Born in Bondage by Marie Jenkins Schwartz - Book Report/Review Example

Running head: Bondage Review Born in Bondage - A book review Here Your and School Here Tuesday, November 18, 2008 Introduction to the author and the book It seems auspicious that this author's review of Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South is at the same time the USA elected the first black president, 146 years after the emancipation proclamation. The author is Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Professor at the University of Rhode Island. Her interest is slavery; southern society; gender; and childhood. She specializes in the history of slavery, and the history of the United States in the antebellum era; she is affiliated with the African-American Studies Program. Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South (Harvard, 2000), won the Julia Cherry Spruill Publication Prize for Best Book in Southern Women's History in 2000 given by the Southern Association of Women Historians. She also wrote, Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South, published by Harvard University Press in 2006. (URI, 2007) Antebellum Slavery The book, Born in Bondage, is about children born into slavery in the Antebellum South. The author points out the slave owners found it profitable to encourage fecundity in the slaves. "Congressional prohibition effective in 1808 against the participation in the international slave trade persuaded slaveholders to pay increased attention to nurturing slave children." (Schwartz, 2000, p 4) "the demography of slavery made possible the ending of the international slave trade as of 1808 without major protest from the slave states because the population trend helped to ease the minds of the slave holders about the future profitability of southern agriculture and the continuation of slavery through the subsequent generations." (Schwartz, 2000, p 5.) The sources Schwartz discusses the views of Thomas L. Webber and Wilma King, both authors who have different views of treatment of slave children in the south. Schwartz frequently mentioned throughout her book the conflicting stories told by the slaves and the slave-owners. The slave-owners viewed themselves as generous benefactors while the slaves reported extreme discipline (whippings), relentless labor, and the lack of quality care. In her book, Schwartz implied that the slave owners deluded themselves, for example on page 25, "Owners held themselves accountable for the treatment of their bondsmen and women, although their behavior fell far short of what slaves considered compassionate." However, not all slave owners treated the children born under their ownership the same. "Of every thousand slaves born in 1850, an average of 183 died before their first birthday. The death rate for white infants in the same year was 146 per thousand In other words; the infant death rate for slaves was 25 percent higher than for whites." (Fogel, Engerman, 1989, p 123) For a current frame of reference, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2007 that Infant Mortality rate: 6.87 deaths per 1,000 live births in the US. In the end, it came down to the slaveholders assuming more responsibility for the birth of babies to ensure greater profit and the slaves were torn between: "any material goods or attention that improved an infant's health, welfare, and chance for survival." and their own desire to have a family. (Schwartz, 2001, p 74). Schwartz's book, while thorough, focused on slave children raised on large plantations in just a few places. "The standard image of Southern slavery is that of a large plantation with hundreds of slaves. In fact, such situations were rare. Fully 3/4 of Southern whites did not even own slaves; of those who did, 88% owned twenty or fewer." (PBS, 2008) She gives an inside view of how agonizing it must have been for the slave parents to stand aside while the owners invoked paternalism and take charge of the raising of the slave children. She did this by carefully reviewing the WPA (The U.S. Work Progress Administration Federal Writers' Project and Historical Records Survey) Interviews and the H. C. Nixon Questionnaire, along with the written records of plantation owners and overseers. Growing up Schwartz divided her book into chronological sections that covered the different age groups of the children. All stories related to pregnancy and birthing are in chapter two. Each subsequent chapter covered the next segment of their growing up as slaves. Slave owners acted paternalistic under the guise of familial concerns but they knew the benefits were to obtain loyalty from rearing the child slave, more willingness to work in their fields, but as interchangeable commodities, more profits. "Unable to bargain on their own behalf, infants suffered whatever care slaves and slaveholders cobbled together" At first, the children were well treated (compared to the adult slaves) but as they grew older - their value in the fields took prominence over any attachments or bonds they may have developed with the slave owners. "But as they grew, children increasingly took it upon themselves to negotiate with owners over living and working conditions, using tactics ranging from artful deception and duplicity to outright defiance, in imitation of their parents." (Schwartz, 2001, p 209). As the slaves matured, perhaps as an act of faith in their future freedoms and humanities, they chose to marry and have children of their own. Even under that circumstance, many marriages and families were hobbled by separation due to sale or extended labor. Conclusion The slave-owners, and slaves for that matter, lived in such an insulated era and location that they were unable to compare or debate their point of views on slavery - and perhaps that is why it continued on so long. One advantage of the modern world is the ability to access many different views and education. The capability to quickly publicize through the media worldwide any type of human indignities should prevent a widespread of slavery ever again. Reading the book informs the reader about the terrible tribulations of slavery. The book is an excellent source for convincing the reader how wrong slavery really is against any person. Resources (2007) Dr. Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Department of History Faculty, University of Rhode Island. Retrieved November 03, 2008 from http://www.uri.edu/artsci/his/schwartz.html Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 American Memory. Library of Congress. Retrieved November 11, 2008, from http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, MD. Retrieved on November 11, 2008, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm Conditions of antebellum slavery 1830 - 1860. Africans in America - People & Events. PBS Online. Retrieved on November 12, 2008 from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html Fogel, Robert and Engerman, Stanley. (1989). Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, NY, NY, W. W. Norton & Company Nixon, H. C., Responses to Questionnaire on Slavery, LPR91, Alabama Department of Archives & History. Retrieved on November 11, 2008 from http://www.archives.state.al.us/cornerstone/mosaic.html#slavery Paternalism. (2008). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved November 15, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paternalism Schwartz, Marie Jenkins. (2000). Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press Read More