Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740

by Peter H. Wood

Peter H. Wood’s groundbreaking history of Blacks in colonial South Carolina, with a new foreword by National Book Award winner Imani Perry. First published in 1974, Black Majority marked a breakthrough in our understanding of early American history. Today, Wood’s insightful study remains more relevant and enlightening than ever. This landmark book chronicles the crucial formative years of North America’s wealthiest and most tormented British colony. It explores how West African familiarity with rice determined the Lowcountry economy and how a skilled but enslaved labor force formed its own distinctive language and culture. While African American history often focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Black Majority underscores the significant role early African arrivals played in shaping the direction of American history. This revised and updated fiftieth anniversary edition challenges a fresh generation with provocative history and features a new epilogue by the author.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

464 pages, Paperback

Published January 23, 2024

About the author

I have always been interested in early American history and in the interactions of diverse cultures. My undergraduate honors paper at Harvard in 1964 dealt with the Puritans' relations with the Indians, and my doctoral thesis there focused on African Americans in South Carolina before 1740. Since coming to Duke in 1975, I have taught Colonial American History and Native American History, as well as a course on the History of Documentary Film. Long term interests in race relations and in American painting led me to collaborate with art historian Karen Dalton in 1988 on an exhibition and a related book concerning Winslow Homer's images of Blacks. Time spent as the department's Director of Graduate Studies (1988-95) and as one of the professors in the U.S. Survey class (History 91D) has made me increasingly interested in the ways we learn and teach American history. Perhaps for this reason, I have always been actively involved as a humanities advisor on diverse public history projects and as a board member with a variety of grassroots organizations and mainstream institutions. I am a lead author for the US survey textbook, Created Equal, which is now in its second edition.

Reviews

[Grady Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Construction of a Racial Order: Insights from Black Majority
In 2020, the United States Census Bureau estimated that Black citizens comprised a quarter of South Carolina's population. Comparatively, citizens who identified themselves as White represented nearly three-fourths of the state's population demographic. In Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion, Peter H. Wood highlights a period of American History in which the Black population overwhelmingly dominated the White population. In this extensively researched book, Wood maintains that the Black majority in the South Carolina colony played a significant and determinative part in the colony's evolution. Primarily, Wood highlights the Black contribution to significant leaps in progress, throughout the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, which were encapsulated by economic capture, cultural impacts, and environmental impacts. The success of southern colony depended entirely on Black slaves: for farming knowledge (including aqua- and agriculture), labour systems, and culturally West African practices. Overall, Wood successfully supports his posit and furthermore outlines the foundation of inequality issues -which predate the United States-that nonetheless are still faced throughout the Nation.
Wood, who received the Albert J. Beveridge Award for Black Majority, opens the work in the peopling of the Carolinas. He covers the European migration into the Caribbean, primarily Barbados, and additionally acknowledges the presence and forced removal of West Africans into the region. Remaining faithful to his thesis, Wood does not describe in depth the presence of Native Americans in the Carolinas, or even an immersive narrative over the brutal shipment of Africans into the Americas. Instead, the author chronologically traces the migration of Black and White peoples into the Carolinas, and their relationship-slave to slave owner —into 1739.
Wood mostly upholds this chronological organization but does diverge for the sake of supporting his ethos. To cement his research, Wood outlines the factors, including disease, White sentiment, and physical abuse, which further inflamed racial tensions and led to the Stono Rebellion.
Black Majority is an excellent, and significantly progressive, history. Peter H. Wood, who published his work in 1974, boasts a doctorate from Harvard University and has held positions in the department of American History at several institutions. Despite the expanse of Wood's education being primarily within history, he covers strategies and methodologies essential to a wide variety of social sciences. Wood investigates language dynamics in South Carolina, makes use of quotes from primary sources, and includes demographic charts which provide ample support to his thesis. Each of these, alongside his comprehensive research, appeals greatly to an academic audience. Further, Wood's prose and ability to march chronologically through history enables Black Majority to be accessible to a wider audience.
One shortcoming in Wood's thorough defense of his thesis lies within the nature of his writing. Throughout his book, Wood makes several speculations which undeniably solidify his thesis but are historically improvable. These speculations include the prevalence and significance of specific African cultures in the colony, and Black and White tendencies regarding runaway slaves.4 Despite these shortcomings in the work, Black Majority decisively proves the significant impact that the Black demographic had in the South Carolina colony, and successfully highlights white sentiments developed in the early eighteenth century, alongside racial tensions which have maintained prevalence in the modern era.

[Lumberland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have recently been pushing myself to read more non-fiction, especially on topics on which I am ill-informed, and consequently found this book. I completely adored it.

The book is incredibly thoroughly researched, and provided extensive notes and further reading on the topic. The author's attention to detail leaves no stone unturned, and I appreciated how he emphasized the bias in his sources and explained why he came to certain conclusions while understanding how the biases of the early South Carolinians shaped their writings. I felt like I learned something new in every single paragraph. Whether it was methods of rice cultivation and sale, methods of early Black resistance, the impact of epidemics, or differences in Carolinian culture from 1670-1740 I was constantly engaged with detailed information about the early existence of the colony. I really felt like I learned a lot reading this, especially in areas I had never before considered.

The author's prose was very engaging, and was packed with information. He never slipped out of an academic tone or started romanticizing anything, which I appreciated. This book is very educational and genuinely fun and fascinating to read. I would definitely recommend reading Black Majority if you are interested in early American history or Southern history.

[Joyce B · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was definitely an educational book, but not for casual readers. It is very detailed so at times I felt it was easy to missed "the forests for all of the trees". I thought there were too many narratives about the same topic. On the other hand I did learn more about the pervasiveness of slavery throughout the world in the late 1600's and early 1700's. There was good information about indentured servants and Native Americans and how the various groups interacted under the dominant white population. I found the author's epilogue to be very helpful in understanding the book better. However, I would have preferred to have read a summarized version of the original book tying it to today's environment. I think this would be more appealing to a wider audience. Knowing Imani Perry was writing the Forward is what got my attention. Her last paragraph, in my opinion, supports why a different reissue would have been more effective.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this in depth, historical look at the origins of slavery in the American south, Wood lays out topically driving factors of race based enslavement. By focusing on the pre-revolutionary period, he is able to reach more into origins and root cause. This gives a prequel feel to most historical texts I've read on slavery that generally start with the assumption that race based slavery was because it was. This is a historical text written by a historian, so it reads like a textbook.

[Janice Sebring · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent study of blacks in colonial South America, their role in society, economic contributions, and the cultural influences they brought from Africa. Invaluable for anyone interested in South Carolina history, or the colonial period in general.

[Loretta · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took me forever to read lol but it’s a rich well researched book that requires you to take your time to truly understand and process just how ugly early colonial history is. Slavery is American history.