American Slavery, American Freedom Book

There are a few books in every field that are considered classics. Books that have become part of the story because the impact that they have had on the study of the subject itself.

Edmund Morgan's "American Slavery, American Freedom" is one of those books. Morgan won a Pultizer Prize for "for a creative and deeply influential body of work as an American historian that spans the last half century." This is one of those works.

That being said, the book is not the easiest book to read. The difficulty does not lie in the fact that it is poorly written or emotionally charged, but rather because it is extremely dense. Each chapter provides so many facts and details that have to be processed and digested before moving on to the next chapter.

My biggest complaint is that the title is misleading.

The book is titled "American Slavery, American Freedom", but it is not about slavery. Slavery is barely referenced until Chapter 15 (page 298). That chapter deals primarily with the slave trade and economics of slavery---but not slavery itself!

So what is the book about?

It is about how the culture in America, specifically Virginia, evolved. It is a sociological study about how Virginia came to prized individual freedom without seeing a conflict that some were deemed as less---and in time came to accept slavery.

The early chapters talk about how the people who came to the Colonies initially were not the right types of people. Rather than sending people willing to work for survival, the earliest Virginians were skilled tradesmen or soldiers. The Virginia Company sent people to the colony with certain expectations. The earliest settlers were often soldiers, master craftsmen, minor nobles, or their servants.

Because England enforced a cast system, there was very little cross training between these specialties. Gemologist, metallurgist, silk weavers, tailors, etc did not have the skills necessary to survive in the wilderness, and lacked the willingness to try. This lead to a community that suffered extremely high mortality rates. Life in Virginia was so harsh, that the Virginia Company disbanded because they couldn't send new settlers there in good conscious!

Yet people continued to go. Those with some money opted might go because of the promise of more wealth, others went as indentured servants---again with the hope of someday achieving more than they might in England. Some were tricked into going and for a short period, England used Virginia as a penal colony.

The upper class in Virginia often paid for the transportation of indentured servants. Indentured servants came to Virginia with the expectation to serve a certain number of years and then be released from their servitude. The duration of these servitudes varied---and the Virginia elite were not above changing the terms after the servant arrived in the colony. Minor infractions were punished by disproportionately extending the servitude.

During the first fifty plus years of Virginia, the vast majority of servants brought to the colony were indentured servants. With the high mortality rate, it did not make financial sense to import slaves. As the land was subdued and people learned how to survive, the mortality rate declined. By the end of the 17th century, the importation of indentured servants (who would be freed and constitute competition to the gentry) declined as slavery increased.

A couple of interesting facts:

*** Prior to becoming an adult, 25, any wages a person earned belonged to the family to compensate the family for the expenses of raising the child. This is significant because in later years, many of the gradual emancipation plans freed the slave after reaching a certain age. Understanding this was part of the heritage helps to understand where the notion came from.

*** In England, having a skill/trade was often a family secret. Apprenticeships were hard to come by and it was very difficult to learn more than one skill. When one apprenticed with another, they were committed to working for the master craftsman for a certain number of years. Profits derived from the apprentice went to the master craftsman. It was not based upon skill, but status. Thus, a true master might be considered an apprentice and make their inept master a fortune. People under the age of 30 were required to work for somebody else!

*** British law was very regimented---required people to work essentially 14 hour days 6 days a week.

*** In early Virginia there was a large disparity between the sexes. By a margin of 4-1 male immigrants exceeded females. Additionally, men (who worked labor and outdoors) had a much higher mortality rate than women. It was not uncommon for women to marry multiple times. Morgan notes that this was one of the earliest ways in which wealth was accumulated by families in the early 17th century. (While he doesn't state it, this is exactly how George Washington acquired most of his wealth. Martha married into the Custis fortune and then married George.)

*** Most settlers chose to raise Tobacco because it had a higher profit per acre than other crops, but this made the colonist dependent upon trade for sustenance!

NOTE: This was one of the 6 books that I committed to reading for Black History Month. Having finished it, I feel like I owe black history another book.