Plantation Culture of the "Old South"

Abbeville Institute

A slave cabin in Barbour County, Alabama (researchgate.net)

In the slave-holding states of North and South Carolina and Virginia, there was a distinct hierarchy in place that was constructed along the lines of property ownership--either that of slaves or of real property. In the South Carolina low country before the Civil War, it was not uncommon for planters to own hundreds of slaves. The more property a planter controlled--real or human--the higher he ranked in society. This social tier controlled much of the economy and politics of the Old South, as most politicians were, in fact, slave owners. The Old South became known as a 'slavocracy,' a system controlled and structured around the exploitation of slave labor. Defendants of the slavocracy in Congress often referred to the economic system of the Old South as 'the peculiar institution,' referring to its uniqueness to the South, and to the South's reliance on slave labor. In fact, the utterance of the term "slavery" for a time was forbidden in public--and political--circles.

A planter class/aristocracy ensured the perpetuation of slavery and in many cases, an individual planter's reach extended into the highest levels of government. Further to validate this system of chattel slavery, the planter argued that Scripture justified the practice of slavery. One source observes that "white southerners proclaimed slavery as a 'positive good' and not a 'necessary evil,' and that it was the natural status of blacks. Second, some stated that slaves were necessary to the economy and were symbols as the quest for prosperity. Third, others believed in a hierarchical view that God had set in stone" (1). 

                                

Not all planters were wealthy, and not all of them were cruel: there were those who believed it their Christian duty to provide slaves with sufficient clothes, nourishment, lodgings, and to keep families and marriages intact where possible. Nevertheless, this "paternal" approach to human trafficking was merely a less severe form of an existing evil. By the mid-1800s, progressive reform movements were afoot to market Abolition as the true Christian cause. Religious groups such as the Quakers sought to end slavery: Isaac and Amy Post were well-known advocates of the abolition of slavery, even having housed Harriet Jacobs for a time in their home, and encouraging the former bondswoman to pen her narrative. Other religious groups such as the Methodists--and Spiritualists--who appeared by 1843, sought the end of the unjust institution. 

The slave narrative initiated as memoir, but soon evolved into political tract. Authors such as Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Solomon Northup published their biographies that were later distributed as propaganda for the Abolitionist cause. Publications like The Liberator, edited by famous abolitionist Henry Lloyd Garrison advocated the end of slavery as well, and re-printed excerpts from narratives that showed the particularly loathsome acts many slaveholders performed. From these texts, 19th century reading audiences learned that some masters administered whippings themselves; some delegated the distasteful task to an overseer--who may have been black or white. From narratives like Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, readers learned of the particular atrocities foisted on women and their bodies. 

Perhaps the most outstanding irony of the social structure of the Old South was that while the Planter Class projected an image of civility and superiority, it supported and perpetuated a system of overt--and subtle--cruelties that undergirded its status as a superior class. 

In the traditional plantation structure, slaves were divided into two separate tiers: the house servants, usually of fairer complexion, tended the master's children. These slaves served as seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, silver- and blacksmiths, stable grooms, and so on, while other, darker and less cultivated slaves worked the fields. The latter were considered of a lower social importance. This segregation of the slave population was one way in which the planter power structure reinforced a social hierarchy that was inculcated into the minds of its victims. The effect of these divisions was that slaves adopted their own prejudices against one another on the plantation: lighter complexions were valued above darker complexions.  

In addition to the divisions along the color line, the slave population was demoralized on the basis of gender-specific cruelties. On the meanest plantations, women were used as breeders to ensure the continuation of a slave population and to increase the master's wealth. Males were treated as 'bucks' or 'brutes,' and purchasers chose these males for their superior strength and virility. Resistant slaves were beaten into submission by overseers called "slave-breakers": Frederick Douglass reports on his experience with a particularly notorious slave-breaker, Edward Covey, in his narrative, My Bondage and My Freedom. For women, there were other, particularized brutalities. As Harriet Jacobs exposes in her memoirs, slave women--especially mulattoes--were prized for their beauty and often taken as concubines: unwilling partners in sexual affairs with their masters. A galling double-standard emerged in the 19th century that would drive a lasting wedge of distrust among women in slave-holding households. 

Much is now known about life as it was for slaves on a plantation thanks to the Narratives published by Jacobs, Douglass, and others. As we will examine, the slave narrative has evolved to serve purposes such as historical document, memoir, biography--and the dawning of an African American literary tradition. Additionally, the slave narrative draws from the Vernacular Tradition for its inspiration and illustration. The "Sorrow Songs" that Douglass, and later, Dubois will attest, were the means of expressing themselves in subversive, yet effective ways. Also, as we have examined, the early vernacular forms of oral storytelling first served to express the heart of the slave. The film "Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives" shows the trajectory from oral to written story, and then a return to oral narrative in dynamic and interesting ways. These voices were those who did not attain the literacy to write their narratives, but their voices resonate with pain, pathos, and history. Here, the talents of Roscoe Lee Brown, Robert Guillaume, Jasmine Guy, Samuel L. Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, and Angela Bassett (among others) reanimate the voices and the stories of those who lived--and survived--the horrors of slavery.

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