Double Character: Slavery and Master in the Antebellum Southern Courtroom Review

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(More customer reviews)Ariela Gross's book, "Double Character", is an excellent examination of the role of the courtroom in antebellum slavery. Gross attempts to show that the courts are an important arena where discourses about slave "character" and "nature" crystallized, where certain types of explanations, (like medical ones) grew in favor while other explanatory modes were discouraged. The title refers to the fact that slaves were simultaenously regarded as people and as property (capital). At the center of all this were slave bodies, whose humanitty was clear, and whose legal status as chattel was also clear. The tortured legal reasoning that attempted to negotiate these contradictions provides a fascinating portrait of antebellum race.
Gross's sources are excellent--she focuses on cases heard on appeal to state Supreme Courts in the deep South (Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina). At that time Supreme Courts had to hear all cases appealed (not the case today) so they become an invaluable source for collecting trial records. She also examines one court in depth (Adams County, Mississippi) and two smaller courts in South Carolina to deepen and contextualize her scope.
She conclusively demonstrates that the Southern "honor culture" that dominated mainstream white life was dependent on the dishonoring of black bodies, managed to a great deal through the court system, where slaves were not allowed to speak. The issue of slave character and by extension, the character of the master, were always in contention in these trials over transactions gone bad.
However, she also argues that even though slaves could not speak in court, nonetheless courts were forced to deal with the humanness of slaves. In cases regarding breach of warranty, slaves were relied on to give information about their medical condition, as well as information about buyer's treatment of them. Even though they themselves could not speak, their words were often repeated in court by others.
Gross also deals with the issue of paternalism of slave masters better than other scholars. She contextualizes paternalism as a narrow discourse alongside strict disciplinary codes and "shrewd business practices". Rather than draw a distinction between paternalism and violence, like Walter Johnson, or subsume all of slavery as a paternalist enterprise (like Eugene Genovese) we see the complex and mulitfaceted nature of master/slave dynamics.
If there are problems here, it is that her study sometimes attempts to beyond itself too far, and in doing so draws on secondary literature a bit much, especially towards the end. Her connection of the courtroom to medical discourse and the slave marketplace seem a bit stretched, but she does draw on the best of the secondary literature in these areas--its just that these connections seem tenous sometimes.
Nonetheless, this is a solid study and deserves to be regarded as such in the interdisciplinary field of American Studies. As a study in methodology, Gross is also quite interesting--she combines statsitical analysis and regression with critical race theory and cultural anthropology. Each of these modes of analysis complements and strengthens the other. Within the field of African- American historiography, this is also a major effort.
--Christopher Chase, PhD Fellow, American Studies

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In a groundbreaking study of the day-to-day law and culture of slavery, Ariela Gross investigates the local courtrooms of the Deep South where ordinary people settled their disputes over slaves. Buyers sued sellers for breach of warranty when they considered slaves to be physically or morally defective; owners sued supervisors who whipped or neglected slaves under their care. Double Character seeks to explain how communities dealt with an important dilemma raised by these trials: how could slaves who acted as moral agents be treated as commodities? Because these cases made the character of slaves a central legal question, slaves' moral agency intruded into the courtroom, often challenging the character of slaveholders who saw themselves as honorable masters. Gross looks at the stories about white and black character that witnesses and litigants put forth in court. She not only reveals the role of law in constructing "race" but also offers a portrait of the culture of slavery, one that addresses historical debates about law, honor, and commerce in the American South.

Gross maintains that witnesses and litigants drew on narratives available in the culture at large to explain the nature and origins of slaves' character, such as why slaves became runaways. But the legal process also shaped their expressions of racial ideology by favoring certain explanations over others. Double Character brings to life the law as a dramatic ritual in people's daily lives, looking at trials from the perspective of litigants, lawyers, doctors, and the slaves themselves. The author's approach combines the methods of cultural anthropology, quantitative social history, and critical race theory.