Dismantling Black Manhood

An Historical and Literary Analysis of the Legacy of Slavery

Daniel P. Black

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1997
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136789816
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book examines the social, economic, and cultural factors that have produced the current crisis in African American masculinity, tracing the development of concepts of manhood from pre-colonial West Africa through the Emancipation Proclamation in America. The study begins with an exploration of the cultural context of manhood and the social development of boys into men in West Africa which was based on the rites of passage and the mastery of such social skills as hunting and farming. Enslavement annihilated this unambiguous social status. Denied the possibility of fulfilling the necessary social roles of warrior, husband, father, and protector, African men were forced to redefine manhood, without the benefit of communal discussions. Hence, manhood to many enslaved African American men became an increasingly ambiguous and elusive concept, coupled with problematic notions of sexual performance, absolute patriarchal domination of the household, and the devaluation of commitments that impinge upon a man's independence. Narratives written between 1794 and 1863 reveal that by the end of slavery the concept had become a source of major conflict for African American men. This unique study focuses on the deterioration of the black male concept of manhood in 19th-century America and explores the dilemma of what it means to be black and male in America.

V
The Concept of Manhood and the Enslaved African American Male

Once first-generation enslaved Africans in America died, the African American slave was born. In other words, those Africans captured and brought to America in chains saw themselves merely as captives, having consciously decided that they would be African until their death and that the prospect of recapturing life as they once knew it was always a possibility. Yet after years of miscegenation, loss of hope, inhumane flogging, social stagnation, and cultural transformation, the grandchildren of Toundi and Kamau concluded that they were in America to stay. It was their home. They undoubtedly knew of Africa and the existence of their foreparents there, but only in a mythical sense. They now spoke English, practiced monogamy (for the most part), and upheld a religious theology which spoke to their particular experiences in America.¹

So by the 19th century, the enslaved African had become the enslaved African American. The content of slave narratives suggests that, after more than two centuries of bondage, enslaved Africans grew to accept the notion that the institution of slavery set the parameters for their life-time possibilities. Even free blacks, including those who had escaped the “peculiar institution,” lived their lives with the belief that, whether bond or free, black life was always at the mercy of white folks. And it was. Yet to accept this premise, not as an evil to be surmounted, but simply as an aspect of black existence in America, meant that early enslaved African Americans embraced--although subconsciously--Euro-American ideas and ideals, such that their existence as “captives” was eventually replaced by their status as “slaves,” defined here as those who eventually accepted--again, subconsciously--their bondage to be their way of life and who saw themselves always in relation to their captor.

Most enslaved black men of the 19th century certainly fit into the category of “slave.” Although there were numerous exceptions, black male slave narratives confirm that most enslaved black men used their white captor as the standard of manhood to which they aspired. Although the black male concept of manhood was heavily rooted in West African tradition, the extent to which black men sought the privileges of white men influenced to an astonishing degree their assuming the extreme patriarchal notions of manhood demonstrated by their captors. It is not surprising, however, for black men desired to be their captor’s equal. Consequently, the white man and his world, especially his perception of men and manhood, became the yardstick by which black men began to measure their own manhood. In Black Looks, Bell Hooks observes: “Transplanted African men, even those who were coming from cultures where sex roles shaped the division of labor, where the status of men was different and most often higher than that of women, had imposed on them the white colonizer’s notions of manhood and masculinity.”² She notes further that “although the gendered politics of slavery denied black men the freedom to act as “men” with in the definition set by white norms, this notion of manhood did become a standard used to measure Black male progress.”³

In Hooks’ understanding, the white male’s notion of manhood was nothing less than full-blown patriarchy. Yet to assert that patriarchy was at the core of the Euro-American male concept of manhood, while implying that African men only became patriarchal once they encountered white men is erroneous. To be sure, African men were patriarchal long before they ever left home. This is why they assumed the captor’s notions of manhood so readily White men were definitely more destructively and tyrannically patriarchal than most African men had probably ever been; yet the ideas of male dominance, power, and control were well-established aspects of the West African concept of manhood centuries before the European ever arrived in Africa.

And yet the extent to which the enslaved African American male concept of manhood was informed by a white male sensibility is of lesser importance here than the outcome of that effect, namely the fact that “the image of black masculinity that emerges from slave narratives is one of hard-working men who longed to assume full patriarchal responsibility for families and kin.” Enslavement, however, denied them this right. In fact, captors and accompanying Euro-American social, economic, and political constructs denied enslaved black men any notion of manhood, regardless of how they defined it. Nineteenth century black male slave narratives chronicle how black men felt when denied the privileges of manhood and the opportunity to be men as they desired. The aim of this chapter is to examine, via Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave (1849) and Twelve Years a Slave: Na rrative of Solomon Northup (1853), the 19th century black male perception of manhood and the difficulties encountered in its pursuit once the enslaved African male became the enslaved African American male.

Like their literary harbingers Gustavus Vassa and Venture Smith, Henry Bib and Solomon Northup are both careful to adres the isue of authenticity of their work. They assure readers that, although their tales might seem rather fantastic, they include nothing but the honest truth. About his autobiography, Solomon Northup declares, “This is no fiction, no exaggeration. If I have failed in anything, it has been in presenting to the reader too prominently the bright side of the picture.”⁴ At times, he consciously omits various experiences and details, believing them to be entirely unbelievable to anyone who did not encounter them first-hand. He presents the following statement as the thesis of his narrative: “My object is, to give a candid and truthful statement of facts: to repeat the story of my life, without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction present a picture of more cruel wrong or a severer bondage.” ⁵ He seems to want readers to accept the truth of his story, not simply because he wrote it, but primarily because it depicts a bondage he and his people have had to endure for generations, and he wants the world to recognize the evil of slavery, thereby supporting its demise.

Henry Bibb also proclaims that his narrative contains only truth. In fact, he suggests that every word can be corroborated by someone and, therefore, should be taken as pure truth, and he goes a step further than Northup in his attempt to convince readers that his story is, in fact, authentic. He cites the following letter, written on his behalf by a white gentleman to the committee investigating the truth of his narrative, knowing that the words of a white man would be taken as truth long before his own:

Maumee City, April 5, 1845

Chas. H. Stewart, ESQ.

Dear Sir:---In reply to your letter respecting Henry Bibb, I can only say that about the year 1838 I became acquainted with him at Perrysburgh--employed him to do some work by the job which he performed well, and from his apparent honesty and candor, I became much interested in him About that time he went South for the purpose, as was said, of getting his wife, who was there in slavery. In the spring of 1841, I found him at Portsmouth on the Ohio River, and after much persuasion, employed him to assist my man to drive home some horses and cattle which I was about purchasing near Maysville, Ky. My confidence in him was such that when about half way home I separated the horses from the cattle, and left him with the latter, with money and instructions to hire what help he wanted to get to Perrysburgh. This heaccomplished to my entire satisfaction…I have heard his story and must say that I have not the least reason to suspect it being otherwise than true, and furthermore, I firmly believe, and have for a long time, that he has the foundation to make himself useful. shall always afford him all the facilities in my power to assist him, until I hear of something in relation to him to alter my mind Yours in the cause of truth.

J.W. Smith⁶

Bibb trusts that Mr. Smith’s words will be honored by readers as he reconstructs his life on the page in order that others know of the vicissitudes of life he and other black men sustained during 19th century American enslavement. An article which appeared in the Anti-Slavery Bugle in November of 1849 had this to say about Bibb’s work:

We believe this to be an unvarnished tale, giving a true picture of slavery, in all its features, good, bad and indifferent, if it has so many. The book is written with perfect artlessness, and the man who can read it unmoved must be fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.⁷

So it seems that the authenticity of Bibb’s (and Northup’s) narratives go unquestioned.⁸

First striking about these works, especially when compared to those of the previous chapter, is that both their authors perceive slavery to be the permanent condition of black people in America, whereas neither Vassa nor Smith ever accepted enslavement as simply “their way of life.” The fact that Bibb and Northup were born and reared in America--a count ry where, from the moment of their entry into the world, they saw Africans oppressed and kept under subjugation via enslavement--certainly led them to believe that, regardless of their efforts, they would never be able to exist totally outside of the white man’s grip. Bibb declares:

A slave may be bought and sold in the market like an ox. He is liable to be sold off to a dist ant land from him family. He is bound in chains hand and foot; and his sufferings are aggravated a hundred fold, by the terrible thought, that he is not allowed to struggle against misfortune, corporal punishment, insults and outrages committed upon himself and family; and he is not allowed to help himself, to resist or escape the blow, which he sees impending over him.⁹

He then says, “This idea of utter helplessness, in perpetual bondage, is the more distressing, as there is no period even with the remotest generation when it shall terminate” ¹⁰ With this belief, Bibb concludes, “1 must be a slave for life, and suffer under the lash or die.”¹¹ He sees only two possibilities for his existence as a black male in America--slavery or death.

Solomon Northup’s belief in the permanency of black enslavement is based not so much on the reality of slavery itself as on his belief that the black man means nothing to the white m an and, therefore, will never be afforded the goods he enjoys. Northup notes:

[The white man] looked upon the black man simply as an animal, differing in no respect from any other animal, save in the gift of speech and the possession of somewhat higher instincts, and therefore, the more valuable. To work like his father’s mules--to be whipped and kicked and scourged through life--to address the white man with hat in hand, and eyes bent servilely on the earth, in his mind, was the natural and proper destiny of the slave.¹²

Unfortunately, Northup appears...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Halftitle
• Introduction
• The Concept of Manhood in Pre-Colonial West Africa
• The Impact of the Long March and the Middle Passage on the West African Concept of Manhood
• Plantation Existence and the West African Concept of Manhood
• The Concept of Manhood and the Enslaved African American Male
• The Concept of Manhood and the Free Black Male of the 19th Century
• Recommendations for Further Study
• Bibliography
• Index