New Studies in the History of American Slavery (review)

Abstract

New Studies in History of American Slavery. Edited by Edward E. Baptist and Stephanie M. H. Camp. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2006. Pp. 306. Cloth, $54.95; Paper, $22.95.)Reviewed by Sergio LussanaSlavery studies in American history have continued to develop at such an extraordinary pace that simply keeping up to date with current historiography has become a full-time job in itself. Fortunately, Edward E. Baptist and Stephanie M. H. Camp's edited collection, New Studies in History of American has succeeded admirably in a task that has long been needed. Modestly acknowledging that articles presented in their volume hardly provide first new thoughts about history of slavery in Americas (1), anthology brings together ten extremely well-written articles by some of most dynamic and important historians of slavery working today. With exception of four entries, essays in volume are concerned primarily with slavery in late antebellum southern United States.The collection is introduced with an informative historiographical essay in which editors trace progression of slavery studies throughout last century. Baptist and Camp contend that in a bid to explore paradoxical qualities in lives of enslaved people, many scholars of slavery now dissolve dichotomous choices. complex nature of slavery, editors argue, cannot be understood through an either/or (3). Moreover, they proclaim that three major developments have significantly shaped much new work in slavery studies: influence of gender history, issue of race, and cultural history. These intellectual trends provide framework for book, with ten contributing essays divided thematically under each of three headings (12).The first section, and Slavery, contains three excellent essays by Jennifer L. Morgan, Sharia M. Fett, and Camp. Morgan's and Camp's essays are chapters from their respective books, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia, 2004) and Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in Plantation South (Chapel Hill, NC, 2004), while Fett's essay develops arguments made in her monograph, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (Chapel Hill, NC, 2002). Morgan's essay is a fascinating exploration of how development of racialist discourse was profoundly influenced by gendered notions of difference created by European travelers to Africa and English settlers in America. Morgan finds gender located at heart of European encounter with Africa. As male travelers gazed upon bodies of African women, they constructed notions of civility, morality, and race, which ultimately justified turn to enslaved African labor in New World.Of particular interest is Camp's essay, The Pleasures of Resistance: Enslaved Women and Body Politics in Plantation South, 18301861. First published in Journal of Southern History (August 2002), this essay is a ground-breaking study of gender and resistance. Influenced by James C. Scott's theory of everyday forms of Camp draws attention to secret parties held by enslaved people at night, away from eyes of slaveholder, whereby participants would dance, drink, court, and play music. For Camp, these parties did not function as safety valves working to advantage to owner. Instead, bodily pleasures that accompanied these parties were profound sites of resistance, enjoyment, and potentially transcendence from dehumanizing effects of slavery (90). Camp's work demonstrates merits of dissolving dichotomies, arguing that the body, so deeply personal, is also a political arena (91). Hence, enslaved women, whose bodies were unique sites of domination under slavery, were able to reclaim (93) their bodies from planter control and view, and use them as sites of resistance. …