peculiar within a democratic republic, it was an integral and seldom questioned part of the eighteenth-century British empire.Olwell examines the complex relations among masters, slaves, metropolitan institutions, officials, and ideas in the South Carolina low country from the end of the Stono Rebellion through the chaos of the American Revolution. He details the interstices of power and resistance in four key sites of the colonial social order: the criminal law and the slave court; conversion and communion in the established church; market relations and the marketplace; and patriarchy and the plantation great house. Olwell shows how South Carolina's status as a colony influenced the development of slavery and also how the presence of slavery altered English ideas and institutions within a colonial setting. Masters, Slaves, and Subjects is a pathbreaking examination of the workings of American slavery within the context of America's colonial history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Olwell blazes a new path by showing how South Carolina's colonial status influenced the development of slavery and how slavery altered or modified English institutions within a colonial setting. He considers four pillars of colonial society: the church, the law, the market, and patriarchy, and shows how each was peculiarly affected in a new environment in association with a strange institution that became normative."-Daniel C. Littlefield, author of Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in South Carolina

"A well-researched and well-written book. . . . A careful reading of sources. . . . An intriguing final chapter. . . . A worthy addition to the scholarship begun by Peter Wood and Edmund Morgan, it is a must for libraries with collections on slavery and the Colonial South."-Choice

"This book sheds new light on the nature and complexity of the master-slave relationship in low-country South Carolina, circa 1760. . . . Olwell's is an excellent book. Not only does it explicate the various ways in which slavery shaped colonial South Carolina and vice versa, it demonstrates one way that history might be written as both a study and a story."-Thomas J. Little, The North Carolina Historical Review. January, 2000.

"Masters, Slaves, and Subjects is an exceptionally fine study of the interplay between slaves and masters. . . Much of this story is familiar, but Olwell also covers new ground, adds rich detail, and reminds us constantly of the slaves' agency and resistance in the everyday tug of war between the dominant and the subordinate. His eloquent study contributes much to our understanding of the 'problem' of South Carolina. . . .Master, Slaves, and Subjects is a superb book."-Jerome Nadelhaft, University of Maine. William and Mary Quarterly, April 2001

"Olwell's book is engaging and well written. . . Olwell's book can be recommended as an interesting study of slavery in colonial and revolutionary South Carolina."-Labor History

"Robert Olwell's book is one of the most insightful and interesting books on early America to appear in some time. . . All in all, this is a first-rate work in cultural history. Gracefully written, well researched, and ingeniously plotted, the study marks the debut of a prodigious young talent in the field of early American history."-Peter A. Coclanis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. American Historical Review, June 2000.

"Familiar primary sources are fresh in Olwell's hands. . . This book is . . . engagingly, even elegantly written.-Journal of American History

Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (June 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801434882
• ISBN-13: 978-0801434884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,033,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written account of colonial SC's culture., September 30, 1998

By 

Jeffrey Robert Young ([e-mail]) (Metter, Ga.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790 (Paperback)

Robert Olwell, a recognized authority on the early history of South Carolina, has written a fresh account of that colony's cultural development. Focusing on the tension between the cultural standards emanating from the English metropole and the slave society that developed on the shores of a strange continent, Olwell provides an intriguing perspective on the formation of colonial power relations. Olwell begins his study with an overview of South Carolina's history from the Stono slave uprising in 1739 through the Revolutionary period. Subsequent chapters explore, in turn, the legal system, the Anglican church, the market economy, the plantation household, and the revolution against English authority. Olwell eases the reader into his sophisticated analysis by opening each chapter with anecdotes emphasizing the human and personal element of history. A talented writer, the author manages to present his incredibly thorough research without numbing the reader to the compelling drama of this period. In short, this book should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of South Carolina, the history of slavery in colonial America, and the relationship between the colonial American elite and the English and African cultures that spawned South Carolina's society in the New World.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting book; good research, May 11, 2006

By 

Robert Hutchings - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790 (Paperback)

Robert Olwell investigates the relationship between slaves and their masters, beginning with the Stono Rebellion in 1740 and concluding after the Revolutionary War. The rebellion consisted of several slaves leading a proposed march from South Carolina to Spanish Florida, pillaging plantations on their way and gathering slave recruits. They had barely begun when the slaveholders formed a militia and crushed the insurgents. Throughout the fifty years following the Stono Rebellion, slaveholders found it in their best interests from the points of view of finances and sanity to give the slaves a certain degree of respect. Slaves usually had at least one day off, grew their own produce, generally were not sold separate from their families, and so on. Furthermore, slaveholders discovered during minor battles prior to the Revolutionary War against Indians, France, and Great Britain, that slaves would side with their masters to keep the slave family together. In a sense, then, a partnership developed, with dissimilar but aligned goals. Within that, however, both sides sought to maximize their own agenda whenever possible. Over the course of his book, Olwell gives examples in terms of justice, religion, the marketplace, and war.

Slaves could not expect much justice in criminal proceedings against them. If they were accused of a crime, especially against a white person, the punishment was often death, with little or no inquiry as to their guilt. If slaves showed genuine remorse for their act (again, regardless of whether or not they actually did it), and their act was not especially severe, the courts frequently were lenient. Consequently, slaves quickly learned to be repentant if they were accused of a crime.

Regarding religion, slaveholders would have liked to convert their slaves to Christianity, but as the story of Moses leading God's people out of Egypt suggests, many Christian lessons contradicted colonial practice. Therefore, they tried to involve the slaves in the church, but kept them largely ignorant. Missionaries were on a tight leash, often only able to stay for a year. Few slaves actually converted, at one point around five percent, and these their owners handpicked. Those that converted frequently did so not for religious reasons, but rather to gain favor with their owner and thereby achieve a higher quality of life.

One area in which slaves actually gained an advantage over whites was in the marketplace. They were allowed to sell goods they had made, produce they had grown, and, if their masters had no need of them for the day, themselves. In this fashion, they manipulated the market to achieve a kind of equality; if whites refused to pay the price they asked, they refused to sell. This was especially true in the latter example, selling day-labor, as the demand was quite high. Slaveholders often tried to get a cut of the sales, and went to great lengths to get it, but slaves proved adept at not paying.

Throughout all of these proceedings, however, masters viewed their plantations and their slaves much like the King of England viewed England and his subjects. Olwell demonstrates that an inherent contradiction lies in that analogy; England at no point in history had slaves, and consequently differed considerably from a colony forced to create laws and policies aimed at protecting slavery. In a sense, the Revolutionary War was inevitable.

During the Revolutionary War, many slaves cast their lot with England, believing a victory on that side would free them. England encouraged slaves to abandon their masters so as to let South Carolina's economy grind to a halt. When the war ended with the colonies victorious, most of the loyalist slaves returned and resumed their lives under white rule. Though slaveholders were uneasy over the number of slaves who left during the war, as well as the number of social bandits afterwards, relations with slaves were generally the same.