Soul by Soul
eBook - PDF

Soul by Soul

Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Soul by Soul

Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market

About this book

Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award
Winner of the John Hope Franklin Prize
Winner of the Avery O. Craven Award

Soul by Soul tells the story of slavery in antebellum America by moving away from the cotton plantations and into the slave market itself, the heart of the domestic slave trade. Taking us inside the New Orleans slave market, the largest in the nation, where 100,000 men, women, and children were packaged, priced, and sold, Walter Johnson transforms the statistics of this chilling trade into the human drama of traders, buyers, and slaves, negotiating sales that would alter the life of each. What emerges is not only the brutal economics of trading but the vast and surprising interdependencies among the actors involved.

Using recently discovered court records, slaveholders' letters, nineteenth-century narratives of former slaves, and the financial documentation of the trade itself, Johnson reveals the tenuous shifts of power that occurred in the market's slave coffles and showrooms. Traders packaged their slaves by "feeding them up," dressing them well, and oiling their bodies, but they ultimately relied on the slaves to play their part as valuable commodities. Slave buyers stripped the slaves and questioned their pasts, seeking more honest answers than they could get from the traders. In turn, these examinations provided information that the slaves could utilize, sometimes even shaping a sale to their own advantage.

Johnson depicts the subtle interrelation of capitalism, paternalism, class consciousness, racism, and resistance in the slave market, to help us understand the centrality of the "peculiar institution" in the lives of slaves and slaveholders alike. His pioneering history is in no small measure the story of antebellum slavery.

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Yes, you can access Soul by Soul by Walter Johnson,Walter JOHNSON in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
chapter
two
o
Between
the
Prices
T
o
mississippi
river
slave
trader
John
White,
slavery
looked
like
this:
a
list
of
names,
numbers,
and
outcomes
double-entered
in
the
meticulous
Slave
Record
he
kept
during
his
two
decades
of
selling
Mis-
souri
slaves
in
and
around
the
New
Orleans
market.
Cynthia
Branham,
23,
$515.00
Sold
to
McRae
through
Coffman,
$687.75
Isabel
Evans,
17,
$600.00
Sold
to
Mr.
Herne,
cash
$750.00
Eliza
McAfee,
16,
$725.00
Sold
to
Richard
McCall,
Returned
McGwine
Wilson,
30,
$600.00
Sold
to
Thos.
Pugh,
Lafourche
Parish,
account
to
1st
Decr.
next,
$1000.00
William
Robards,
25,
$750.00
Sold
to
C.
H.
Harriss,
N.
Orleans,
$875.00
Charlotte
Robards,
21,
$650.00
Sold
to
Richard
Jordan,
cash
$915.00
Laura
Robards,
16,
$700.00
Sold
to
Dr.
L.
D.
Couden,
cash
$400
dft.
30
days
$315
Isabel
Robards,
14,
$575.00
Sold
to
Col.
Hale,
cash
$750.00
Frances
Robards,
12,
$650.00
Sold
to
Mr.
Cv.
Krell,
dft.
cashed
$584.00
Jane
Young,
19,
$649.75
Sold
by
R.
A.
Layton
in
Mississippi,
$750.00
Emilyee
Carroll,
14,
$500.00
Sold
to
Mr.
Brand,
Donaldsonville,
notes
$1000.00
Joe
Fields,
22,
$715.00
Sold
to
Etienne
Landry,
Lafourche,
cash
$800.00

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Introduction: A Person With A Price
  3. Chapter One: The Chattel Principle
  4. Chapter Two: Between the Prices
  5. Chapter Three: Making a World Out of Slaves
  6. Chapter Four: Turning People Into Products
  7. Chapter Five: Reading Bodies and Marking Race
  8. Chapter Six: Acts of Sale
  9. Chapater Seven: Life in the Shadow of the Slave Market
  10. Epilogue: Southern History and the Slave Trade
  11. Abbreviations
  12. Notes
  13. Acknowledgments
  14. Index