Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry

by Philip D. Morgan

On the eve of the American Revolution, nearly three-quarters of all African Americans in mainland British America lived in two the Chesapeake, centered in Virginia, and the Lowcountry, with its hub in South Carolina. Here, Philip Morgan compares and contrasts African American life in these two regional black cultures, exploring the differences as well as the similarities. The result is a detailed and comprehensive view of slave life in the colonial American South.
Morgan explores the role of land and labor in shaping culture, the
everyday contacts of masters and slaves that defined the possibilities and limitations of cultural exchange, and finally the interior lives of blacks--their social relations, their family and kin ties, and the major symbolic dimensions of language, play, and religion. He provides a balanced appreciation for the oppressiveness of bondage and for the ability of slaves to shape their lives, showing that, whatever the constraints, slaves contributed to the making of their history. Victims of a brutal, dehumanizing system, slaves nevertheless strove to create order in their lives, to preserve their humanity, to achieve dignity, and to sustain dreams of a better future.

Genres: History, American History, 18th Century, Nonfiction, African American

736 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 1998

About the author

Philip D. Morgan is Harry C. Black Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

[Dan Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a monumental work, describing African American slaves' shared linguistic invention, emphasis on family and community, and experience under an exploitative system, while showing how the Carolinas retained more "African" cultural pockets and had a less flexible racial order than the heavily creolized Chesapeake. Philip Morgan’s emphasis on black cultural agency and resistance is welcome, and well-documented in the sources, conveying black resilience while identifying the institutions of racism that held back slaves. The book's length and density make the volume useful as an encyclopedic reference, but a slow and not particularly compelling reading experience.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a long and exhaustive account of the lives of slaves in the low country and Chesapeake areas. It covers religion, family, how they worked, social gatherings, where they came from, relations with white people, basically everything you could think you’d want to know about slavery in these two regions. A lot of it is repetitive, but is written in a somewhat easy manner and includes many pictures and charts for references. It basically combines a bunch of other books and articles into one source.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only had to read the first 437 pages of this for class (yup, that's it). I think I got the gist of it though. This is really an exhaustive analysis/comparison of two slave societies- one in the tobacco plantation culture around the Chesapeake, and one in the rice plantation culture of South Carolina and environs. Morgan also limits himself to the 18th century. It is kind of incredible, when one considers that this is a 675 page book, what it DOESN'T cover...no northern slavery, no mid-Atlantic slavery, no Caribbean slavery, no antebellum slavery, no frontier slavery, no 17th century slavery (maybe a little). There is a lot to the story of British/American slavery that did not make the cut here. It is hard to say whether that is a problem, really...Morgan certainly tells the reader everything he or she needs to know about slavery on big plantations in Virginia and South Carolina. It is probably true that in North America in the 18th century, most slaves lived on large plantations in one of those two places. But still. There were many slave experiences that had little to do with the experiences laid out in this book.
Morgan does employ a really well-crafted mix of hard data- charts and tables and the like- with accumulated anecdotes to paint the story with real personalities. And Morgan isn't one of those authors who leave it at one anecdote and call it good- every point about slave life and black/white interaction is loaded with a dozen anecdotes at least. Makes the book a little easier to read, as there are many great little stories included. Makes the book harder to skim though, when he shifts from heavy data tables to heavy anecdotes.

[Andee Nero · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you've read a lot of books on slavery, then this is really repetitive. It relies heavily on secondary source literature. On the other hand, this is a really thorough book and would save you time if you read this instead of all the secondary lit. If you were to take away one major point from this book that other books don't really make, it should be that the South is not homogenous and that slave experiences demonstrate spatial difference, even within the same region.