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Date: | Fri, 22 Jun 2007 16:57:15 -0400 |
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Very interesting and important observations, Martha -- thank you! Your
essay in the Thompson book sounds well worth reading, so I'll look
forward to doing that.
You closed your message by saying:
> From all of this research, plus the research I have done since then,
> it is
> clear to me that the relationship between the enslaved and the people
> who
> owned them was complex and contradictory. Just accepting that slaves
> both
> *were* property and *owned* property is pretty difficult for a lot of
> people
> to understand, let alone finding out that some slaves owned more
> property
> than some poor whites. But this is what the records reveal--and I am
> glad
> to have had a hand in helping thousands of visitors to Carter's Grove
> (and
> the Peyton Randolph Kitchen, another one of my projects) understand
> some of
> the complexities of 18th century Virginia society.
>
I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the scholarly study of
American slavery by perhaps the finest history teacher I know, James
Oliver Horton (he is also a superb scholar). Whether to clueless
undergraduates or advanced graduate students, Jim's message was the
same: if we are to understand slavery, we must never lose sight of what
an extraordinarily complex phenomenon it was, and how complex were the
human relationships -- economic, social, psychological -- it
engendered.
An insight whose wisdom my own research has endlessly underscored, and
one reinforced, I think, by some of the best discussions on this list.
A good weekend to all --
-- Jurretta Heckscher
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