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(More customer reviews)In a book that argues that the slave trade itself fundamentally defines American slavery as a whole, a focus on the brutality and inhumanity of slavery would be expected. The tragedy of individuals torn from their families, kept in inhumane conditions in the slave markets, and sold to strangers who likely would physically abuse them is certainly one focus of Soul By Soul. However, Walter Johnson has gone much further than that in defining the slave markets as central to our understanding of slavery. Through creative interpretation of numerous personal and business documents drawn from slave dealers and owners, the court transcripts produced when their bargains went awry, and the haunting memoirs of slaves who either came through the markets themselves or had relatives who did, Johnson shows that the act of buying a human being was profoundly important to the Southern mind in ways that transcend economics or dynamics of power. It is thus not possible to dismiss Johnson's interpretation with the argument that the majority of slaves never passed through the traders' hands, so their experience with the market was negligible and therefore of less importance than Johnson would suggest. This is a book less about the experience of black slaves in the market than about the effect those markets had on the white psyche.
Johnson sees southern whites as consumers, ready to be marketed to in the modern sense. Traders knew this and were prepared to advertise their wares in ways that would allow those consumerist impulses to be satisfied. The purchase of a first slave for a man just starting to build his fortune was an act of hope; the buyer's dreams of prosperity rested upon the slave whom he had chosen, in a sense transferring dependence from the slave to the paternalist himself. Wealthier buyers could impose their own fantasies upon their purchases; domestic slaves could bring respectability to a household by relieving the master's wife from physical labor. Slaves could also establish a master's reputation among his peers by being 'stubborn' or 'unruly' slaves whom the master could break, establishing his power. They could also embody sexual fantasies, allow a white man to create a role for himself as a paternalist, or simply reflect well on their owner by being 'good purchases.' Much as a man may express his desired appearance to others by purchasing a certain model of car, and judges others buy what they drive, so did slaveholders define and judge themselves according to the quality of slaves they owned.
Similarly, just as slaveowners defined themselves according to their actions in the market, they also defined slaves' humanity according to their market value, using racial and physical markers to determine the abilities of their purchases. However, the human nature of their property inevitably led to slave owners being dissatisfied with their purchases; slaves seldom fulfilled the materialist fantasies of their buyers. Violence was the surest response, as slave owners expressed their disappointment with 'faulty products.' Slaves could be returned for failing to perform as the traders had promised, but more often they were simply whipped. Presumably, slaves' common experiences drew them closer to one another, as Johnson argues. However, his sources show that slaves frequently judged each other in ways reminiscent of the slaveholders' own criteria, that is upon skin color, intelligence, attitude, etc. Arguing that they automatically united against whites is perhaps sensible, but not supported by Johnson's sources. This however, is one of the few flaws in Johnson's otherwise insightful analysis.
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Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market
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