American slavery in history and memory and the search for social justice

Journal of American History

Volumn 90, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 1251-1267

  Berlin, Ira ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33847701515     PISSN: 00218723     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3660347     Document Type: Review

References (134)

1. Glory, dir. Edward Zwick (TriStar Pictures, 1989);
2. Amistad, dir. Steven Spielberg DreamWorks skg, 1997);
3. Adanggaman, dir. Roger Gnoan M'Bala (Abyssa Film, 2000);
4. Beloved, dir. Jonathan Demme (Clinica Estetico Ltd., 1998).
5. Henry Louis Gates Jr., Wonders of the African World (New York, 1999);
6. Wonders of the African World (Jan. 1, 2002), with subsequent discussion on h-africa lt;http://www.h-net.org/-africa/ > (Nov. 14, 2003);
7. Peter Applebome, "Can Harvard's Powerhouse Alter the Course of Black Studies?", New York Times, Nov. 3, 1996, sec. Ah, p. 24;
8. Lynn B. Elber, "pbs' Film 'Africans in America' Examines Roots of Slavery", Associated Press, Oct. 16, 1998;
9. Michael O'Sullivan, "'Shadrach': A Museum Piece", Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1998, p. N49;
10. "Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives", dir. Ed Bell and Thomas Lennon, Home Box Office (hbo, Feb. 10, 2003). The last work became a book with contributions by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and by Spencer Crew and Cynthia Goodman: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Unchained Memories: Readings from the Slave Narratives (Boston, 2002). Many newspaper and wire service articles cited in this essay were read online and checked in fall 2003.
11. Ira Berlin, Steven F. Miller, and Mark Favreau, eds., Remembering Slavery: African-Americans Talk about Their Personal Experiences in Slavery and Freedom (New York, 1998).
12. On the Library of Congress exhibit, see Hugh Davies, "Black Revolt Puts End to Exhibition of Old South", London Daily Telegraph, Dec. 21, 1995, international section;
13. Linton Weeks, "The Continuing Hurt of History", Washington Post, Dec. 22, 1995;
14. "A Library on Tiptoe", ibid.; and
15. Linton Weeks, "Plantation Life Display Revived", ibid., Jan. 4, 1996.
16. On the Civil War memorial, see Benjamin Forgey, "A Salute to Freedom's Soldiers", ibid., July 18, 1998; and
17. David D. Kirkpatrick, "On Long-Lost Pages, a Female Slave's Voice", New York Times, Nov. 11, 2001.
18. On the Amistad monument, see Ken Ringle, "Sailor on History's Seas", Washington Post, March 23, 2000; and
19. David M. Herszenhorn, "A Slave Ship Reborn into History", New York Times, March 26, 2000.
20. Also see "Amistad Friendship Tour 2003"
21. For the proposed legislation, see National Slave Memorial Act, H. R. 196, 108 Cong., 1 sess. (2003).
22. Visiting a Confederate cemetery, Interior Secretary Gale Norton declared, "We lost too much. We lost the idea that the states were to stand against the federal government gaining too much power over their lives."
23. See David W. Blight, "A Confederacy of Denial", Washington Post, Jan. 29, 2001, p. A19.
24. On the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and other such museums, see Mark Fritz, "Chasing the Mystery of U. S.'s Secret Trail", Los Angeles Times, Feb. 5, 2000; and
25. Anne Michaud, "Railroad History Put on Right Track", ibid.
26. See also Peter Slevin, "Black History Museum Has Artifacts but No Building", Washington Post, Jan. 9, 2000;
27. "Southern Almanac: A Civil War Legacy", Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 10, 2000;
28. Steven Ginsberg, "Fredericksburg Prodded on Slavery Museum", Washington Post, Aug. 11, 2001; and
29. Stephen Kinzer, "Planned Museum Would Lead Charleston to Its Past", New York Times, Aug. 14, 2001.
30. Jennifer L. Eichstedt and Stephen Small, Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums (Washington, 2002);
31. Fath Davis Ruffins, "Revisiting the Old Plantation: Reparations, Reconciliation, and Museumizing American Slavery", 2003 (in Ira Berlin's possession), courtesy of the author.
32. Linda Wheeler, "Civil War Tour Guides to Address Slavery", Washington Post, April 30, 2000;
33. Patty Reinert, "New Battlefield", Houston Chronicle, May 14, 2000;
34. Dwight T. Pitcaithley, "Barbara Kingsolver and the Challenge of Public History", Public Historian, 21 (Fall 1999), 9-18;
35. David W. Blight, "Healing and History: Battlefields and the Problem of Memory", in Rally on the High Ground: The National Park Service Symposium on the Civil War, ed. Robert Kent Sutton (Fort Washington, Pa., 2001), 23-35, esp. 25.
36. That interest in slavery is not confined to the United States is suggested by the establishment of the Harriet Tubman Resource Center for the African Diaspora at York University in Ontario, the International Centre for the History of Slavery at the University of Nottingham in England, and the Slave Route Project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). On the UNESCO slave trade project
37. see Douglas Farah, "Dahomey's Royal Legacy Slowly Crumbles", Washington Post, April 16, 2001.
38. On the Frederick Douglass Prize for the best book on slavery, see "National Book Prizes", The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
39. David Brion Davis, "Free at Last: The Enduring Legacy of the South's Civil War Victory", New York Times, Aug. 26, 2001;
40. Eugene Foster et al., "Jefferson Fathered Slaves Last Child", Nature, 396 (Nov. 1998), 27-28;
41. Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville, 1997);
42. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture (Charlottesville, 1999);
43. "Forum: Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Redux", William and Mary Quarterly, 57 (Jan. 2000), 121-210.
44. On Bill Clinton's apology, see William Douglas, "We Were Wrong", New York Newsday, March 25, 1998.
45. On conservative reaction to it, see Leonard Pitts Jr., "Slavery Apology Fitting and Proper", Baltimore Sun, April 9, 1998.
46. For George W. Bush's speech at Goreé, see "President Bush Speaks at Gorée Island in Senegal" (Oct. 19, 2003).
47. "White House Initiative on Race" (Oct. 19, 2003);
48. "Race Panel's Lost Chance", Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 1998.
49. On South Carolina, see Hamil R. Harris, "naacp Issues Call for New Activism", Washington Post, Feb. 20, 2000;
50. "FlagWaving Controversy", Houston Chronicle, Feb. 24, 2000;
51. Sue Anne Pressley, "sc Lowers Disputed Flag", Washington Post, July 2, 2000; and
52. "Flag War Isn't Over at Carolina Statehouse", ibid., Jan. 15, 2001.
53. On Georgia, see "Georgia Lawmakers OK New State Flag", Associated Press, Jan. 31, 2001.
54. On Mississippi, see John Head, "Culture, Notes, and News", Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 29, 2000, "Dixie Living" section;
55. Paul Duggan, "Mississippi Voters to Decide on Use of Confederate Emblem", Washington Post, March 25, 2001; and
56. Dahleen Glanton, "In Mississippi, Flag Vote Shows Deep Divide", ibid., April 16, 2001.
57. R. H. Melton, "Va. Scraps Tribute to Confederacy", Washington Post, Nov. 21, 2001;
58. "Slavery 'Abhorred,' Gilmore Says", ibid., April 10, 1998;
59. Tyler Whitley, "More Criticism, Some Praise for Decree", Richmond TimesDispatch, April 11, 1998;
60. Peter Baker, "Va. House Votes to Repeal 'Old Virginia' as State Song", Washington Post, March 4, 1994;
61. "'A Victim of History' As Virginia Retires the State Song, It Revives the Ambiguous Legacy of James Bland, Author of 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia, '" Roanoke Times, Feb. 18, 1997.
62. The District of Columbia Emancipation Day Foundation
63. "The District of Columbia Emancipation Day: A Private Legal Holiday" (Oct. 19, 2003).
64. Officially, the name is the Commission to Coordinate the Study, Commemoration, and Impact of Slavery's History and Legacy in Maryland (Oct. 19, 2003).
65. Darryl Fears, "The Capitol's Case of Slave Labor", Washington Post, July 19, 2000;
66. Scott La Fee, "Grave Injustice", San Diego Union-Tribune, Sept. 15, 1999.
67. See also Mel Tapley, "'Dem Dry Bones' Get Belated Respect", Amsterdam News, Oct. 19, 1991.
68. Stephen Salisbury and Inga Saffron, "Echoes of Slavery at the Liberty Bell Site", Philadelphia Inquirer, March 24, 2002, p. A1;
69. Stephen Salisbury, "Discussing Slavery at Liberty Bell Site", ibid., April 25, 2002, p. B1;
70. Srephen Salisbury, "Liberty Bell's Symbolism Rings Hollow for Some", ibid., May 26, 2002, p. B1;
71. "Liberty Bell Center Exhibit Preview Now on Independence National Historical Park Website"
72. See Brent Staples, "Wrestling with the Legacy of Slavery at Yale", New York Times, Aug. 14, 2001, p. 16;
73. The original report published by the Amistad Committee in New Haven: Antony Dugdale, J. J. Fueser, and J. Celso de Castro Alves, "Yale, Slavery, and Abolition", 2001
74. See Jesse Leavenworth and Kevin Canfield, "To Be Sold", Hartford Courant, July 4, 2000;
75. Ross Kerber, "Aetna Regrets Being Insurer to Slaveowners", Boston Globe, March 10, 2000; and
76. Peter Slevin, "In Aetna's Past: Slave Owner Policies", Washington Post, March 9, 2000.
77. Regarding California's actions, see Tamar Lewin, "Calls for Slavery Restitution Getting Louder", New York Times, June 4, 2001;
78. Slavery Era Insurance Registry Report to the California Legislature
79. "California Identifies Slavery Insurers", Washington Post, May 2, 2002, p. A1.
80. The Chicago City Council took similar action. "Chicago City Council Seeks Slavery Records", Reuters, Oct. 2, 2002.
81. See Jesse Leavenworth and Kevin Canfield", A Courant Complicity, an Old Wrong", Hartford Courant, July 4, 2000;
82. "The Courant Apologizes for Ads Finding, Selling Slaves", Greenwich [Connecticut] Times, July 5, 2000.
83. For recent discussions of the reparations debate, see "Why We Did (or Didn't) Publish the Ad", Washington Post, April 1, 2001;
84. Sophia A. Nelson, "We Need to Put Slavery in Its Place", ibid., June 10, 2001; and
85. Jesse Leavenworth and Kevin Canfield, "The Reparations Debate", Hartford Courant, June 19, 2001.
86. Also useful is Roy L. Brooks, ed., When Sorry Isn't Enough: The Controversy over Apologies and Reparations for Human Injustice (New York, 1999).
87. Leef Smith, "Williamsburg Slave Auction Riles Va. naacp", Washington Post, Oct. 8, 1994, p. B1.
88. See also Michael Janofsky, "Mock Auction of Slaves, Education or Outrage?", New York Times, Oct. 8, 1994;
89. "Tears and Protest at Mock Slave Sale", ibid., Oct. 11, 1994;
90. Dan Eggen, "A Taste of Slavery Has Tourists Up in Arms", Washington Post, July 7, 1999;
91. Gail Russell Chaddock, "Williamsburg's Tale of Two Histories", Christian Science Monitor, Sept. 2, 1999.
92. See also Eric Gable, Richard Handler, and Anna Lawson, "On the Uses of Relativism: Fact, Conjecture, and Black and White Histories at Colonial Williamsburg", American Ethnologist, 19 (Nov. 1992), 791-805;
93. Curtis James, "To Live like a Slave", Colonial Williamsburg Journal, 16 (Autumn 1993), 14-24;
94. The forum "Colonial Williamsburg: Planning and Public History", Public Historian, 20 (Summer 1998), 11-99;
95. James Oliver Horton, "Presenting Slavery: The Perils of Telling America's Racial Story", ibid., 21 (Fall 1999), 2930.
96. Leonard L. Richards, The Slave Power: The Free North and Southern Domination, 1780-1860 (Baton Rouge, 2000);
97. Don E. Fehrenbacher with Ward M. McAfee, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery (New York, 2001).
98. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (Chicago, 1903), 13;
99. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, The World and Africa: An Inquiry into the Part Which Africa Has Played in World History (New York, 1947), 227, 236.
100. Computed from the U. S. census enumerations, Census 2000 Summary File 3 (sf-3) Population Tables-Sample Data (PDF 141.5kb); pct 19 (Place of Birth for Foreign-Born Populations); pct 63B (Place of Birth by Citizenship Status [Black or African Americans Alone]), U. S. Census Bureau
101. Bart Landry, The New Black Middle Class (Berkeley, 1987).
102. See, for example, Philip Shenon, "An African Ambassador Battles Terror and Indifference", New York Times, June 5, 2000.
103. Felicia R. Lee, "New Topic in Black Studies Debate", ibid., Feb. 1, 2003.
104. See Davies, "Black Revolt Puts End to Exhibition of Old South", 11;
105. Weeks, "Continuing Hurt of History"; "Library on Tiptoe"; "Library of Congress Scraps Plantation Life Exhibit", Washington Post, Dec. 25, 1995; and
106. Weeks, "Plantation Life Display Revived." For Vlach's own account, see
107. John Michael Vlach, "Confronting Slavery: One Example of the Perils and Promises of Difficult History", History News, 54 (Spring 1999), 12-15;
108. John Vlach interview by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, "Picturing Slavery", Feb. 5, 1996 .
109. For the book, see John Michael Vlach, Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery (Chapel Hill, 1993).
110. Russ Bynam, "In Savannah, a Furor over Graphic Quote on Monument to Slaves", Associated Press, Feb. 10, 2001. The words are those of the poet Maya Angelou.
111. For background on the controversy, see Leef Smith, "Jeffersons Split over Hemings", Washington Post, May 17, 1999;
112. Leef Smith, "Jefferson Paternity Called Likely", ibid., Jan. 27, 2000; and
113. William Branigin, "Historians' Report Attacks Hemings Link to Jefferson", ibid., April 13, 2001.
114. David Brion Davis, "Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives", American Historical Review, 105 (April 2000), 452-66.
115. To grasp how comparative the study of slavery has become, see Joseph Miller, comp., Slavery: A World Wide Bibliography (White Plains, 1985). This work is updated annually in the journal Slavery and Abolition.
116. For the distinction between direct comparison and transnational histories, see Jurgen Kocka, "Comparison and Beyond", History and Theory, 42 (Feb. 2003), 39-44.
117. The most ambitious attempt to historicize the global history of slavery is Joseph C. Miller, "The Problem of Slavery in History", lectures delivered at the University of Virginia, March 2002 (in Berlin's possession), courtesy of the author.
118. For the modern period, see Philip D. Curtin, The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex: Essays in Atlantic History (Cambridge, Eng., 1998); and
119. David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (Cambridge, Eng., 2000).
120. Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America (Cambridge, Mass., 1998).
121. I trace some of these changes in greater detail in Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves (Cambridge, Mass., 2003).
122. See especially Marc Bloch, The Historians Craft (New York, 1953), 24-29.
123. For the modern discussion of memory, see Pierre Nora, "Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire" Representations, 26 (Spring 1989), 7-24;
124. Pierre Nora, director, Realms of Memory: Rethinking the French Past, trans. Arthur Goldhammer, ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman (3 vols., New York, 1996-1998).
125. For discussions of the slave trade in history and memory that parallel my own, see Ralph A. Austen, "The Slave Trade as History and Memory: Confrontations of Slaving Voyage Documents and Communal Traditions", William and Mary Quarterly, 58 (Jan. 2001), 229-44;
126. Bernard Bailyn, "Considering the Slave Trade: History and Memory", ibid., 245-51.
127. On the slave ship Brooks, see Monica L. Haynes, "Escaped Slaves' Tales Remain Inspirational", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jan. 19, 1998.
128. See Nora, "Between Memory and History", 9. On the controversy over Thomas Jefferson's involvement with Hemings, see n. 24 above.
129. On controversies over school names, see Ann O'Hanlon, "Racial History Fuels Growing Debate over School Names", Washington Post, Feb. 10, 1998;
130. "Black Begins Bid to Change School's Name", New York Times, Jan. 14, 1998.
131. On social death, see Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 5-6.
132. A defining property of slaves is their "insertion as absolute aliens in the slave-owning host society", according to Claude Meillassoux, The Anthropology of Slavery: The Womb of Iron and Gold, trans. Alide Dasnois (Chicago, 1991), 99.
133. Some of the conference papers were published in a special issue, "New Perspectives on the Transatlantic Slave Trade", William and Mary Quarterly, 58 (Jan. 2001).
134. David Eltis, Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and Herbert S. Klein, eds., The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM (Cambridge, Eng., 1999).