Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory

by Robert E May

How did enslaved African Americans in the Old South really experience Christmas? Did Christmastime provide slaves with a lengthy and jubilant respite from labor and the whip, as is generally assumed, or is the story far more complex and troubling? In this provocative, revisionist, and sometimes chilling account, Robert E. May chides the conventional wisdom for simplifying black perspectives, uncritically accepting southern white literary tropes about the holiday, and overlooking evidence not only that countless southern whites passed Christmases fearful that their slaves would revolt but also that slavery’s most punitive features persisted at holiday time. In Yuletide in Dixie , May uncovers a dark reality that not only alters our understanding of that history but also sheds new light on the breakdown of slavery in the Civil War and how false assumptions about slave Christmases afterward became harnessed to myths undergirding white supremacy in the United States. By exposing the underside of slave Christmases, May helps us better understand the problematic stereotypes of modern southern historical tourism and why disputes over Confederate memory retain such staying power today. A major reinterpretation of human bondage, Yuletide in Dixie challenges disturbing myths embedded deeply in our culture.

Genres: History, Christmas

352 pages, Hardcover

Published October 15, 2019

Reviews

[Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard this author interviewed on the "Civil War Talk Radio" podcast late last year, and I knew I had to read the book. If you're a bit reluctant to dive into civil war history stuff, assuming it's not really your thing, set the reluctance aside and download this. The author will enlighten you in memorable ways, and his writing style means you get a highly readable book that will keep you involved. Sometimes your involvement will be tinged with outrage at the hypocrisy of the southern slave owners. In parts of the book, you'll shake your head at how self-unaware these slaveholders apparently were, and you'll think about how the sterilizing of information was alive and well in the 19th century as it is today. In our time, reporters blandly talk about peaceful protests while flames shoot high in the background. In post-civil war writing, authors wrote about simpleton happy black people tipping the master's cup of dram and exclaiming with worshipful devotion how grateful they are for the paltry gifts delivered on Christmas Day.

I loved this book because the author isn't afraid to blow up the myths, and with steel in his spine, he steps out and demonstrates the complexities of slavery and Christmas. He points out that in some cases, the slaves may indeed have been happy during the holidays. But he never caves in and sides with the Just Cause crowd. He consistently points out that these people cannot be ultimately happy if they are not completely free.

This is not a bombastic academic doorstop designed to stultify the reader. It is an engaging book that fairly and unflinchingly looks at the complexities of slavery and Christmas. Some of the chapters will chill you. The "Human Trafficking on Jesus's Birthday" chapter got to me big-time; just the title alone gave me pause, and the accounts of slave sales on and around Christmas Day saddened me. You cannot seriously claim to love your fellow man and simultaneously shrug off May's research and treat it casually. To suggest that his work doesn't matter is tantamount to admitting that you are unconcerned about the lives and misfortunes of those around you.

There are sections here that deal with white southern worries over slave revolts around Christmas, and there are horror stories about slaveowners who deliberately forced their field slaves to fight one another on Christmas Day so they could bet on the combatants and allegedly celebrate the day. Imagine it. On the one day when you celebrate the birth of someone who, as an adult, called for peace and unity in nearly every public sermon he gave, you are forcing men to fight and injure one another for your entertainment. Spare me your defense of these white southerners as gentlemen and honorable men. I will be so charitable as to agree with you that they were merely products of their time and culture, but that still leaves little or no excuses for the kind of behaviors referenced in this book.

I didn't find this a depressing book nor was it one I wanted to give up on. Instead, I was fascinated by the almost multiple personalities exhibited by the slaveowners and sometimes the slaves. The author reminded me anew of the foibles of human nature. The ancient Israelites once chided Moses for their circumstances, wistfully yearning to be slaves in the land of Egypt. May includes quotes from freed blacks who wistfully remember plentiful Christmases when they were slaves. I found myself thinking our natures haven't changed much from Moses's time to post-slavery America. My thanks to the author for appearing on that podcast and thereby alerting me to the existence of his book. It is a Christmas story in the most untraditional sense, and it will long provide grist for my mills of thought in the future.