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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