This posting is well worth reading again, and again.
Anita
>From: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)
>Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2007 19:22:23 -0400
>
>All of us who talk about the history of the 18th and 19th centuries can
>only make inferences based upon the data that we have available to us.
>
>No one disagrees that some of the WPA narratives contain favorable
>descriptions, by people who had been enslaved, of slavery.
>
>The question before us is what to make of that data. As many of us have
>tried to explain to you, at some length, the data must be taken with a
>grain of salt, for a host of reasons. A persuasive interpretation of the
>past must not only adduce data to support its conclusions, it must also
>subject the data itself to critical analysis. This is true, by the way,
>for any rational inquiry--historical or otherwise. If you use bad data,
>you will get bad results. In this case, the data is not so much "bad" as
>it is skewed. It is skewed for a whole host of reasons, most of which I
>and various others on this list serv have discussed at some length.
>
>I do not disagree that some slaves and former slaves wrote or said positive
>things about life under slavery. The larger question before us is, given
>this fact, what can we conclude about the nature of slavery.
>
>Some of us here are well familiar with both the data (the WPA narratives)
>AND the analysis of their provenance and reliability. I conclude from
>reflection about this data that despite the existence of some favorable
>descriptions of slavery in the WPA narratives, slavery was a pretty
>wretched and awful institution, that slavery systematically degraded and
>dehumanized the people subjected to it, and that slavery brutalized both
>slave and slave-owner. I conclude that the testimony common from
>apologists of the "lost cause"--that slavery was a mostly benign
>institution, that most slaves were well treated and lived happily, and that
>most masters were benevolent--is false, and certainly is not sustained by
>any reasonable and fair-minded assessment of what the data tell us.
>
>My guess is that most of the other people here who have read this data and
>have thought deeply about the circumstances under which it was collected
>will agree with me. But if you do choose to disagree with me, it is
>incumbent on you to explain why you believe the data is NOT skewed the way
>that I have suggested that it is.
>Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
>Department of History
>James Madison University
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