Latest / Comps List Radio / Episode 15: Eugene Genovese, "Roll Jordan Roll," 1972.
Transcript
- Robert Ferguson: From HPool headquarters on the World Wide Web. This is Comps List Radio with Robert Ferguson and Marie Totten. Marie coming from ⁓ and currently underneath the Arkansas Heat Dome. Marie, how are you ⁓ how are you guys managing it? I am so thankful for air conditioning. It is soupy outside. It is hard to leave the house, but you go from air conditioner to air conditioner and you can survive. Yeah, that's what summers more appreciative of that. Yeah, that's what summers are like in Arizona too. Yeah. You know, when I first moved to the south though, one of the things that I I I never really never knew this was really possible. And I and I was moving for the Northwest Plains to the South. And I moved in August. And I remember trying to open a door that was like a push door. And I'd never experienced that kind of resistance on a door before. And I found that for like the first month I was in the South. I never felt that again. But it was just like you have to push doors a little harder to open them because of the humidity in the South. And you know, ⁓ very quickly you you don't you don't think about that anymore. But for like the first few weeks, I was so accustomed to living in the dry northwest plains. You know, I sort of just put like a finger on the door or something like that. And I was like, hold on, it's not opening. Right. It's ⁓ yeah, it's it it's soupy. Yep. Yep. And the dog days of summer are are kinda behind us 'cause it's September, but it's still you know it's summer of the south. It can be the summer of the south for a few more weeks anyway. Yes, yes. And usually we've got some fall weather starting by this point, but I think we're gonna get the fall letter fall weather a little later this year. But we'll get there eventually. Eventually I'll stop complaining about the heat every time we open the podcast. Well, you gotta talk about something. I mean, this is the thing. It is it is everybody's a universal right as a human being. It is a natural right to complain about the weather, whatever it is. ⁓ I agree. It's what you knots us all. Yeah. Doesn't matter where you're from on the planet, it is a natural right to complain about the weather. I agree with that. I'll keep complaining. Good. Here it's lovely, actually. It's ⁓ we've had a you know, the the the ⁓ we we were under extreme heat warning for I don't know, three months basically. And ⁓ we're now out of it and ⁓ here in Arizona and I was out yesterday. There was a night we were up a little bit. ⁓ you know, Arizona, everything climactically is is about elevation, right? And so we are weren't that high up, but we were kind of just a little off the valley floor. And it was ⁓ it was just beautiful. It was probably like ninety-five degrees, ninety-six degrees, no humidity, bit of a breeze, and ⁓ felt like fall, felt like football weather. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. So ⁓ Yeah, that's yeah, it's that time. It's that time of the year. It is. All right. So we're we're lingering on the south here a little bit because ⁓ Marie and I are ⁓ To to really kick off season two. We did ⁓ Tocqueville a few couple of weeks ago that posted with the whole H-Pole crew, just Marie and I today. And so kind of back to the, you know, our our our standard episode. And to kick off the standard episodes of season two, we ⁓ we went back to the south. ⁓ in season one, we started with C Van Woodward. Maybe this will be a tradition. We always start the season with a southern book. ⁓ And ⁓ for to to begin season two, we're going to do Eugene Genovese's Roll Jordan Roll, which if you're watching this on video, I have right in front of me. The this might be this might be my favorite cover of any book. It's good. Like it's cover. It's so striking. It stands out on any shelf. Yes. My wife, who's not an academic, you know, whenever she like, you know, whenever this book is sort of placed anywhere near prominently on my shelf, she always grabs it because it just looks really enticing. Right? Yes. Then she tries to get like four sentences into it and she's like, No. But the cover looks really enticing. ⁓ it is a beautiful book. It is. So Marie, before we really get into this in earnest, ⁓ had you read Roll Jordan Roll before this? Yes, in graduate school. I had read it. And I'd gone back to it in pieces. So instead of reading it all at once, you know, a second time before the podcast, I've read it in pieces, like the books, the chapters throughout. Every now and then I'd go back to something. But I had not read it in full again until the podcast. So so what is it about this book? I mean, we we have to read it in graduate school, but and and you know, we kind of had to read it for the podcast, but what was it that encouraged you to go back to to to chapters? ⁓ just the different ways he describes enslaved culture. W especially like funeral rites and the way that enslaved people I mean, I know there are a lot of problems with this book that of course we will talk about. I mean, simultaneously one of the most important and one of the most controversial ⁓ books on American slavery. So very important and and very controversial. But the way he describes enslaved culture throughout and the agency, even though limited and more limited than he lets on, the agency is there and you see that. And so he had done all of this research on enslaved culture, maybe not from necessarily the best sources in total, like the plantation papers, some of that can be problematic. But the WPA papers and interviews that he looks at, I mean, they're talking about memories that they have of their culture throughout. And I always go back to that for my students when I teach ⁓ slavery, ⁓ because it gives them the idea These are real people who have real ideas, who have limited agency. And so they have created this very unique space. I mean, he calls it the world the slaves made. I might call it the worlds the slaves made, because it is different in different times and place. But that's what I go back to. That's what I keep going back to, are those descriptions of enslaved culture. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, I I There this book is so hard. Yeah. This is a hard book. And I don't mean it hard to read. It can be a little bit intimidating to read and a little a little bit challenging to read, but assuming you can read it and get through it. It's a hard book because it has both incredible strengths and incredible weaknesses. Right. And neither of which can be ignored. Right. Right. And so it it defies easy description. Right. Which is, I think, one of the reasons that I wanted to do the book for this podcast. It yeah. It it's because it is there's strengths, there's weaknesses, it's challenging, it's controversial, there's value, there's virtue, there's all of these things in this book, all wrapped into one. And ⁓ You know, it's it's an important piece of the American intellectual tradition. Yes, absolutely. And it's something that's still assigned in on comp's list today. So this will be something that helps like our episode today will be something that helps in a different way because students will not only probably come across this or come across a book that's so connected to this that they talk about it in a seminar. in a graduate seminar, they're using it during comprehensive exams. They can it's it is intimidating. It is with notes over 800 pages. And the arguments, I mean, until you read it once or go through it a couple of times and and look at the arguments and talk about them, it is a hard book, just like you said. And so having something foundational to start with, which is obviously the purpose of this podcast. will help in the short term, not just in the long term. So I think this is one of the more, I mean, I hesitate to say relevant because we've talked about such relevant books throughout, but definitely one of the more immediately relevant books that we've discussed. It is. And but I will say this, I've noticed it's not on that many cons lists. Yeah, it's starting to be phased out. It it's you know, it not it's not being and it's being phased out because of some of the problematic components of the book, too. It's a hard book and it's being phased out. So you're probably not gonna likely i in fact, I I actually don't think it belongs on comps lists. I think it belongs on colloquium lists or grad courses, because I think we should you should talk about this book. Right. This is a this is a book you you should be reading with people. And talking about seminar to go along with it. So more of a class list, absolutely. Yeah. ⁓ but I mean, I don't know that it is on class lists. I don't know, you know, and and again, I think it's being phased out. And I think, you know, you're encountering Genevese's argument, but you're encountering your encountering it through as critics. Yes, mostly. Right. And so I think it's again, it's useful to go back to Genovese himself and actually what he was arguing, because I think his his critics get a lot right, but I think some of his critics also perhaps build a bit of a straw man out of what Genovese is arguing too. Yeah, and they flatten his argument often because there i there are some really important points to this book that are useful. And so if you only look at the part that is problematic. And not as useful today that they have built on. It just completely discounts a very, very important piece of the historiography. Yeah. Exactly. And it also ignores the litany of qualifications that he puts in this book. Like you can grab an excerpt out of context and go, Who wrote this? Right. But if you don't have the four paragraphs preceding it where he's gives all of the nuance and all of the qualifications before he says it. Right. It it it comes out very different. Yep. Because there you know, the re one of the reasons it's eight hundred pages is I think a hundred and fifty pages of it are qualifications. Right. Right. Yeah. ⁓ but anyway, almost more interesting than the book Roll Jordan Roll itself is Eugene Genovese himself. Such an interesting character. Marie, ⁓ I'm gonna I'm gonna let our resident biographer talk a little bit about Genovese. I I have some thoughts on Genovese and some ⁓ as I think every Southern historian does. So, you know, we're we're gonna talk about Genovese a bit and ⁓ but I'm gonna let Marie ⁓ give people the necessary background and biography of ⁓ Eugene Genovese. Yes, so This will be the longest biography that I have given so far because it is such a winding road. And so we'll start in ⁓ May of 1930. He's born in Brooklyn to an Italian dock worker. So he's raised in a working class Italian American neighborhood. He joined the Communist Party of the United States at age 15, so 1945. ⁓ he's expelled in 1950 at age 20. And I found this great quote he gave when asked about why he was expelled. There's n I couldn't find any clear answer, but one thing that when asked about this, he said, I zigged when I sh was supposed to zag. So obviously not going along with party doctrine there, I think we could we could ⁓ take from that. So in ⁓ 1953, he got his bachelor's at Brooklyn College. He spent about 10 months in the military. He got his master's at Columbia and then his PhD at Columbia in 1959. He taught at a whole host of schools. He taught at ⁓ Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and then Rutgers. And at Rutgers, he has this really interesting ⁓ incident where in 1965 there's a teaching ⁓ protesting the Vietnam War. And in this protest, He identifies himself as a Marxist and a socialist. And he said that he did not fear or regret the quote impending Vietcom victory, that he actually welcomed it. And so this causes a huge uproar, even getting to the president himself calling for his resignation. So there's this, I mean, he's this national figure. He's being attacked, and Rutgers actually stands by him. So they say we don't agree with his political career, but we're going to stand by his ability, his right to say this essentially. ⁓ he does eventually leave Rutgers. He'll end up at the University of Rochester where he will stay there for about it's about twenty years. I think it's sixty nine through through eighty six. I didn't have the end date here in my notes, but I think it's eighty six. So about ⁓ I said ten, but about twenty years he'll be there. And he's going to chair the history department there. In 69, he marries historian Elizabeth Fox Genevacey, who is very famous in her own right. ⁓ they work together throughout. I mean, he's her closest intellectual partner. They work together throughout their careers. And again, not only is their work together important, but her work separately is also important. And she worked to fill some of the gaps in his own research. Especially when it comes to talking about women, which is important. ⁓ in 1978, he was elected to the as the president of the Organization of American Historians. He was known as someone who was controversial who liked being controversial. So I found multiple people talking about him, even in some of the reviews that I read. He is talked about as, you know, he he almost like he pokes at people. And he wants the reaction and he wants to be on the other side of major issues. And he seemed to be pretty good at that throughout his life. So throughout the 80s, he becomes more conservative. And in 1999, he fo he co-founded the Historical Society. So he believed that the AHA and the OAH were becoming more. political, they were politicizing history, they were becoming advocates for certain things. This has happened during the Vietnam War when the AHA wanted its members to sign on to saying that they wanted the Vietnam War to end. He thought, even though he wanted the Vietnam War to end, he thought that that wasn't fair, that it created a litmus test. So he didn't like that back in the 1970s. So 1998, he thinks that has continued And he created the Historical Society, so this alternative, more conservative organization, to combat ⁓ what he called political correctness in the profession. He also became increasingly aligned with conservative figures like Pat Buchanan in the 1990s. In December of 1996, he converted to Catholicism, a very conservative strain of Catholicism. which w followed his wife's conversion the previous year. The two even remarried, I found out, in a Catholic ceremony after their conversion. And then in 2005, ⁓ with ⁓ Fox Genevaisi, he published The Mind of the Master Class, History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders Worldview. And this was a very sympathetic view of the planter class. So he kinda had come full full circle here, where he starts out on the far left and it had almost made a continuum and he ends up in this place where he's defending the planter class. And so that was 2005 that he writes that, that kind of rightward turn that he takes in the in the field. And his Elizabeth Fox Genevese died in 2007 and then Genevese himself died in twenty twelve in Atlanta at the age of eighty two. So quite again, quite the meandering career here. From ⁓ I mean, I guess we could say his political career started at fifteen when he joins the Communist Party. Yeah. And then becomes a conservative Catholic later in his life. Yeah. I mean it's a it is one of the most interesting career intellectual trajectories in American history in the twentieth century. In fact, I I don't know of one that truly compares ⁓ the there the there are ⁓ examples of the communist a right sp like ⁓ trajectory. There there's a few of them. ⁓ you know w managerial revolution I I I don't can't believe I I I I'm blanking on his name, but the guy wrote the ⁓ Burnham. Burnham being very famously kind of going from communist left to right, the radishes, ⁓ R-A-D-O-S-H, ⁓ transition from left wing f from from communism to to conservatism. And a lot of that is kind of during the Second World War, after the Second World War. ⁓ Genovese's is maybe a little later than some other ones. I mean, there will be people who refer to Foucault's kind of rightward later rightward drift, but that wasn't really to conservatism. That was to libertarianism, which I think, you know, the the the transition from kind of being an anarchist going to libertarianism. There the the the the extreme emphasis focus on the individual kind of Leads to that, right? It doesn't mean it can't be critiqued, various reasons, but it kind of makes intellectual sense. But this is a very different one. And ⁓ but I have to say, having read this book a few times now. This is a very conservative book. Yeah. Very conservative. ⁓ Roll Jordan Roll for I mean, people see it on video know what I'm pointing to, but Royal Jordan Roll is very conservative book. It's buried underneath lots of Marxism. There's a lot of conservatism in this book. I'm gonna give you an example. See see if I can quickly find it here. ⁓ I made the it's my biggest stuff. It's my biggest one, but ⁓ sometimes I here it is. ⁓ Only those who romanticize and therefore do not respect the laboring classes would fail to understand their deep commitment to law and order. Life is difficult enough without added uncertainty and confusion. Even an oppressive and unjust order is better than none. People with such rix rich experience as that of the meanest slaves quickly learn to distrust utopian nostrils. As Machiavelli so brilliantly revealed, most people refuse to believe in anything they've not experienced. Such negativity must be understood as a challenge to demonstrate that a better, firmer, more just social order can replace the one to be torn down. It's a very there's a lot of very, very conservative parts of this book. Right. And indicating that his switch in the nineties has deeper roots. Yes. That I think seemed to be someone who believed in the institution. Throughout it all, like that's a through line that you can see is he believes in institutions. He believes in like what you're saying from I think that the passage you read is perfect to sum up how he feels throughout his life. That ⁓ structure, order, institutions are I mean, essentially what holds humanity together, what holds civilization together. Yeah, I mean, I I think it comes f you know, his Marxism and his conservatism both Emerge out of an extreme, maybe his later conservatism with mind of the master class is a little bit different, but it like the connective tissue is his sympathy for the working class. Right. And he he he he begins as a Marxist. Right. But he starts to realize that I think in his own or he starts to believe that what the left is preaching, the radical left is preaching, is not is anarchy. And he worries that anarchy will be particularly bad for the working classes. And so that rather than anarchy is not an like the current order is better than anarchy for the working classes, according to according to Genovese. And so I think that if I was to suggest what's the connective tissue there, and that's why I picked out that passage, is because I think it shows a real sympathy for the working class. And a real distrust of utopian intellectuals who romanticize the working class and have no real concept of what the working class wants. and ⁓ there there's l a litany of examples from this book of things like that. Where I mean I remember reading, like, you know, this time I flagged and other times I've I've seen past there's passages like that that you go, huh. You're telling me this guy became a Catholic, a reactionary Catholic at some point. You don't say. Right. ⁓ but again, but it it is so buried underneath Marxist jargon and Marxist theory that you can understand why it's missed. It's only now with the benefit of hindsight that I know where he went with his career that I can go back and read it, and that stands out to me. Right. ⁓ okay, so ⁓ we've talked a little bit about Genevese himself. I really wish we could talk more about Fox Genevese because she's so interesting in her own right. Maybe at the end, maybe we'll maybe we can skim back, or maybe we'll have to pick one of her books later in the season or something like that. ⁓ the it doesn't have her books don't, you know. Yeah, we we can do it. I mean, it's not true political history, it's kind of more social history, but I think we can I I think we can make that work. We we can find a way to make that work. ⁓ Okay. So roll Jordan roll, Marie. What's you you know, what's he arguing? It all centers around paternalism. So it's this idea that within, and again, this book is huge. He gives lots of examples of this, but one of the things that this This through line throughout the book and what he keeps going back to is the idea that this is a paternalistic society. This is not a capitalist society. This is a paternalistic society. And in a way, both ⁓ enslavers and the enslaved are caught in this soci in this paternalistic society. And he does show sympathy for the enslavers in this book, but not the way that he will later in his life. It's not as overt. And this book is, I mean, he had written this is part of a series of books that he had written on slavery over time. So the focus in this book, it is the enslaved population. and so this paternalistic society, he says, in a way benefits both that the ⁓ enslavers are responsible for making sure that the enslaved population like they're the fathers of the household. And He doesn't quite go as far as UB Phillips goes to say they're all one happy family ⁓ in this paternalistic society, but he certainly says that they have certain ⁓ obligations to the enslaved population. And that in turn the enslaved have figure have have decided to work within the system. And because they have these what initially are privileges, they try to make those privileges, like housing, like food, like medical care, into rights. And then if those rights are not ⁓ protected, if the enslaver doesn't ⁓ feed or house or ⁓ provide some medical assistance to the population, they resist and they push back. But it is working all within this system. And he tries to explain with this, or he offers an answer to the question of why there were no major ⁓ slave revolts in the American South. And he says it's because this system existed. It's because you have this paternalistic system, which both are part of and both to an extent. And this is part of the caveats that you're talking about, the the qualifiers that he offers throughout. He never comes out, like I say, they both benefit, which is an overstatement of the argument that he's making, but they both work within the system and benefit as much as they like the enslaved population benefits as much as they can. from that system. Like they try to work within that system to resist, to push back. Part of that resistance is creating culture. And so they are ⁓ again trying to make these privileges into rights, trying to hold the planters up to the expectations as the ⁓ father in this situation. So that's the basis of the argument here throughout the book. That's what he's looking at is this idea of a paternalistic system. Yeah. ⁓ I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna pull from toward the conclusion because he I again it it paternalism it's a nebulous concept. Right. Okay. ⁓ I'm gonna define I I'm gonna use his what he says here, and then I'm well, I'm gonna cut bring it back out a little bit. You know, the slaves' insistence on defining paternalism in their own way represented a rejection of the moral pretens pretensions of the slaveholders. For it refused that psychological surrender of will which constituted the ideological foundation of such pretensions. By developing a sense of moral worth and by asserting rights, the slaves transformed their acquiescence in paternalism into a rejection of slavery itself, although their masters assumed acquiescence in the one to demonstrate acquiescence in the other. Again, it's a tricky book. ⁓ so I I Marie, you know, you you mentioned and I think this comes at the heart of so much t mid twentieth century scholarship on slavery, which is why were there not more slave rebellions in the South? Genovese's a Marxist. So he's trying and he he's a classical, you know, although he adopts a lot of Gramsci and a lot of neo-marks, he's a neo-Marxist, but he still kind of operates in that classical Marxist framework, maybe later than a lot of Gramsci and neo-Marxists do. ⁓ he In his first major book, which is about the political economy of slavery, Genovese is arguing that the Antibell himself is pre-capitalist. Right. And he for a Marxist, for me, I'm I'm not really a Marxist. I'm not a Marxist. So I don't really care whether the Antibellum South was capitalist or not. It really doesn't like there were markets that functioned. There were slaves. I mean, is that capitalism? I don't know. I don't really care. Doesn't really affect me one way or the other. ⁓ maybe it was its own thing, maybe it wasn't. It it it sort of seems semantic. It seems semantical to me. But to Marxists it's critically important because their scientific analysis depends on the ta taxonomical structures and the semantics matter. So if it was capitalism, you know. Who's the bourgeoisie? Who's the proletariat? All of that stuff has to matter. Because of course Marxism has to be universally true across time. Right. ⁓ so in the political economy of slavery, he he argues that, you know, this is this does not reach the level of capitalism. Right. And so in Rule Jordan rule, therefore, we're not dealing with an individualistic capitalist society, but in fact, we're dealing with a communitarian pre capitalist society. Right. And so he's trying to figure out why are there not, and but he's also trying to answer the question why are there not more slave revolves? And it it's an interesting question. Right. And I think led to led UB Phillips to think, well, everybody was happy. Exactly. Right. And it's funny, he calls out Phillips in this in a really great way. He goes, you know, Phillips is a really great mind and his research is fantastic. And yet he and he Yet he just insists on like rejecting the conclusions that his research should draw him to. Right, right. Right. ⁓ and he and at one point he another point he says, you know, and Phillips, who should have known better, right, argues this. ⁓ but i part of the answer as to where this paternalism comes, like any again, his answer is paternalism. And so where does the paternalism develop from, right? And what paternalism means again, he defines it, but he defines it in kind of slippery neo-Marxist ways, which means that he can ⁓ he can kind of press the paternalism button whenever he needs to. Yeah, it's very convenient. It's yeah, it becomes well, why paternalism? Well, why not paternalism? Why paternalism, right? It's again, it's the paternalism button. ⁓ but okay, where where does this notion come from? Where does this notion of like there's this reciprocal relationship? Where one side believes the relationship is doing something, you know, is for their benefit and that everybody's happy. And the other one side recognizes nobody's happy with this, but it could be worse, I guess. And we're making do with it as best we possibly can. And we reject the need for this, we reject our place in this, but we're gonna turn it to the best we possibly can, right? And we're gonna get some things out of it. ⁓ where does this come from? And to because Genovese, again, he's comparing why are there so many slave revolts in the Caribbean and why are there so few in the southern United States? And it's a reasonable historiographical question to ask. Yes. And his and again, UB Phillips says, Well, everybody was one big happy family. And Genevese kind of says he's like, No, it's paternalism. So where does it come from? He's like, Well, one of the key distinctions between Caribbean, ⁓ the Caribbean slave network. like a plantation network and the southern United States one is that absentee ownership was much rarer in the United States, which meant that people lived on intimate terms together. You know, enslavers and s and and the enslaved. And although there's, you know, we imagine and and Genovese are, you know, shows how, you know, we imagine that ⁓ the southern that that that slavery kind of looks like the big plantation you know where you've got like discrete slave cabins the the big house and you know and there's this you know there's ⁓ various various classes of slaves on the plantation right ⁓ but you know he emphasizes that is pretty rare actually And that's not most people's experience. And that in you know, most most enslaved people, their enslaver may have had three or four, may have only owned three or four slaves. Which meant that like in the process of production, the the the the enslaver is out in the fields working with them almost, you know, you don't want to say they're not they're not working as a team, but they are working in this cooperative exercise to bring the harvest in together. Even though there's obviously a major power, you know, tower, you know, just ⁓ major hierarchy. But ⁓ and so he says, you know, how does that not how do you not develop relationships in that environment? Absenteeism, of course, you're not going to develop a relationship with the land with the enslaver because they live in London or Paris or or or Port-au-Prince or whatever. But If if he's working in the fields with you, if you know his name, if he knows your name. even if they're even if it's this oppressive situation, there's these humanistic relationships that are going to develop. And sympathy go in both ways. Right. And which is a hard thing to think about. But I I do think Genovese is is on to one really critical thing here that I I think we you know as scholars of the South need to remember. Everyone involved is a human. Yes. In this. And humans are incoherent and we feel things. Stuff that doesn't make sense. Stuff that shouldn't make sense, perhaps. But there's going to be some bond of relationship that crosses this massive chasm. And he refers to the chasm a lot between the enslaved and the and and the enslavers. And that whatever that relationship is, he thinks, and he calls it paternalism. And I'm not sure it's paternal, I'm not sure what it is, but there is this thing, this human connection. And he suggests that that's the thing. that prevents there from being more violent uprisings in the South. Right. And he talks about the violence in places like Haiti where ⁓ enslavers worked the enslaved to death and then brought in, I mean, they're still taking part in the slave trade and they're bringing in new slaves. So that relationship is never going to form. Where you don't have the international slave trade in the United States at that point, or and and you know, at the point he's talking about And he downplays the internal slave trade, but he says because you don't have the international slave trade, ⁓ enslaved people are not being worked to death. And so that relationship is able to form. But then again, one of his biggest criticisms is how much he downplays the international slave trade. And ⁓ part of this problem with paternalism that he has, which enslavers in Haiti aren't thinking about this, they don't care about separating families, but Can you have paternalism if you're taking people's children away? And Eric Fawner says this in one of his critiques is it's just not possible. Like the argument the argument of paternalism breaks down when you think about if a relationship forms and you still take their children away, is that paternalism? If you have the international slave trade or the internal, excuse me, internal slave trade, is that paternalism? And so by answering this question, he explains himself, like he he just like we've talked about, the book is so complicated in this, because on one hand, he's explaining why paternalism works because those relationships are allowed to form in the United States in a way they aren't in other places, while at the same time bringing up the slave trade and not bringing that up in the context of the United States. Yeah. And so I do think like that's one of his missed opportunities there. Cause he's saying that just like he criticized Phillips, he's seeing that in the research he's doing. There is no way he has done the research he has done without coming across multiple, ⁓ I would probably say easily dozens of stories of families being separated and of the internal slave trade. Yeah. And that's the ⁓ You know, the the it's funny when w when you brought up the I I the internal slave trade is the thing is like that's the big missing piece here. it it's the missing it's the missing component of the book. Okay. and it's the part that, you know, we we talk about, you know, splitting apart families. ⁓ again of of all of the cruelties that are imposed upon the enslaved population in the United States. It's a separation of families. And actually and I think the constant fear of being separated. And the constant fear of being separated. And and I actually do think like I I actually take Jed of Asi's point in the sense that like you're working on a plantation, especially if it's not one like the the a massive one, right? You know, you're gonna get the you know, even if they're doing even if the mi you know, the the the ins the mistress is running ridiculous puppet theater basically with her enslaved people, basically treating them as dolls or as toys. Right? Yeah. But you know, you're you're either maybe you played with one of the kids growing up of the banner family or whatever. There's some relationship that develops here. I think there is. But that actually makes it all the more cruel. Yes. Exactly. It is in fact it's the thing that is the cruelest there are all you know, there are slave societies all over the world. Right. And the United American South is not unique. The fact there was Slavery. In fact, it is that intimacy and the cruelty with which families are separated and that might make it in some ways more barbaric than the others. Yeah. Because there's that there is, you know, we the moment of truth. We're going to do the moment of truth here, I think, in a in in a second, but If as an enslaver you believed that you were the patron, the p you know the the the the powder families. If you believe that. If you believed all of these things, which especially by the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties and eighteen fifties, you know, was the that was the the ideological water that people were swimming in. How do you do that to people? It's you know, I mean I I I don't wanna you know, you can't how do you have people enslaved at all, right? But ⁓ the one hand but you know, it's like okay, that's the system you live in. Fine. It's like an im that's an impersonal sin. But then you go a step further and you and you know, and and it's the stories you hear about the kids that are like sent out for water or like sent out on a chore that's gonna take them six or seven hours. And then their parents are are taken away in those six or seven hours because they're sp purposely doing it so the kid doesn't see the parents get taken away. It's that premeditation of evil. Right. Right. And what about the slave traders themselves? You know, if you live in this paternalistic society and this is what you believe, that slavery is a positive good and that enslaved people need to be taken care of, how could you be a slave trader? Well, sure. How could you fit within that system and and do that? Well, I I think Genovese would say nobody liked the slave traders and everybody thought that they were pretty that they were scum. It's easy to push them aside. Right. It's easier for him to push them aside than to reconcile that they are also part of the system. R right. But you see, Genovese, because this is his Marxism leading into eventual conservatism here, he's interested in in the like the the lords of the system. Right. Right. That's what he's interested in. It's a relationship between the the like the peak and the bottom. Right. And the slave traders operate, you know, in his framework probably in some like weirdly Proto nebulous capitalistic sense. They're like they're but they're the people that were always hated in feudal societies. And so, you know, whether they were moneylenders or whatever, they were necessary evils in society. And they were typically lower class, middle class, but either way, well below the the gent well below gentility, because gentility didn't muddy their hands in such a way. Well, they did, they just didn't do it up, you know, they didn't do it visibly. And ⁓ it's a ⁓ anyway, I mean I I I I actually I think Genovese's I guess is my way of saying that like I think Genovese's point is taken that it is this human institution. It is humans. But rather than making that rather than that ameliorating the system, in some ways that makes it crueler. These are people you maybe own but you know you clear like I I take his point that you know there's there's I really do believe that there were enslavers who believe they had these really positive great relationships that have deluded themselves into thinking that they had these great relationships with some of the enslaved people. And I and you know I mean we can talk about the problems of the slave narratives but you know one of the issues that emerges from them is that it's kid the the the people who were giving this the interviews were kids when they were emancipated. Right, which means their experience under slavery was a very different experience than if they were interviewing their parents or their grandparents. Right. They remembered sort of rose-colored glasses of running around playing and you know, this sort of we all we all romanticize our childhood. Right. Or they live so close to the people, the families of the people who had like those generations of planters of the people who enslaved them. that they will lose and they're a lot of them are sharecroppers and they're gonna l get get kicked off the land if the landowner hears you've been talking to someone from out of state and you've been telling stories on my family that are just not true, they say. Right. And so they have that incentive to have the rose colored glasses and those memories and and to tell that as well. Right. Now I mean that that being said, I I still think the WPA slave slave narratives are some of the best. best documents we have. And Genovese was one of the first to really use them. Yeah. ⁓ and he and I mean and so he he kind of he kind of actually makes it okay to use them. Because previously historians had sort of dismissed them as being ideologically because they were, you know, they they didn't fit the the the narrative at the time that was necessary. ⁓ but ⁓ how But the moment of truth, what he calls the moment of truth, I think that's such an interesting and then maybe my mo the most interesting chapter of the book to me. It's a great psychological analysis. And it speaks to this notion of the that the master class had deluded themselves into thinking that they were true patrons. Right. Do you want to talk about this a little bit, Marie? ⁓ just the idea that if you are like a true believer in this system, it like you've said before, it almost makes it more ⁓ more evil in a way because you are a true believer in the system and you are not caring for the people in the system that you are supposed to be caring for. Right. And violence is always there. And that is one of the qualifiers he talks about constantly is that even though this paternalistic system exists, if that doesn't work, there's always something there to back it up. Right. And that is where you have this dichotomy where the paternalist paternalistic system and the violence, don't square. You know, and that's what he's trying to explain. And that's where you have this kind of this kind of truth, which it's not exactly, I'll let you fill in some of this. It's not exactly the way he talks about it. But this idea that if you're truly going to believe in the system, it's easy to believe in that system and that it will work if you always have the threat of violence behind it. Yeah. And that, but that when The slave owners themselves, the enslavers themselves are confronted with the truth. In eighteen sixty five. When the family that they believe loves them, the enslaved people that they own that they believe truly loves them. Disappear. Right. They don't even say goodbye sometimes. Right. Right. That's broken down completely. They disappear. All of the now, it could always be forgiven if it was a field hand, maybe, or you ⁓ well, he's always been a troublemaker. Right. You know, that's okay. But these ones, the ones that really love me, they would never leave for union lines. Right. Like the idea of the mammy staying. And how could she or anyone in the house that worked in the house staying? They expected that. They expected that. Or the drivers. Or the drivers, the mechanics. Exactly. Right? Exactly. How could they leave me? Right. Did they never love me? They never loved me. How could they trick me into thinking they loved me? Right. And that creates an Extremely venomous form of racism. Right. Because now it's the whole race lies. You can't trust them. Right. And why should we have paternalism? Why should we have this system if they're not going to hold up their end of the bargain anyway? Right. If the for if the freed people aren't going to hold up their end the bargain. Then we can pass black codes that force them to work, that take their children away. Slavery's over, fine. But then we don't have to provide the things that we provided or, you know, that enslavers believed they provided before. They're not responsible for that anymore in their minds. The delusion is ⁓ that the enslavers had slaveholders had is turns into like what it is. They're embarrassed almost that they ever held it. They're heartbroken on some level. Right. And you know, you can say that without having sympathy for them, right? Right. But they truly believe this. Their whole world was believed this. Everything was about them believing this. And then it's shown to be false. And then it's shown to be false. And their reaction is not, Well, I un I guess I understand why they deluded me or why these, you know, my the the the people I've been keeping a shithole. ⁓ had to play their own game. In status. They tricked me. Right. There's no self-reflection on it. It's just anger. It's like it's like the worst, you know, I mean it it it's it's a silly superficial ⁓ parallel. But it's like somebody going through their first breakup. You know, who has their heartbroken on some level. They're they're blaming everybody but themselves. Right. They're angry. They're blaming everybody but themselves. Right. And it it's a silly parallel. And I I don't mean to to to to make the two comparisons. Although, you know, sometimes that can lead to violence too. Is we, you know, there's all sorts of crimes about, you know, that are that are are are based on some guy being heartbroken, getting heartbroken, right? ⁓ and There there's this collective heartbreak. And that I don't think that explains reconstruction by any stretch of the imagination. I think there's far more big structural forces at work. But it does affect individuals resp in certain individuals' response to it and certain to to emancipation. Right. And yet, you know, I could imagine looking at what happened between eighteen sixty and eighteen sixty-five and think if you were ⁓ you know, it is it actually it's amazing there wasn't more leaving earlier. Yeah. Now there's also reasons for that, right? How close is the union lines? I don't know how close the union lines are. ⁓ And and it could also, you know, and in some cases it could also be, listen, whatever I think of the the family, there's a three year old up there. And I don't, you know, and I want to make sure that that three year old's looked after on some because the because of the humanity of the of the enslaved people. Right. That humanity means they could expend sympathy. Right. Sometimes. And they want to keep their families together as well as they want to keep their families together. What happens to runaway slaves who had been caught, so that threat of violence was on their minds. They weren't a hundred percent sure if the Union Army would accept them because you have all these rumors going around Totally. And so this idea that the paternalistic system kept them there, yeah, I'm sure there's some truth to that because like you're saying, the humanity is there. Humans do human things. Yes. Yes. But there's all these other reasons for them not leaving that he in his argument. Right. You know, we don't see those reasons play out. Right. Right. And I mean I it it again, it's one of the hardest things to imagine, especially today when, you know, we got roads everywhere and we got ⁓ you know. But You enslaved people weren't allowed to travel. Right. Or very rarely were given a pass to travel. And so, you know, could you trust your neighbors? You know, for every totalitarian system to work, you can't trust people. Like that's the whole idea is you've got to break down trust, right? In order to make it work. And so the enslaved people couldn't trust their neighbors. They couldn't trust each other. And so therefore That makes collective resistance hard. It also just makes escape hard. Right. ⁓ Anyway, there's there's a couple of things we should probably talk about that we haven't gotten to yet because I think we've we we've gotten to the psychology here. And I think the psychology is so in because I think the psychology of this book, this book is a psychological book. Yes, yeah. And so there's a lot of sociology here. Yeah. ⁓ it is. I mean, it is just there's so much in this for so many different academics, depending on how you're looking at it. Absolutely. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. And ⁓ And I and I guess that's my way of s one of my ways of saying like read the book. Yeah. Read it. It's it's a trip, if nothing else. Yeah. And ⁓ it's worth ⁓ it's definitely just worth engaging with on because we're we're literally like this is again, as Marie mentioned, this is an eight hundred page book. Yeah. We can't possibly give it the the the give you the necessary detail. ⁓ So one of the kind of the the great responses to, and you and I are 20th century scholars of the 20th century south. So, you know, we're not this is maybe not exactly in our wheelhouse. It's close, it's adjacent to our wheelhouse, but maybe not exactly our wheelhouse. ⁓ a book we could have done that ⁓ I, you know, maybe we'll do it in future is John Blass and Game Slave Community. Right, which I think is probably the most effective vers I don't know, you maybe you disagree with me, but I think that's sort of that that's the first big shot across the bow of this book. Right? Yeah. And and Blast and Game's argument is that no, it's the the the that there's this it's not paternalism, but there's this like separate slave community that develops. And I it it's a compli I'm not gonna get into we're not gonna get into the argument today. Cause maybe we'll save it for that episode. But ⁓ And you know, people like Rabido build on it by talking about religion and and Genovese talks a lot about religion in here. Yeah. Right? He says religion is a component of this paternalism. Right. Right. And again, the way that he talks about religion, are you telling me he's going to become a Catholic in 25 year like in in 25 years? Because he's signposting that pretty quick throughout this book. Right. ⁓ it's a very I mean, religion, every chapter has a religious title or some religious connotation. The very title of the book comes from a spiritual and so religion and we and we will need to talk about I I'm gonna let you finish your thought, but we will need to talk about religion. ⁓ if not only for a moment. Yeah. Well, I was gonna think of thought we'd finish on religion was what I was sort of thinking in my head. ⁓ but you know, I I'm gonna ask like I I take the criticisms of the sl the slave, you know, we might call the slave community school of scholarship. I take their criticisms of this book, and I agree with most of them. But I also think that the slave community school isn't necessarily all that compelling either. And I'm not saying I have a better answer for it. And and and I'm not trying to to to say that they're wrong. I I I don't there's the they offer a lot of really interesting things. And ⁓ some the some there's some great books in that tradition. ⁓ more recent books, but there's great books in that tradition. But I I also find that answer kind of unsatisfying. what are your thoughts on the slave community response? And you know, feel free, you know, did I wanna know first why you think it's unsatisfying. Not that I disagree with you completely, but I'm curious what your thought process is here. ⁓ because I think sometimes if I was to critique the the the slave community school, it's a world apart. It imagines it almost like being this world apart, which I think is true in some instances, but I don't think is totally true for some of the reasons that Genovese explains in this book, that in the South, the South has never been ghettoized, for lack of a better word. It has always been there there's there are parts of the South that are predominantly white and part of the South that are predominantly black. But there's net there's net there's not these isolated vacuum isolated communities in the South like there there there is in the north actually. ⁓ so I don't know how you fully have a a slave community that is that exists to resist the other community. I understand that. But that there's too much There's almost just it it creates a world that I don't see in in most of the narratives. Yeah. Yeah. And it it isn't to say that the alternative is correct either. I don't know is my way of saying like I just don't know. And if I was a scholar of slavery, maybe I'd go down, follow that further. I'm not. ⁓ but I ⁓ I don't know. That's just me kind of riffing off the top of my head. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely see that. I think that the I like that you call it like the slave community school, because I think they are trying to correct what they see as like a a sympathy toward the planner class, that they could have any connection to the enslaved population, that they could have any relationship there. They just completely dismiss. And I think Genevaci does a really convincing job of saying, for better or worse, that community exists. that relationship exists. And I don't think you can deny that. Not that it's positive. Right. Like I think you can deny that. But the relationship does exist because they work so closely together in whatever way they were whether they're in the house or in a small, on a small landholders, in the fields together, the community exists. And it's not created in a vacuum. And so just exactly like what you're saying, I can see that completely with how the slave community school just goes so far the other direction to say not only is there not this paternalistic system, but the cultures develop completely independently of one another. And I just don't think in the system that existed that that could be possible. Yeah. And and and in some of the books it goes so far, I think, that it it almost like everybody's really somehow we're back to everybody being happy. Right. You know, like there's this, ⁓ we're we've got this given. Right. Right. And and then because then you're like, hold on, I just read this whole book and there wasn't an enslaver in it. Right. Right? It's like, no. There is a me massive constraint on agency. Right. And ⁓ you know, but I that's not true of all of the books. That's certainly not true of Blast and Game, it's certainly not true of Rabidow, and it's certainly not true of some of the ⁓ but There are a few books that I've encountered over the years that I go, hold on a second. I'm pretty sure there's an enslaver here somewhere. Right. Right. And and and I I think that there's part of it's this attempt to, and I think a genuinely good faith, useful attempt, transnational attempt, to bring in some of the understandings of slavery in the Caribbean to the United States. And again, all good. Very useful. But I do think these were different institutions. Yes. For for the reason Genovese I for one of the reasons being one of the ones that Genovese identifies is that you had ⁓ You didn't have the absentee class in the same way as you did at say Saint Amang or Jamaica or Barbados. ⁓ and one of the criticism that he gets, especially as it as the historiography continues and you do get to these newer works that show too much agency, is that he's not showing alternatives. So when we talk about religion in a just a moment, he's not showing alternative religions because some enslaved communities did practice more traditionally African religions, where and I think some of that has been overstated because of the Caribbean. Like not that that didn't exist here. It absolutely did exist in the United States, but it really existed in the Caribbean. Right. Like that's where you're having that religion stay as in or you're having it form ⁓ continue in the ⁓ Caribbean. And so creating too much of a parallel there is is not gonna work. Right. And you're gonna see roots and you're gonna see gullah c like gullah spiritual culture, for instance, in ⁓ form and and f and and and proliferate. in certain parts of the south. Right. But you're gonna have a hard time convincing me that it's really prominent even in the black belt. Right. Like I, you know, in the Sea Islands for sure. Right. Right. And unsurprisingly, where do we see the most the highest rates of absentee land ownership among enslavers? It's in the Sea Islands. Right? Exactly. ⁓ they're living in Charleston, they're they're living, you know, and that's where like for instance, ⁓ long staple cotton is grown. Originally it's rice, but then like a lot of long staple cotton is grown. It's not the sh up it's not the ⁓ it's not the upland short staple cotton culture that you see that we sort of immediately think of. Which was sort of the the the the major enslaved c like slave culture that was overthrown in the Civil War. Right. Right. And I mean, I think we, you know, we were there are slavery does not look the same across the South. It's different in Maryland. It's different in Virginia. The Upper South has its own thing. Baltimore has its own thing. Right. Baltimore almost has a unique slave culture in the entire world. Right. New it's different around New Orleans. ⁓ you know, and it's different in where it's growing cotton versus sugar versus the Delta. You know, well, the Delta's not really a thing, I guess, at this point, but up the Mississippi River to Vicksburg. Right. Like around Vicksburg, it's very different than let's say in you know, ⁓ Around like Athens, Georgia. And ⁓ and so trying to put like one and this is I think a prop, you know, it's not Genovese in slave community school, but everybody makes, you know, we all we all do it. But it's just not one thing. Right. Right. ⁓ anyway, religion. Maria, I want you to talk about religion. I I it's so important. It's such a big part of this book. Yes, and I love the way he talks about this. And this is one of the things that really ⁓ changed the way that I looked at slavery when I first read this book in graduate school. And this is one of the things we spent a long time talking about in the seminar that I was in when we did read this book. But the different ways that enslaved populations used Christianity versus the way the planner class used Christianity. So it's the planner class, it's a master and servant relationship. And if you are a good servant throughout your life, you the riches will be in heaven. So you're not going to have earthly riches, but you do what you're supposed to do. You listen to the master. And then eventually, if you're good, you will have those riches, but not on earth. Whereas the ⁓ enslaved Christianity was more of a Moses figure. Like they, it was a freedom now. It was eventually we will be led to freedom. Eventually freedom will happen on earth. And so it's this difference in the way they both view Christianity that allows enslaved people to create this unique culture. And ⁓ funeral rites are especially important in all of this because that goes with their, not the master servant, but that goes with the enslaved population's kind of interpretation of Christianity. And it helps them hold on to hope throughout their lives that freedom can come. Ver and this is something that enslavers obviously do not understand because they would see that as a break with them and a break with paternalism and the idea that, okay, they don't love us the way that they're supposed to, or the way we think they do, because they their goal is freedom now or on earth. It is not freedom and and glory or whatever they promised them in heaven. And so I just think that that ⁓ That dichotomy is so fascinating. And I think it's something that he does an excellent job ⁓ describing throughout the book. And everything, like all of these different pieces, rest on the resistance that you can find within sla enslaved Christianity. Yeah. I'm gonna pull a quote from him here. He says ⁓ the slave's religion developed into the organizing center. Of their resistance within accommodation. It reflected the hegemony of the master class, but also set firm limits to that hegemony. Not often or generally did it challenge the regime frontally. It rendered unto Caesar that which was Caesar's, but it also narrowed down considerably that which in fact was Caesar's. Black religion. understood as a critical worldview in the process of becoming as something unfinished, often inconsistence, and in some respects even incoherent, emerged as the slave's most formidable weapon for resisting slavery's moral and psychological aggression. That's excellent. Yeah. ⁓ he it's pretty powerful. Yeah. Yes. And you know, I g it again we we ⁓ Do I find it all encompassing and compelling now? Right. Right. Again, we're talking about something that's so he's trying to answer a couple of questions that there's just there's not going to be a satisfying answer to. Why were there so few slaves? Why were there relatively few slave rebellions in the American South? Well, the answer, I don't know that we'll ever have a full answer. Right. It depends on time and place. And there were depends on time and place that there were talked about slave revolts. They planned slave revolts. There were a few small slave revolts. So it's not like those ideas weren't there. Right. They absolutely were. Right. and ⁓ it's a but you know, i again, like so many things with the antebellum south, there's there's contradictions. There's inco there's there's incoherence. Ultimately it it was a a brutal and cruel human system. Right. And and so Genovese again trying to find and and again I I think what he does a really great job of here is he really finds humanity, especially among the enslaved people, right? He does a really great job of of uncovering that humanity, and part of that is their religiosity. Right. and their spiritualism. And ⁓ and he finds it very admirable. And he's not this is not the ⁓ this is not Genovese treating religion as the opiate of the masses. No. It's not an opiate of the masses here. It's a truly sincere, beautiful thing. Beautiful and not just a like it's a weapon, but not just a weapon. It it's a defense, you know, it it's sort of this defense cordon. Right. Our minds are our own. Our values are our own. Right. Right. Yeah, my time might not be my own. But I am my mind is my own. Great. And I think in it he sees this he sees in religion this incredible defense against totalitarianism. And ⁓ it again, not just the opiate of the masses. And then again, you're gonna tell me that this guy's gonna turn into a reactionary Catholic in 25 years. Right. Shouldn't say reaction, he's a conservative Catholic. He's reactionary is the wrong way. Conservative Catholic. ⁓ I was I was being gallant, but a conservative Catholic in 25 years. ⁓ it's there already. Yeah. And ⁓ anyway. Yeah. ⁓ any any final thoughts, parting thoughts? Parting shots do you want to take at Genovese? We talked about some of his criticism throughout, so I think that the shots were taken adequately. I just I mean If you keep in mind the criticism, if you keep in mind the caveats, the qualifiers, the things that are that are missing from the book, and you can hold that space and read the book, it's worth it. It's worth it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't don't read this book thinking that it is a perfectly accurate description of antibellum slavery. But it it is but but I do think it's a really important and interesting book. Absolutely. One of the most important books, one of the most debated books in the history of American slavery. I mean, just extremely I mean it's worth the read. Nay, keep him, it's not gospel. No. There's problems, but it is worth the read. Yeah. I was glad to have read it again. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much, ⁓ Marie, and to our listeners. Be sure to like and subscribe, ⁓ and all that. But ⁓ we will see you next time. ⁓ And ⁓ yeah, I'm I'm actually I I'm not even sure. I haven't even looked at the schedule yet. What do have next? Do we ⁓ I don't have it open in front either. Perfect. So it'll be a surprise for all of us. A surprise. Yes, yes, a surprise. Dick Camerie