I like to research authors a little bit while I'm reading. For those of you who want to finish the book first before getting background, you can stop reading (sorry, Richard - ha!). Learning about Eugene D. Genovese was helpful in understanding the first half of Roll Jordan, Roll and gave me some questions about where the book will go as I finish.
Genovese was an Italian born in Brooklyn, which struck me because he had a profound interest in writing about the American South and slavery, but I later learned that he moved to the South and had a brief stint teaching at Georgia State University! Controversy seemed to follow him wherever he went and he had no problem stating his opinion. He was a member of the Communist party as a young man, identified as a Marxist, and later in life converted to Catholicism and called himself a "traditionalist."
With about half of the book read so far, I've found Roll Jordan, Roll to be easier to comprehend than the last two we've read. Maybe the content is more interesting to me, which helps! I've learned some new information and enjoy that Genovese tries to bring in many different sources into his book (slaves, planters, legal rulings, plantation records, etc.).
In Part One, Genovese emphasizes the paternalistic relationship between slaves and their masters in the U.S., which we discussed in class after Morgan's book. After thinking about this since week one, I find myself questioning the word paternalism. While I agree with Genovese that there were many aspects of paternalism happening in American slavery (such as giving slaves special rights and punishments to reward/discourage behaviors)...what about the buying and selling of slaves? Parents don't sell their kids for money. If paternalism defined the master-slave relationship...why did the slave trade make so many Southern planters so wealthy? Why were so many slaves bought and sold? Then again, slavery is so twisted, who truly understands the master-slave relationship? After some research, I find that other historians have criticized Genovese's viewpoint on slavery and paternalism as well. HOWEVER, I am hesitant to read many critiques of this book from the 1970s and 80s because Genovese was such a controversial character and many disagreed with him personally (and perhaps may have taken it out on his book). I'll try to stick to my own observations as I finish this weekend.
On page 4 Genovese states that paternalism "grew out of necessity to discipline and morally justify a system of exploitation." This really struck a cord with me, it makes sense that in order to live with their cruel acts, planters made themselves feel better by viewing themselves as benevolent.
ReplyDeleteI don't know Wade. After reading Andrea's description of Genovese's background I couldn't help but thing that there might be a connection between his arguments about Paternalism and his Marxist background (critique of Capitalism.) I'm afraid I haven't been able to develop this thought process more, but I am excited to learn more about where this book fits in to the historiography.
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