Review

Reviewed Work(s): American Negro Slave Revolts by Herbert Aptheker

Review by: J. G. De Roulhac Hamilton
Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Apr., 1944), pp. 504-506
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1841069
Accessed: 22-01-2017 13:38 UTC

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 /Iptheker: American Negro Slave Revolts SOS
In his study of the Turner Rebellion, Mr. Aptheker reached the conclusion
that the "event was not an isolated . . . phenomenon, but the culmination of a
series of slave conspiracies and revolts which had occurred in the immediate past."
Thinking that the same thing might be true of the Gabriel and Vesey insurrec-
tions, he undertook this study of the whole subject, which appears to be primarily
concerned with proving that Negro slaves in general were neither docile nor con-
tented but that "discontent and rebelliousness were . . . characteristic of American
Negro slaves."
In my judgment he fails completely to prove his thesis. He exaggerates the
rebellious character of the slaves quite as much as most writers have magnified
their docility. He apparently accepts every rumor as fact, and most of the study
deals with rumor, much of it of doubtful origin and most of it unverified. Many
of these rumors are now known not to be true. Every newspaper reference to a
rumor is cited as evidence of revolt or threatened revolt. To accept the statements
of such periodicals as the Liberator and the New York Tribune, and the material
contained in the speeches of the antislavery orators and abolitionist writers, is quite
as absurd today as it would be to rely upon the Biblical bolstering of slavery by
Southern clerical defenders of the institution as authoritative. It is no less absurd
to swallow whole every rumor that found its way into print or manuscript in the
jittery South.
Mr. Aptheker correctly maintains that the whole South was, throughout the
period of slavery, acutely aware of the danger of slave insurrection, that it con-
stantly discussed measures to prevent the menace from becoming actual, and that
rumors of revolt, or threatened revolt, were rife throughout the period. But rumors
were not revolts, and revolts seldom materialized, just as rumored conspiracies,
more often than not, had no reality.
In his acceptance of abolitionist descriptions the author seems to hold the view
that the Southern slaveholders, disregarding the fact that they were human beings,
regarded the slaves as merely animal machines working to make profits and, gen-
erally speaking, treated them with harsh cruelty. That cases of cruelty were not
infrequent is of course true. They have always been found, in or out of slavery,
wherever sadistic men and women, or those obsessed by greed, have had other
people under their control. But the whole body of authentic sources proves fairly
conclusively that cruelty was the exception rather than the rule. And, addition-
ally, to put the matter on its lowest terms-those chosen by the author-seekers
after profits do not chain, lash, starve, and otherwise maltreat exceptionally val-
uable animals on whom they rely for profits.
It is quite evident that the author does not know the South of the period of
slavery, nor yet does he know slavery as it was. He has overlooked the sources
that would have informed him and discounted the secondary works based upon

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 So6 Reviews of Books
those sources. Instead he has studied the picture painted by Garrison and his
disciples.
A somewhat constant reference to the author's belief that the slaveholding
South consciously and deliberately debased a whole race for the sake of profits
makes it not out of place to suggest that a contrast of the Negroes who emerged
from slavery with those brought over from Africa, or with those there today,
clearly exposes the fallacy of such reasoning.
Limits of space prevent the mention of numerous specific errors, as well as of
several serious defects of arrangement, treatment, and interpretation.

University of North Carolina J. G. DE ROULHAC HAMILTON

JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, CONFEDERATE STATESMAN. By Robert Douthat

Meade. (New York: Oxford University Press. I943. Pp. ix, 432. $3.7
THE author might well have entitled his book "The Lives of Judah P. Ben-
iamin," because this unique figure had almost as many careers-and was almost
as lucky-as the nine-lived cat. He was born in 181i on the Danish West Indian
Island of St. Croix during the British occupancy of that island, and fifty-five years
later, after having fled to England as a homeless Confederate refugee, literally a
man without a country, he shrewdly and successfully claimed British citizenship
on the grounds that he was born under the British flag. Benjamin's boyhood was
spent in North Carolina. Here he received an excellent preparatory education that
enabled him to enter Yale at the unseasonable age of fourteen. His career at Yale
was brilliant, but on account of his youthful exuberance it was not creditable; and
he voluntarily-though doubtless under unofficial pressure-terminated his studies
before graduation. He soon made his way to New Orleans, where he turned his
boundless energies and ambition to the study of law; and he had scarcely attained
his majority before he was a successful lawyer and unhappily married. In a few
years he had gained national reputation as a commercial lawyer and was earning
a princely income. His great reputation soon brought him into local politics, first
in two state constitutional conventions and then as state senator. In i852 he was
elected on the Whig ticket to the United States Senate, where, as colleague to the
famous John Slidell, he served until Louisiana seceded from the Union in i86i.
In the meantime Benjamin established himself at Bellechasse-his country place
near New Orleans-as one of the most successful and progressive sugar planters
of Louisiana.
During the Civil War he was Confederate Attorney General, Acting Secretary
of War and Secretary of War, and, finally, Secretary of State, but most important
of all the closest friend and personal adviser of Jefferson Davis. The author de-
votes more space to Benjamin's career as Confederate statesman but probably
makes less contribution of fact to this well-known period than to the more ob-
scure phases of Benjamin's life. But more important, he comes to closer grips

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