Review

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

Review by: REX D. HOPPER
Source: The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 4 (MARCH, 1944), pp. 347-
348
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42865105
Accessed: 22-01-2017 13:38 UTC

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 No. 4] Book Reviews 347

Barnes, H. E. and Teeters, F. T., N

word by Frank Tannenbaum. (Ne
XXVI, 1069.)

This extensive volume adds considerable valid material to the already-

extensive studies in the field of criminology and of penology. The
authors, while not developing any radical departure from the usual type
of treatise on the subject, have nevertheless made a contribution by col-
lecting within the covers of a single volume a wider assortment and syn-
thesis of materials than most works of this kind have included. The
first several chapters are devoted primarily to a consideration of the
bases for and the history of social attitudes toward crime and the criminal,
and the biological and social bases of the prime problem. This portion
of the study is concerned with the nature and causes of crime and is more
or less generally referred to as the science of criminology. With respect
to the factors which enter into the development of criminal ideas, the
authors apparently are in fundamental agreement with the dominant cur-
rent thought, namely that the social inheritance can undo the highest
quality of biological inheritance, provided the culture to which the in-
dividual falls heir as the result of living in a social world is not the type
favorable to the development of reliable citizenship.

The remaining, and by far the larger, portion of the study is concerned
with the treatment phases of the problem, usually referred to as
penology. Extensive materials have been assembled which deal with
the police ; the theories and philosophies of punishment ; and the history,
present development and degree of effectiveness of the prison system
at the present time. Although this portion of the volume is the least dis-
tinctive, tending as it does to conform fairly closely to the pattern of
such studies, the array of material gives an adequate picture of the his-
tory and current aspects of each phase of the penal system.

The last part of the study is devoted to a special consideration of the

delinquency problem and to the treatment of the juvenile delinquent.

University of Oklahoma J. J. RHYNE

Aptheker, Herbert, American Negro Slave Revolts. (New York : Columbia

University Press, 1943, pp. 406.)
This work is an outgrowth of the author's earlier study of "Nat
Turner's Revolt," in consequence of which he "came to the conclusion
that this event was not an isolated, unique phenomenon, but the culmina-
tion of a series of slave conspiracies and revolts which had occurred in
the immediate past." It was found that the fact that "there has been and
still is a notable lack of agreement as to the extent of unrest and discon-

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348 The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly [Vol. XXIV

tent among the American Negro slave population" was matched by the
absence of a thoroughly documented study of the problem. The present
work represents an attempt to meet that need.

The result is a very good book. After a chapter in which the fact
of "The Fear of Rebellion" is firmly established as having been wide-
spread and of long duration, chapters are devoted to the following topics :
"The Machinery of Control," "Some Précipitants of Rebellion," "Further
Causes of Rebellion," "Individual Acts of Resistance," "Exaggeration,
Distortion, Censorship," and "Early Plots and Rebellions." These
chapters are followed by chapters covering ten-year periods beginning
with 1791 and continuing through "The Civil War Years."

The author's major conclusions may be summarized as follows:

1. "There are few phases of anti-bellum Southern life and history that
were not in some way influenced by the fear of, or the actual out-
break of, militant concerted slave action."
2. "The prime motive on the part of the slaveholders of the ante-
bellum South was the maintenance of its type of social order. In-
ternally, the ultimate threat to this stability was disaffection and
unrest on the part of the slaves . . . Thus it came about that a basic
consideration in the formulation of the legal, social, and theological
aspects of pre-Civil War Southern life was how best to prevent or
how most efficiently to suppress mass Negro rebelliousness. Thus
was fostered the colossal myth of the sub-humanity of the Negro,
a myth basic to the entire social order, and which demanded the
corruption of political science, theology, and anthropology. Ac-
ceptance of this idea had to be demonstrated by all, Negro and
white . . . This was the foundation. Upon this was reared the
structure itself."

3. The book shows the way in which the legal structure of the South,
the rate of urbanization and industrialization, the progress of De-
mocracy, and many other phases of Southern life are all to be
understood only in relation to this basic need to "keep the Negro
in his place" and the ever-present fear that he might attempt to
escape from it - a fear which the author believes was well-founded
for he closes the study with the observation that "The evidence . . .
points to the conclusion that discontent and rebelliousness were not
only exceedingly common, but, indeed, characteristic of American
Negro slaves."

The book is excellent historiography but innocent of analysis, a lack

for which the author can scarcely be criticized since he did not propose
to undertake it. Even so, it is interesting and somewhat surprising that
as late as 1937 anyone should still have wondered whether the "Nat
Turner Revolt" was an isolated phenomenon. But, the author did and
a good book has resulted from so naive a question.
The University of Texas REX D. HOPPER

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