The Slave Community - Blassingame's Argument

Blassingame's Argument

In The Slave Community, Blassingame argues that "historians have never systematically explored the life experiences of American slaves." He asserts that by concentrating on the slaveowner, historians have presented a distorted view of plantation life that "strips the slave of any meaningful and distinctive culture, family life, religion, or manhood." Blassingame outlines that the reliance on planter sources led historians like Elkins to mimic planter stereotypes of slaves such as the "submissive half-man, half child" Sambo. Noting the agency slaves possessed over their lives, he contends, "Rather than identifying with and submitting totally to his master, the slave held onto many remnants of his African culture, gained a sense of worth in the quarters, spent most of his time free from surveillance by whites, controlled important aspects of his life, and did some personally meaningful things on his own volition."