The Author paints a picture throughout the book of how horrible Virginians were throughout the early history, stating that the King was worried about the well being of his subjects in the hands of the Virginians, and also that the decision to adopt slavery was based solely on monetary calculations of profit and had little to do with the demand for labor which could have been supplied by importing poor English.
I found his argument throughout the final section of the book to hinge on the idea that poor, unruly freedmen in Virginian were the root of most problems, and by eliminating the flow of these men by switching to African Slavery allowed the established Virginians to stick together and form their Republican ideals against the rule of a tyrant king. Some of the ideas seemed to be a bit of a stretch for me, such when Morgan proposed that republican ideals of freedom from a tyrant could have been formed by slave owners viewing their slaves and not wanting to be placed in the same position by a tyrannical king. I find it somewhat hard to believe that a slave owner would relate himself to a tyrannical king, but also find it hard to place myself in the mindset of a slave owning head of a plantation.
Overall I suppose I enjoyed the different viewpoints proposed by Morgan in his book, and while some may have enjoyed the first 3 sections more than me, I believe that his argument could have been made just as strongly with an expansion on his thoughts in the final section of the book and a condensing of the first 3 sections that focused so heavily on the history of the establishment of Virginia.
Did anyone find the first three sections of the book more helpful than I did for understanding his argument or come to a different conclusion about Morgan's theory?
Important question! I think this speaks to the questions Morgan is posing as much as the answers that he gives. There are multiple parts to his thesis precisely because the research question he poses forces him to examine several different facets of Virginian history. I hope others will reflect on this as well.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the history he was doing in the earlier sections (I find him a master at using sources), but I did find myself thinking he could have given us a condensed version. We'll see if I stick to that view as I finish.
ReplyDeleteI am with Kevin, I enjoyed the history he was creating and found his use of sources very useful, however, I became frustrated with his, in my opinion, over dependence on economic data to drive his argument forward. While I accept the basic premise that slavery was an economic function, thus an understanding of Virginia's economic history is important, I found that it then diluted his (somewhat short) discussion of race/racism in the development of slavery. Am I correct in concluding that these are somewhat mutually exclusive, or did other people find the relationship between economics and racism more persuasive?
ReplyDeleteIt was hard to determine what where the author was coming from at first. but as I continued to read I began to understand. I have to disagree that racism occured as a result of slavery when in reality , as a result of slavery , racism was produced.
DeleteHonestly, I found the economics distracting for the most part. While it was an interesting look at early Virginia, it didn't really seem relevant to me. I don't think that he spend enough time discussing the issue of race/racism either.
DeleteI definitely agree with you on the last section of the book. I found the previous sections interesting, but very long and not completely relevant to the rest of the book.
ReplyDeleteI personally like it when an author concisely outlines or states the purpose or thesis of his book at the beginning. I know it's my own preference, but I find it makes my reading of the work to be more coherent and positive if I know where they are going from the outset ( in terms of non-fiction work anyway). I agree with Victoria's feeling of lengthy rambling, but I probably would have felt less so and would have felt more of an inclination to allow for such wanderings if Morgan had stated his overarching arguments at the beginning.
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