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Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (2003)

von Ira Berlin

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In this book Ira Berlin traces the history of African-American slavery in the United States from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its demise nearly three hundred years later. Most Americans, black and white, have a singular vision of slavery, one fixed in the mid-nineteenth century when most American slaves grew cotton, resided in the deep South, and subscribed to Christianity. Here, however, Berlin offers a major reinterpretation in which slaves and their owners continually renegotiated the terms of captivity. Slavery was thus made and remade by successive generations of Africans and African Americans who lived through settlement and adaptation, plantation life, economic transformations, revolution, forced migration, war, and ultimately, emancipation. Berlin's understanding of the processes that continually transformed the lives of slaves makes Generations of captivity essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of antebellum America. Connecting the "Charter Generation" to the development of Atlantic society in the seventeenth century, the "Plantation Generation" to the reconstruction of colonial society in the eighteenth century, the "Revolutionary Generation" to the Age of Revolutions, and the "Migration Generation" to American expansionism in the nineteenth century, Berlin integrates the history of slavery into the larger story of American life. He demonstrates how enslaved black people, by adapting to changing circumstances, prepared for the moment when they could seize liberty and declare themselves the "Freedom Generation." This epic story provides a rich understanding of the experience of African-American slaves, an experience that continues to mobilize American thought and passions today.… (mehr)
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Ira Berlin is an American historian who has spent his career writing extensively on the larger Atlantic world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Focused particularly on slavery, Berlin has long been concerned with studying the diversified conditions and auspices of African-American life under slavery. Generations of Captivity, like much of his other work, suggests that slavery in America was complex and ever changing. As he states, “the contest had not ended, for freedom, like slavery, was not made but constantly remade.” (4) In this work, Berlin attributes factors such as demography, geography, and the economy as being the dominating influences which shaped and reshaped slavery in the United States from colonization through the nineteenth century.
Ira Berlin’s book is divided into five parts, which coincide with five “generations” of Africans and their descendents. The way in which these groups dealt with societal shifts and the expanding dynamic of living within a White European population which forced them into submission is intriguing. Berlin is articulate in this narrative as he reflects and reports on these evolutionary cycles. His first chapter entitled “Charter Generations” describes the initial contact between what he refers to as Atlantic creoles and Europeans on the west coast of Africa. Socially and economically versatile, these Atlantic creoles could aspire to gaining freedom, if not full equality, in a world where the lines of bondage were blurred. Free people could be enslaved and slaves could be liberated. As Berlin puts it, “the boundary between slavery and freedom on the African coast was permeable.” (33) At this time, servitude did not necessarily prevent men and women from marrying or even owning property. It was expected that eventually the enslaved would be incorporated into the “host society”.
This dynamic shifted during what Berlin calls the “Plantation Generations” during the eighteenth century. Subjected to the isolating rigors of rice and tobacco cultivation and the increased numbers of Africans being brought in as a labor force, the enslaved population culturally diverged into one characteristically more African. “Whereas members of the charter generations slept and ate under the same roof and worked in the same fields as their owners, the new arrivals lived in a world apart.” (59) As planters consolidated their power, a new sense of mastership began to emerge. Deference and authority began to be emphasized and racial divisions became synonymous with class divisions. Members of this ‘generation’, as Berlin states, “worked harder, died earlier, and escaped slavery less frequently than their predecessors.” (6)
In his third chapter, Berlin addresses a resurgence of natural rights and the effect the War for American Independence had on what he calls the “Revolutionary Generation”. Berlin observes that “the revolutionary era offered slaves new opportunities to challenge both the institution of chattel bondage and the allied structures of white supremacy.” (99) Revolutionary ideology and evangelical thought merged in the late eighteenth century. The Americans were globally chastised for their hypocritical fight for freedom while they kept so many hundreds of thousands in bondage. Even Tom Paine mused in 1775 at the hypocrisy of the battle cry for Independence. Social cognizant awareness of the rights of man being for all men and not merely the select few began to take hold in the northeastern United States. Indeed, by 1780 “numerous northern slaveholders yielded to the logic of the Revolution and freed their slaves or allowed them to purchase their liberty.” (104)
Berlin’s fourth chapter entitled “Migration Generations” discusses the first half of the nineteenth century and the transformation of slavery which occurred due to the Second Middle Passage. This event propelled black society across the continent and, according to Berlin, was the central event for African American peoples between the American Revolution and the demise of slavery in 1865. Indeed, by 1810 most of the black population within the United States was overwhelmingly American-born. As White European society began to expand westward, so did the opportunity for cultivation in the interior south. Berlin has a knack for heart-wrenching descriptivism. This chapter, which is the longest in the book, discusses labor hungry plantation owners who wanted slaves and were not above purchasing free African Americans who had been kidnapped and smuggled into the southern interior. Families were ripped apart as the most desirable slaves were sold and re-sold on the large treks westward. This lonely, debilitating, and dispiriting journey became one where the slaves were “not merely commodified but cut off from nearly every human attachment.” (173)
Yet the effects of the Second Middle Passage were not confined to the southern interior. The lowcountry, which stretched from the Cape Fear River of North Carolina to the St. John’s River in Florida, saw an enormous revival of rice cultivation. Although this new staple offered some subsistence, the competition with the southern interior was significant. No longer would the southern plantations be considered the richest region in America, despite the prosperity of individual planters. Berlin deems this shift as very significant to the evolution of slavery. The early nineteenth century saw the breaking down of the very families that were created and encouraged during the “plantation generation”.
In his epilogue entitled “Freedom Generations”, Berlin concludes his book by drawing on the first-rate work produced at the Freedmens’ Project. With the election of Abraham Lincoln and the onset of the “war between the states” came a tremendous opportunity and light of hope for the enslaved population of the United States. In this chapter, Berlin examines the years of the Civil War and the effects that struggle had on the mindset of slaves within the United States. This conflict inspired a renewed sense of identity and a restructuring of the family within slave populations: “The freedom generation could no more escape its past than previous generations of black men and women. Like those who came before them, they too had no desire to deny their history, only to transform it in the spirit of the revolutionary possibilities presented by emancipation.” (270)
Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves is an extension of an earlier work by Berlin entitled Many Thousands Gone (1998). Between these two publications, Berlin has shown that in order to fully understand North American slavery, one must first accept that it was an ever-changing and historically contingent institution. The author shows an extraordinary mastery of secondary literature as well as an insightful reading of primary sources and his work is certainly a culminating contribution to the historiography of the slave trade within the Atlantic world. This book should be included in reading lists for any course which discusses slavery in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
1 abstimmen Carmen808 | Jul 29, 2009 |
Probably the best single volume survey of the history of slavery and the living conditions of enslaved Africans in the boundaries of the continental United States. Berlin is a longtime expert and researcher in the field and clearly has a strong grasp of the ever-expanding secondary literature. The book is divided into five chapters emphasizing the changing condition of slavery over time. He begins with the introduction of slavery and slaves in the early colonies and their ties to the wider Atlantic community. Chapter Two charts the changing conditions of slavery with the coming of the tobacco and rice plantations. Chapter Three covers the effects of the Revolutionary Era including the slow process of gradual emancipation in the North. Chapter five examines the rise of the "Cotton Kingdom" and with it the internal slave trade. And finally he ends with the coming of freedom in the Civil War. Berlin is excellent in focusing on the ways in which slave resistance, both active and passive, shaped the institution and eventually helped to spur on its demise.

The book has the typical problems associated with surveys, in this case exacerbated by its relative brevity (It covers a longer period in fewer pages than his prior much-acclaimed survey "Many Thousands Gone"). Many important issue are given only passing attention and it is hard to know whether a new student of slavery could take in so many concepts without a bit more illustration. One omission of note is slavery in the Caribbean. Although outside the boundaries of the United States, the Caribbean islands were an integral (in fact, leading) part of the development of the slave system in the British Empire.

I also worry that Berlin follows the current trends in the literature in spending much of his time on slavery and slaves who fell outside the traditional plantation model. It is important to recognize that slavery was not a monolithic institution, but I think new students would profit from a greater emphasis on the conditions under which most slaves lived most of the time.

I would be interested to here the impressions of students who read this book for undergrad survey courses. ( )
1 abstimmen eromsted | Jul 10, 2008 |
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In this book Ira Berlin traces the history of African-American slavery in the United States from its beginnings in the seventeenth century to its demise nearly three hundred years later. Most Americans, black and white, have a singular vision of slavery, one fixed in the mid-nineteenth century when most American slaves grew cotton, resided in the deep South, and subscribed to Christianity. Here, however, Berlin offers a major reinterpretation in which slaves and their owners continually renegotiated the terms of captivity. Slavery was thus made and remade by successive generations of Africans and African Americans who lived through settlement and adaptation, plantation life, economic transformations, revolution, forced migration, war, and ultimately, emancipation. Berlin's understanding of the processes that continually transformed the lives of slaves makes Generations of captivity essential reading for anyone interested in the evolution of antebellum America. Connecting the "Charter Generation" to the development of Atlantic society in the seventeenth century, the "Plantation Generation" to the reconstruction of colonial society in the eighteenth century, the "Revolutionary Generation" to the Age of Revolutions, and the "Migration Generation" to American expansionism in the nineteenth century, Berlin integrates the history of slavery into the larger story of American life. He demonstrates how enslaved black people, by adapting to changing circumstances, prepared for the moment when they could seize liberty and declare themselves the "Freedom Generation." This epic story provides a rich understanding of the experience of African-American slaves, an experience that continues to mobilize American thought and passions today.

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