Replacing the Old South with the New: Relationships Meant To Last,

A Look into Antebellum Mississippi and Virginia Plantations

History 400
Section 1

Tyler James

Professor Anne Twitty

December 7, 2015

Joanna Thompson Isom, was a tall, intelligent, mulatto woman who was born on a
plantation owned by Jacob Thompson in Lafayette County, Mississippi, shortly before the war.
Thompson was a well-respected leader of the Democratic Party in the state of Mississippi, and
even served on the cabinet of President Martin Van Buren. Isom was raised in the plantation
home, "I was raised rite up in de house wid Miss Sallie, who was Thompsonss wife. Isom was
raised by Miss Sallie and her grandmother due to the death of Isoms mother. Isom tells the story
of Union soldiers raiding their plantation and how she was actually angry at the soldiers. They
not only burnt her masters house down, the house she was raised in, but also stole their
valuables, I wuzn't more dan [F]give years ole when de yankees burnt Mister Jacob Thompson's
fine house . . . she sed dey would take de very bes' things Miss Sallie had; dat's what made me so
mad wid de nasty devils. Isom had a sentimental attachment to the house and property, even
though she was a slave she was angry at the people that were liberating her.1 A woman such as
Isom, might have told a telling story about her sentimental attachment to her master and
plantation because of the pressure of the 1930s and the problems of WPA narratives. Some of
these problems include a mainly white interviewers, editors, and staff, misleading information
and ex-slaves not wanting to tell the whole truth about their past. With Isoms testimony
however, the reader gets a sense that her experience as a slave was much better than some of her
peers.
Charles Crawley, an ex-slave from Lunenburg County, Virginia, was so old that he was not even
sure of his age, possibly because he was never told his age, however, he did know that he was
born before the war. He told his story of his time as a slave and how his master and mistress were
good to him and his fifty fellow slaves. Crawley claimed that he never had to work, claiming he
1 Works Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.

MSGenWeb Library.
2

would do odd jobs the master would ask him to do, on account of him still being a child at the
time. Despite Crawley being so young, he remembers the horror stories of being sold to the Deep
South, Dey tell me dem Masters down south, wuz so mean to slaves dey would let em work the
cotton fields til dey fall. He goes on to say that he was extremely thankful for the good
owners that he and his family had. Despite being a slave for only a short time, Crawley spoke
highly of his former master Mr. Allen, claiming he would let no man not even himself whip his
slaves. 2 Crawley, as well as, Isoms testimonies paint a rosy picture of slavery compared to what
many believe slavery to actually be.
Works Progresses Administration slave narratives can provide historians insight on what
plantation life was like, and what the master-slave relationship resembled. When using slave
narratives, the reader must take into account that the stories given by former slaves may not be
the most direct representations of the slaves lives or views.3 These reports could possibly have
been edited to present white slave owners in a better light, or slaves may not have told the whole
truth about their experiences. The interviewer, the interviewee, where and when the interview
took place all play a part in the veracity of each individual narrative. Each of the previous
narratives revealed a small portion of how each slaves time on the plantation was spent, where
they were from, and their thoughts on their relationships with their masters. 4 As John
Blassingame stated, numerous historians have challenged the use of narratives in saying that,
2 Works Progress Administration. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'

Project, 1936-1938, Virginia Narratives, Volume XVII. Library of Congress: American

Memory.
3 Escot, Paul D. The Art and Science of Reading WPA Slave Narratives, in The Slaves

Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1985), 41.
3

the fundamental problem confronting anyone interested in studying black views of bondage is
that the slaves had few opportunities to tell what it meant to be chattel, chattel refers to the idea
of a slave being property.5 Although the use of narratives has been debated by authors such as
Escott and Blassingame, it is undeniable that they provide insight into slaves perception of the
relationship with the master and time spent on the plantation.
This paper will examine the relationships between plantation owners and slaves in
antebellum Mississippi and how they contrast with that of Virginia plantations. It will describe
the role of plantation owners, how slaves viewed their owners, and also the way antebellum
plantations operated. Understanding these relationships will reveal the mentality of the
slaveholders and also of the slaves. By identifying the mindset of plantation owners, one will be
able to better understand the purpose behind raising a slave in a paternalistic manner. This paper
will argue the differences between plantations in the Old South such as Virginia and the newer
less developed Deep South in Mississippi. Although there were many plantations and southern
states to examine, this paper will explore the difference in relationships between master and slave
in these two antebellum states because they resemble what an established community of slave
owners was, with that of a booming economy of cotton up until the Civil War. While the masterslave relationship in Mississippi was characterized by, violence, treatment of slaves, paternalism,
and the explosion of the cotton market, the master-slave relationship in the Old South was
4 Escot, Paul D. The Art and Science of Reading WPA Slave Narratives, in The Slaves

Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1985), 40-45.
John W. Blassingame, Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems, in The
Slaves Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1985), 78-79.
5

defined by strength in authority, fear of being sent to the Deep South, and long-standing slave
traditions.
In the Deep South, southern plantation owners are often considered the cruelest of all slave
owners during the antebellum period. Slaves knew this all too well, even if they had never been
to the Deep South, as Damian Pargas stated, The southern interior clearly represented a place of
hardship in the minds of enslaved people who had grown up in the Upper South [Old South],
these hardships haunted the slaves as each of them were potential candidates to be traded down
south.6 The distinction between the Old South and Deep South can be seen in the style of
labor and treatment that existed within the enslaved population and of each of the respective
plantations. The old South was considered the mature and more established portion of the South,
including states such as Virginia and North Carolina. The Deep South was slightly less
developed and was often referred to as a death sentence if a slave was to be traded there. Walter
Johnson explained the horrors of the Deep South in his book, Soul By Soul: Why do slaves
dread so bad to go to the South- to Mississippi or Louisiana? Because they know slaves are
driven very hard there, and worked to death in a few years.7 This region of land known as the
Deep South or Lower South was comprised of states such as Mississippi, Alabama and
Louisiana.
Within the different regions, there is a separation in the types of labor that are used on the
plantations. Old South slaves were accustomed to working the fields without extreme labor such
6 Pargas, Damian Alan. "In the Fields of a Strange Land: Enslaved Newcomers and the

Adjustment to Cotton Cultivation in the Antebellum South." Slavery & Abolition 34, no. 4
(December 2013): 562-578. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost.
7 Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1999), 5.

5

as clearing fields or forests. This is because their plantations have already been established and
maintained. In order to keep slaves busy, many Old South plantation owners would rent out their
slaves to make a profit during a slow season, or while in transition from the Old South to the
Deep South. However, the Deep Souths slaves are required to maintain the crops of the master
as well as build their livelihoods from the ground up. Women were subjected to this rigorous
labor as well, as Louis Hughes a Virginia slave sold at a young age to Mississippi in the 1840s,
women out to the hard work of grubbing until I went to Mcgees, and that such work was not
done by women slaves in Virginia.8 This is where the division between the Deep South and the
Old South grew the largest. Without the intensive labor of clearing fields or working to prepare
small crops in order to survive, the Old Souths slaves were not worked as hard and can therefore
complete the days labor. Whereas the New Souths slaves were beaten for not picking enough
cotton, probably due to fatigue, unrealistic quotas, and rough working conditions. Plantation
owners typically did not factor in a time for slaves to tend to their own crops, which were needed
in order to survive.
For one to understand how the relationship between master and slave differs, one must first
understand how these relationships were built and how they operated in these two environments.
Following the war of 1812, the westward expansion of United States brought more settlers to the
fertile southern lands. This expansion brought many eager slave owners, as well as their slaves,
to Mississippi. Early in the process of moving, slave owners had to relocate their entire slave
population to these lands, either by migration or by trading. This migration flooded the South
8 Miller, Steven F. Plantation Labor Organization and Slave Life on the Cotton Frontier: The

Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, 1815-1840, Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of
Slave Life in the Americas, ed. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 1993), 161-163.
6

with hundreds of thousands of slaves. In his research on the migration, Steven Miller found that
in the Deep South, the slave population grew six fold between 1820 and 1840, despite this
dramatic increase in the slave population, slave owners still sought to find better slaves.9 The
need for more slaves can be contributed to the amount of work the slaves were required to
complete, but also for the enormous wealth plantation owners accumulated. The more slaves a
planter owned, the higher he was in the social order. As Beamish mentioned in his article on
agricultural reforms, by the 1860s plantation owners were forcing slaves to pick up to four times
as much cotton per slave as they were picking in 1800.10 While many slaves were being
relocated, many were left to the existing plantations in Virginia and plantations across the Old
South. Georgina Giwbs, an ex-slave from Portsmouth, Virginia, told an incredible story of a
mother and son who were separated at a young age, and how they were reunited with each other,
My father told me dere wez once a master who sold a slave woman and her son. Many years
after dis, de woman married. One day when she wuz washing her husbands back she seen a scar
on his back. De woman membered de scar. It wuz de scar her master had put on her son.
Course dey didnt stay married, but de woman wouldnt ever let her son leave her.11 The
9 Miller, Steven F. Plantation Labor Organization and Slave Life on the Cotton Frontier: The

Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, 1815-1840, Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of
Slave Life in the Americas, ed. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan (Charlottesville: University of
Virginia Press, 1993), 155-156.
10 Ian Beamish, Saving the South: Agricultural Reform in the Southern United States, 1819-

1861, (PhD. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2014), chapter 1. 2-5.

11 Works

Progress Administration. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938, Virginia Narratives, Volume XVII. Interview of Georgina Giwbs. Library
of Congress: American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?
collId=mesn&fileName=170/mesn170.db&recNum=19&itemLink=D?
mesnbib:9:./temp/~ammem_PQ9d
7

emotional toll that separating a family left on slaves was more than many could handle. For this
mother not recognize her own son, or vice versa, and for them to get married spoke volumes for
the torment slavery caused for emotionally and physically.
Slave owners who were new to the Mississippi area searched for a particular kind of
slave, one that would be most beneficial to this new southern plantation. The perfect slave for
starting a plantation or rejuvenating a relocated slave population, was a male slave from the age
of fourteen to twenty-five.12 This was the prime years of a slaves life and the master could
expect the best work out of a slave between these ages. Older Mississippi planters advised
emigrating slave owners that they should seek only younger slaves, and to stay away from
buying or separating families. Not only were the plantations new, but so were the slaves who
inhabited them. New in the sense that they had never been to the Deep South. In data that he
collected, Steven Miller points out just how dramatic the movement of slaves from Mississippi to
Virginia shaped the demographics of the regions, As of 1840 slaves between the ages of ten and
thirty-six composed about . . . 57 percent in Mississippi, whereas only 47 percent of slaves in
Virginia fell into that age group. The arrival of so many fresh slaves led to new relationships,
new rules, and new management.13
For most slaves, their masters controlled nearly every aspect of life. This control ranged from
simple necessities such as housing, clothing, diet, religion, and marriage. While many plantations
had their own rules and regulations for how they operated, the basic principles were universal

12 Steven F. Miller, Plantation Labor Organization and Slave Life on the Cotton Frontier: The

Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, 1815-1840, 157

13 Steven

F. Miller, Plantation Labor Organization and Slave Life on the Cotton Frontier: The
Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, 1815-1840, 156-157
8

between the Old South and the Deep South. For one particular Mississippian, whose name is not
mentioned, laid out his management techniques in hopes that others would learn from him. In
regards to housing, he states, The houses are situated in a double row from north to south, about
200 feet apart, the doors facing inwards, and the houses being in a line, about 50 feet apart,
these specifications were established to promote the best living conditions for the slaves and also
as an easy way for masters to know where each slaves was located.14 This plantation owner
believed in keeping his slaves dressed properly as he detailed, I give to my Negros four full
suits of clothes with two pairs of shoes, every year, and to my women and girls a calico dress and
two handkerchiefs extra, this ensured his slaves were properly dressed for working in the hot
summers and cold winters.15 Although the slaves on this plantation were forced to make and tend
to their own food, they were however given the resources to do so:
Every negro has his hen-house, where he raises poultry, which he is not permitted
to sell, and he cooks and eats his chickens and eggs for his evening and morning
meals to suit himself; besides every family has a garden, paled in, where they
raise such vegetables and fruits as they take a fancy to.
The resources that were allocated to these particular slaves was next to none during the time.
Allowing for not only the room for a hen house for each slave as well as a garden came at the
expense of the master. When it came to religion, slaves were given the freedom to express
themselves on the plantation through a preacher the plantation owner regularly supplied for the
slaves. Marriage has often been something that plantation owners have tried to control in order to
produce the best offspring, by pitting two well developed slaves together. However, on this
14 A Mississippi Planter. Management of Negroes upon Southern Estates, DeBows Review

10 (June 1851), 623.

15 A Mississippi Planter. Management of Negroes upon Southern Estates, DeBows Review

10 (June 1851), 624

9

Mississippi plantation the master described that he, knows of no means whereby to regulate
them [sexual relationships between slaves], or to regulate them, or to restrain them, he did
attempt it, although his efforts were in unsuccessful.16
Not all slaves had the same treatment, select slaves had the privilege of becoming house
servants, which offered less rigid labor and working conditions. While house slaves had
relatively easier work, the majority of the slaves on plantations were field hands used to tend to
the cotton. By taking a look back at Isoms Physical characteristics, it is easy to determine why
she would have been chosen to fulfill the housekeeping duties. Isom was tall, slender, intelligent,
and mulatto, she had light skin due to the fact that she had Indian heritage.17 If you were not as
lucky, as Isom you were most likely sent to the fields to work such as Charles Grandy, a slave
from Norfolk Virginia. Grandy describes his time as a child working around the house until he
was old enough to work in the fields, and the torment it caused him. From the age of five Grandy
began receiving his first tasks of pulling grass around the house or in the fields with his hands,
because he was not yet old or strong enough to use any tools. After several years past, when
Grandy became strong enough, he received his first assignment of working with a hoe rake and
sickle in the fields. However, while cutting down corn tassels with a sharp knife, his elbow was
severely cut and he was taken back to the masters house and treated. Although the treatment of
applying chimney soot to stop the bleeding worked, it left his arm deformed and in a sling.
Despite his extensive injuries, Grandy was sent back to the fields, with only one free hand and
his teeth to perform work. Any failure to perform the task presented to him, would have left him
16 A Mississippi Planter. Management of Negroes upon Southern Estates, DeBows Review

10 (June 1851), 623.

17 Works

Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.

MSGenWeb Library. http://msgw.org/slaves/isom-xslave.htm
10

subject to punishment by the whip, or worse, being sent to the Deep South.18 Despite the
differences in labor between the two ex-slaves, the roles could easily have been switched if Isom
would have lived in Virginia and Grandy in Mississippi. Taking a look at a slave who worked as
a slave hand in Mississippi, one can see where the separation is so extensive.
Slaves had a variety of ways to fight back against working and other various tasks around the
plantation, often times without being punished. Slaves would intentionally break tools so that
they would not have to perform the task assigned to them. They would threaten violence or
worse revolt, which might have worked for a passive owner, for some of the more aggressive
planters punishment would most likely follow. Stealing food was a way for slaves to not only
receive the nourishment they needed but also a way to hurt their masters financially. This was
one thing that ex-slave Barney Alford, from Pike County, Mississippi, found himself doing often,
One time when dey sot out little onion plants in de garden, I stole a piece uf beard frum de big
kitchen en slipped in de garden en pulled up lots uf onions en et dem, en when dey missed dem
onions dey laid it rite on ter me en I kotched the whip hard.19 Helping runaway slaves escape
was also a problem among slave communities. The most prevalent thought that was always in the
back of a slave owners mind was the threat of a revolt. No matter how secure a planter thought

18 Works Progress Administration. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'

Project, 1936-1938, Virginia Narratives, Volume XVII. Interview of Charles Grandy. Library of
Congress: American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?
collId=mesn&fileName=170/mesn170.db&recNum=25&itemLink=D?
mesnbib:5:./temp/~ammem_AjLC
19 Works Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.

MSGenWeb Library. http://msgw.org/slaves/alford-xslave.htm (Accessed October 28, 2015)

11

he might have been, the fear never left him.20 This is one of the few areas slaves had control over
the relationship between master and slave. Although very rare, with the threat of revolt, slaves
were able to keep their masters on edge.
With every earning made and economic gain, the deeper into the imprisonment of slavery
African Americans fell. As the money began to flow, the harder slave owners pushed their
slaves.21 The treatment of slaves is something that any historian must look at when researching
the South. It has been argued throughout the antebellum period that there are a wide variety of
treatment styles that plantation owners use. Whereas one end of the spectrum had slave owners
being extremely dangerous and cruel, the other side indicated that slave owners sought out
improvements and the betterment of plantation conditions. Each style presented a unique outlook
on the relationship built with the slaves, one based on fear and punishment, while the other was
built on mutual trust and respect. By controlling their slaves in such a manner, planters were able
to establish themselves as the alpha in the relationship. The less freedoms a master allowed, the
more control he had over his slaves.22
The threat and use of whipping as a form of motivation was an ever prevalent means of
influence on plantations. Beamish concludes that slavery may not have been as effective without
the use of whipping in this statement, None of these strategies would have been effective if it

20 Brazy, Martha Jane. An American Planter: Stephen Duncan of Antebellum Natchez and New

York. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006. 36-37.

21 Brazy, Martha Jane. An American Planter: Stephen Duncan of Antebellum Natchez and New

York. 19.
22 Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1999), chapters 3. 78-81.

12

were not for the constant threat (and use) of physical Violence in the form of whipping.23 Many
of the narratives or accounts of work on a plantations at least mention or talk about the idea of
punishment. As can be seen in several of the previously mentioned narratives. The presence of
the whip was almost as much motivation as the actual pain it inflicted. While most planters
downplayed the use of whipping on their plantations, even failing to it mention in many of their
memoirs, freedman and ex-slaves all agree on the significance whipping played to slavery on
southern plantations.24 The problem that faced the planters was the wedge that punishment drew
between master and slave. To combat this, slave owners would make overseers enforce the
punishments, such as whipping or other chastisements, so that the master would not be seen as
the bad guy. For example, in Alfords testimony he explains how he was whipped or punished
by the overseer on at least three occasions in the interview, but never by the master himself.25
Plantation owners wanted to figuratively keep their hands clean so that the hate and anger
would be directed at the overseer.
Contrary to what some may claim, most slave owners believed in the well-being of their
slaves. A planters livelihood depended on the health of his slaves. If a slave was badly beaten, to
the point where he or she could not work, then the planter is losing money. In order to diminish
the harsh punishment of slaves and also to spread their helpful strategies many planters took to
writing manuals or journals. Some even took the effort to share these with fellow slave owners in
23 Ian

Beamish, Saving the South: Agricultural Reform in the Southern United States, 18191861 2.
24 Ian Beamish, Saving the South: Agricultural Reform in the Southern United States, 1819-

1861 1-6.
25 Works Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.

MSGenWeb Library. http://msgw.org/slaves/alford-xslave.htm (Accessed October 28, 2015)

13

the hopes of learning how to improve their own plantations. Although no formal organizations
were formed hundreds of plantation owners shared their manuals across the South.26
Plantation owners used alternatives measures to ensure that the relationship between themselves
and the slaves remained in good standing. By providing basic essentials needed in life, such as
housing, clothing, and food, the slaves only had to worry about the work. This allowed for the
slaves to be happier and in return less disruptive to his or her owner. One can speculate that a
happy slave might have made for a happy master, but does that mean that a happy master made
for a happy slave? In the article, Management of Negros upon Southern Estates, it states what
a happy slave believed in:
For it is fact established beyond all controversy, that when the negro is treated
with humanity, and subjected to constant employment with the labor of thought,
and the cares incident to the necessity of providing for his own support, he is by
far happier than he would be if emancipated, and left to think, and act, for
himself.
This particular Mississippi plantation owner, really believed that a slave would be better off in
his care than emancipated. A case could have been made that he was correct. During the
antebellum period in the Deep South, a freed slaves chances to survive are slim. Several
problems would face a freed slave, such as: where would he live, how would he make money, if
he had a family how could he support them? All of these questions would be answered if still
living on the plantation. Conversely, a case could be made that slaves would and could make it
on their own, however, this planter believed that by providing the essentials for his slaves he was
in no wrong of owning slaves and if anything helping them. He goes to say that there is no

26 James O. Breeden, Introduction, in Advice Among Masters: The Ideal in Slave

Management in the Old South, ed. James O. Breeden (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980),
xvii-xxii.
14

subject that requires more attention than the well-being and proper treatment of the slaves.27
Considering the plantation owner wrote the article himself, it is easy to determine that he
believed in these things whole heartedly. It is not easy to determine if he actually followed
through on his rules or not. Considering the plantation owner has little real work to do, it
would have been easy for him to be objective towards his own rules, compared to amount of
work the overseer had. Regardless of whether he truly cared for his slaves happiness or not, this
was a great way for him to build relationships with the slaves. Never being the one to inflict
punishment, while also being the one who distributes any gifts or allowances.
The creation of a family amongst the slaves themselves was something plantation owners wanted
to stray away from. The owners instead wanted to create a family under his control, one where
the slaves where the children and the master was the father. The idea of presenting a plantation
as a form of family is something Eugene and Elizabeth Genovese cover in their book, Fatal SelfDeception. To illustrate this idea of a family, masters would call their slaves my children, and
slaves would refer to their masters as father. By calling slaves children it gave them a sense of
belonging, while also boosting the self-image of planters because of the idea of raising hundreds
of slaves. Early in the 1800s slave owners had to present this idea of a family, because with the
migration of so many slaves their families had been broken up. Their real families were usually
split up, too old to migrate south with their owners, or were sold elsewhere.28 As we saw in the
story of Isom the slave from Lafayette County, she had a strong sense of belonging to her
family, when she showed her anger at the Union soldiers for stealing her Missus dresses and
27 A Mississippi Planter, Management of Negroes upon Southern Estates, DeBows Review

10 (June 1851), 621-622.

28 Eugene D. Genovese, and Elizabeth Genovese. Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding

Paternalism in the Old South. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 25-27.
15

valuables. For a slave, especially one such as Isom who was raised in the plantation home, it
would be hard to imagine her owners as anything other than a family. Even though she was
owned by her master, she was still cared for and respected, which caused her to form that bond.29
Thomas Ruffin, a jurist from North Carolina, had much to say about the relationship between
master and slave and did so in his address to the State Agricultural Society. He believed that
there was a strong connection between master and slave, due to being born and bred on the same
plantation, They have a perfect knowledge of each other, and a mutual attachment. The
masters attachment to slavery is the need for slaves to work and keep the money flowing.
Whereas the slaves can be seen as a form of child, with the parent being the slave owner and just
like in most families, the parent maintains absolute authority over the child and provides for that
child.30 The need for slavery to have this relationship between master and slave is crucial for its
survival.
A struggle many slaves were faced with in throughout their lives was distinguishing themselves
between being a piece of property and a living breathing human being. Johnson states the
struggle begins at an early age, From an early age, enslaves children learned to view their own
bodies through two different lenses, on belonging to their masters, the other belonging to
themselves, going through life was difficult for slaves without the thought of having no say in
your body. The process of owning a human being for capital or monetary gain is known as the
Chattel Principle.31 As Johnson goes on to say, the threat of being sold was more if not just as

29 Works Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.

MSGenWeb Library.
30 Eugene D. Genovese, and Elizabeth Genovese. Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding

Paternalism in the Old South. 29-31.

16

threatening as any whip was, If a man did anything out of the way he was in more danger of
being sold than being whipped, it was as if the emotional pain was far worse than the physical.
A commonality shared by all slaves, Old South and Deep South alike, is the threat of violence.
Violence in the form of actual punishment and whipping, and violence in the form of emotional
pain in the separation from families and the terrors Old South slaves could have faced in the
Deep South. For Deep South slaves the threat of separation was all too real also. If the slave
could not be controlled by the whip then he or she would be should to a neighboring state or
plantation, away from their families and what little comfort he or she had.
Despite the evidence that has piled up against the use of WPA narratives, many historians
believe that there is counter evidence that suggests the use slave narratives are imperative. As
Escott notes in his article pertaining to reading narratives, The WPA narratives help to provide
access to the secret life, he believes that the data and information they possess to help guide
reader to into the mindset of ex-slaves.32 WPA narratives provide insight into simple aspects of
slave life such as clothing, diet, religion, work, but also cover the deeper facets of slave life such
as physical and emotional damage. Escott recognizes that not all WPA narratives should be
considered in conducting research, and that the historian cannot use the WPA narratives
thoughtlessly and uncritically, however, he does provide the correct techniques and methods for
someone interested in researching with these narratives.33

31 Johnson, Walter. Soul

by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1999), chapters 1. 2-4.
32 Escot, Paul D. The Art and Science of Reading WPA Slave Narratives, in The Slaves

Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1985), 40-41.
17

This paper examined the relationships between plantation owners and slaves in
antebellum Mississippi and how they compared with that of Virginia plantations. By examining
the WPA slave narratives, this paper described the role plantation owners played in the slave
process, how slaves viewed their owners, and provided an insight into what a slaves life may
have been like. Mississippi being one of the hot beds for slave life during the middle of the
cotton boom provided excellent representations of plantation life as well as slave narratives.
Virginia having been established for quite a while longer than Mississippi, and providing crops
and procedures that are different from that of Mississippi allowed for a comparison that
embodies the Old South and the Deep South. The meaning of fear raised separate thoughts in
Mississippi, than it did Virginia, as did the meaning of punishment. With both sides fearing
separation from family and safety, to the other fearing life itself, no slave was safe. The idea of
family was a fragile thought to many slaves. For masters however, it was something that was
needed, not only for the reproducing of more slaves, but for the threat of work, as Anna
McKnight, a poor woman from Berkeley County, Virginia, pleaded, My slaves are as My
children & if I could procure 5 hundred dollars I can secure all I have, she had nothing else and
no one else to work so she depended on these slaves.34 While many Deep Southern Plantation
owners were still moving south and trying to make a name for themselves during the middle of
the 18th century, the Old South traditions of Virginia were still thriving. A greater respect needs to
be bestowed upon the major project that was the WPA slave narratives. Without the dedication of
33 Escot, Paul D. The Art and Science of Reading WPA Slave Narratives, in The Slaves

Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford University Press,
1985), 46.
34 Genovese, Eugene D., and Elizabeth Genovese. Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding

Paternalism in the Old South. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 25.
18

journalist and willingness of ex-slaves to open their doors to talk, a generation of history would
have been lost. This project granted the public with information, documents, and interviews that
have immeasurable insight and knowledge into the lives of former slaves.

19

Bibliography
A Mississippi Planter. Management of Negroes upon Southern Estates, DeBows Review 10
(June 1851), 621-622.
Beamish, Ian. Saving the South: Agricultural Reform in the Southern United States, 18191861, (PhD. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2014), chapter 1.
Blassingame, John W. Using the Testimony of Ex-Slaves: Approaches and Problems, in The
Slaves Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985), 78-98.
Breeden, James O. Introduction, in Advice Among Masters: The Ideal in Slave Management in
the Old South, ed. James O. Breeden (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), xviixxiv.
Brazy, Martha Jane. An American Planter: Stephen Duncan of Antebellum Natchez and New
York. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006
Escot, Paul D. The Art and Science of Reading WPA Slave Narratives, in The Slaves
Narrative, ed. Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1985), 40-48.
Genovese, Eugene D. The World the Slaveholders Made: Two Essays in Interpretation. New
York: Random House, 1971.
Genovese, Eugene D., and Elizabeth Genovese. Fatal Self-Deception: Slaveholding Paternalism
in the Old South. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1999), chapters 1 and 3.
Miller, Steven F. Plantation Labor Organization and Slave Life on the Cotton Frontier: The
Alabama-Mississippi Black Belt, 1815-1840, Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the
Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, ed. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993), 155-169.
Pargas, Damian Alan. "In the Fields of a Strange Land: Enslaved Newcomers and the
Adjustment to Cotton Cultivation in the Antebellum South." Slavery & Abolition 34, no.
4 (December 2013): 562-578. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost. (accessed
November 30, 2015).
Works Progress Administration. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938, Virginia Narratives, Volume XVII. Interview of Charles Crawley.
Library of Congress: American Memory.http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?
20

collId=mesn&fileName=170/mesn170.db&recNum=11&itemLink=D?
mesnbib:14:./temp/~ammem_TO3Z (Accessed October 30, 2015)
Works Progress Administration. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938, Virginia Narratives, Volume XVII. Interview of Charles Grandy.
Library of Congress: American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/ampage?
collId=mesn&fileName=170/mesn170.db&recNum=25&itemLink=D?
mesnbib:5:./temp/~ammem_AjLC
Works Progress Administration. Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938, Virginia Narratives, Volume XVII. Interview of Georgina Giwbs.
Library of Congress: American Memory. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?
collId=mesn&fileName=170/mesn170.db&recNum=19&itemLink=D?
mesnbib:9:./temp/~ammem_PQ9d
Works Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.
MSGenWeb Library. http://msgw.org/slaves/alford-xslave.htm (Accessed October 28,
2015)
Works Progress Administration. Mississippi Slave Narratives from the WPA Records.
MSGenWeb Library. http://msgw.org/slaves/isom-xslave.htm (Accessed October 28,
2015)

21