Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves Book

Ira Berlin seeks to problematize our understanding of slavery in this book by breaking it down into five "generations." His intent is to convince us that slavery is not simply a single, monolithically "negative" experience, but rather quite different according to time and context. His generations consist of the "Charter Generation," the "Plantation Generation, and the "Revolutionary," "Migration," and "Freedom" generations.

The most familiar to us today is what Berlin designated the "Migration Generation" - the generation of pre-bellum slavery based upon the cotton trade and the most repressive forms of slavery. This however is contrasted most forcefully with the charter generation: "cosmopolitan men and women of African descent who arrived in mainland North America almost simultaneously with the first European adventurers" (6). These people had valuable skills to trade and a sense of self-worth that they retained through negotiation with their ostensible owners.

Throughout the book, and in examining each generation, Berlin looks for ways slaves found to express themselves and gain agency, even when they were stripped of all legal protections and rights. His narrative continues through the early establishment of colonial plantations, a system wherein cheap unskilled labor was the order of the day, but nevertheless black slaves retained some dignity while working together with white indentured servants and manumission remained high in many areas. The revolutionary war promised and granted freedom to slaves fighting on both sides, although neither side lived up to its promise to abolish it entirely. The westward expansion of the plantation system in the early 19th Century brought the increasing dehumanization of the chattel-slave-system most are familiar with today, but simultaneously the migration of free blacks Northward "set the stage for the Great Jubilee and the freedom generations" (7).

Berlin's narrative is woven as a tapestry containing many intimate stories of individuals and fact often overlooked by popular historians. The book is an entertaining read, in spite of its sometimes depressing subject-matter, and is easily accessible to any educated reader. It would make an excellent addition to any undergraduate course on American history and is well worth the time for American citizens seeking to understand the darker side of our nation's past.