I don’t quite remember why I bought a copy of Moses Finley’s “Ancient Slavery & Modern Ideology.” I might have seen it on one of DeLong’s syllabi long ago.
Max, have you read Oliver Cox' book *Caste, Class, & Race*? He made a strong (I think it's strong) argument that slavery had nothing to do with race or racism in the Roman and Greek periods.
I wish Max would actually read what Sean Wilentz wrote in the NYRB (twice, in fact). He would find he may wish to revise his attack on Wilentz as some sort of "jingo" and instead trying to restore an understanding that there were arguments for and against slavery from the 1776 Revolution and especially around the founding of the 1787 Constitutional republic. And maybe, for kicks, Max could read up on his Marx a bit more and recognize where wage slavery falls in the overall history of slavery, and how American and British dominated slavery had a more concrete aspect of racist assumptions on skin color, compared to earlier slaveries. And maybe ask why it was that Marx was such a vociferous advocate for the Union in the Civil War. Or really have some fun reading the Virginia lawyer, George Fitzhugh, and his backed into a corner Marxian defense of slavery (wage and chattel) in "Cannibals All" (1856). In fairness to Fitzhugh, there is hardly a drop of racism in his defense, and after the Civil War, became a strong advocate for African-American freedmen/freedwomen and ran the Freedman's Bureau in Virginia for some years before his death.
I am not of course defending any slavery, chattel or wage, but I don't think Max should fall into the Woody Holton/Nicole Hannah-Jones bullshit that delegitimizes and obscures the main issues that led to the 1770s American mostly white (but including some blacks) colonial revolt against the British.
I must add the biggest conceit of the 1619 Project is obscuring what one could call the 1492 Project, which is how European imperialism and eventually capitalism decimated/killed millions of Natives, with lots of racist assumptions all along the way, and how that continued into the 20th Century--and can be said to be continuing without much digging. Where the 1619 Project is absolutely correct is the issue of institutional racism. That, however, was already well established in scholarly literature before Hannah-Jones did her research for the NY Times.
I've been inveighing against the 1619 stuff for some time on this website, and I really dislike Nicole H-J, but I don't have much confidence in the Wilentz attacks either. I have never read Holton, or if I have I don't remember any of it.
I have only begun reading you again as I did not know you were on Substack. I appreciate you providing the link to your earlier article. I am not sure what you found in what I wrote to have "a weird overtone" after reading your earlier article. :) For me, I find much overlap in how Adolph Reed sees about people like Kendhi and what Wilentz has been writing about people like Hannah Jones. I am glad you have read RDO as I was deeply impressed with her perspective and application of evidence to provide a compelling narrative that balances the ones we have raised on, including even more left analysis that rightly focus on class.
The implication that I downplay the racial aspect of U.S. slavery is directly contradicted in my OP. I reject what I take to be the essentialist idea that race was the fundamental motivation.
I admit I was thrown off in your putting Wilentz in a jingo category and the implication that Wilentz was worse than wrong. I see now I made an incorrect assumption as I have not read your Substack until the past few weeks. I so missed your blog when you discontinued it years ago. :)
I used to read many books concerning slavery. I'm going to revive a couple of those memories here, both concerning racial slavery. I no longer recall the title of a book that included, or concerned, material about Cherokees holding Black slaves. They were (or had been) in the South after all. The anecdote concerns a Cherokee man attempting to beat his Black slave, and the Black slave beating right back. A very different view of master/slave relations than elsewhere in the South; one of its less malign forms
The other book was THE REVOLT OF THE ZANJ by the great historian al-Tabari (839–923 CE). Black slaves were put to work, killing work, in the salt flats in the extreme south of Iraq; an Iraqi Muslim led them in a 17 year revolt whose high mark was taking the city of Basra. The Zanj (the rebelling slaves) were defeated. The book is v. 36 in SUNY Press's HISTORY OF AL-TABARI. Racial slavery in one of its more malign forms.
While I'm at it, BLACK MAJORITY: NEGROES IN COLONIAL SOUTH CAROLINA FROM 1670 THROUGH THE STONO REBELLION describes how immigrants from Barbados, trying to find a way to reproduce in South Carolina the great wealth produced by Black slave labor in Barbados, were unsuccessful with various crops (indigo is what I remember) until they came to rice. The slaves often had experience with rice cultivation and it seems that sickle cell anemia improved survival rates in the malarial swamps. So there was something about economics of slavery in this situation, although I suppose that being atop a hierarchy, with faux aristocracy and easy rape, was ultimately of supreme importance to the enslavers.
Max, have you read Oliver Cox' book *Caste, Class, & Race*? He made a strong (I think it's strong) argument that slavery had nothing to do with race or racism in the Roman and Greek periods.
I have a PDF copy sitting somewhere on my SSD, haven't read it yet.
Too narrow a definition of otherization.
Rule
these people can be enslaved these others cant
Btw
Vis a vis multi generational slavery
assimilation was a positive move in an era
of relative tribe size
Chatelization requires mass population
Slave v coolie
I wish Max would actually read what Sean Wilentz wrote in the NYRB (twice, in fact). He would find he may wish to revise his attack on Wilentz as some sort of "jingo" and instead trying to restore an understanding that there were arguments for and against slavery from the 1776 Revolution and especially around the founding of the 1787 Constitutional republic. And maybe, for kicks, Max could read up on his Marx a bit more and recognize where wage slavery falls in the overall history of slavery, and how American and British dominated slavery had a more concrete aspect of racist assumptions on skin color, compared to earlier slaveries. And maybe ask why it was that Marx was such a vociferous advocate for the Union in the Civil War. Or really have some fun reading the Virginia lawyer, George Fitzhugh, and his backed into a corner Marxian defense of slavery (wage and chattel) in "Cannibals All" (1856). In fairness to Fitzhugh, there is hardly a drop of racism in his defense, and after the Civil War, became a strong advocate for African-American freedmen/freedwomen and ran the Freedman's Bureau in Virginia for some years before his death.
I am not of course defending any slavery, chattel or wage, but I don't think Max should fall into the Woody Holton/Nicole Hannah-Jones bullshit that delegitimizes and obscures the main issues that led to the 1770s American mostly white (but including some blacks) colonial revolt against the British.
I must add the biggest conceit of the 1619 Project is obscuring what one could call the 1492 Project, which is how European imperialism and eventually capitalism decimated/killed millions of Natives, with lots of racist assumptions all along the way, and how that continued into the 20th Century--and can be said to be continuing without much digging. Where the 1619 Project is absolutely correct is the issue of institutional racism. That, however, was already well established in scholarly literature before Hannah-Jones did her research for the NY Times.
I've been inveighing against the 1619 stuff for some time on this website, and I really dislike Nicole H-J, but I don't have much confidence in the Wilentz attacks either. I have never read Holton, or if I have I don't remember any of it.
I wrote this some time ago: https://sawicky.substack.com/p/1619-vs-1492
Otherwise your comment has some weird overtones. My original post acknowledges the racial character of U.S. slavery
I have only begun reading you again as I did not know you were on Substack. I appreciate you providing the link to your earlier article. I am not sure what you found in what I wrote to have "a weird overtone" after reading your earlier article. :) For me, I find much overlap in how Adolph Reed sees about people like Kendhi and what Wilentz has been writing about people like Hannah Jones. I am glad you have read RDO as I was deeply impressed with her perspective and application of evidence to provide a compelling narrative that balances the ones we have raised on, including even more left analysis that rightly focus on class.
The implication that I downplay the racial aspect of U.S. slavery is directly contradicted in my OP. I reject what I take to be the essentialist idea that race was the fundamental motivation.
Regarding Indians in North America, I was also impressed by the work of a Finnish academic: https://sawicky.substack.com/p/a-continent-of-ghosts
I admit I was thrown off in your putting Wilentz in a jingo category and the implication that Wilentz was worse than wrong. I see now I made an incorrect assumption as I have not read your Substack until the past few weeks. I so missed your blog when you discontinued it years ago. :)
No worries.
I used to read many books concerning slavery. I'm going to revive a couple of those memories here, both concerning racial slavery. I no longer recall the title of a book that included, or concerned, material about Cherokees holding Black slaves. They were (or had been) in the South after all. The anecdote concerns a Cherokee man attempting to beat his Black slave, and the Black slave beating right back. A very different view of master/slave relations than elsewhere in the South; one of its less malign forms
The other book was THE REVOLT OF THE ZANJ by the great historian al-Tabari (839–923 CE). Black slaves were put to work, killing work, in the salt flats in the extreme south of Iraq; an Iraqi Muslim led them in a 17 year revolt whose high mark was taking the city of Basra. The Zanj (the rebelling slaves) were defeated. The book is v. 36 in SUNY Press's HISTORY OF AL-TABARI. Racial slavery in one of its more malign forms.
While I'm at it, BLACK MAJORITY: NEGROES IN COLONIAL SOUTH CAROLINA FROM 1670 THROUGH THE STONO REBELLION describes how immigrants from Barbados, trying to find a way to reproduce in South Carolina the great wealth produced by Black slave labor in Barbados, were unsuccessful with various crops (indigo is what I remember) until they came to rice. The slaves often had experience with rice cultivation and it seems that sickle cell anemia improved survival rates in the malarial swamps. So there was something about economics of slavery in this situation, although I suppose that being atop a hierarchy, with faux aristocracy and easy rape, was ultimately of supreme importance to the enslavers.
The historic recprd allows one to extract the morallistic stuffing
As engels said slavery was progressive compared to genocide
Tribal nations dig genocide
Had no idea Engels said that.