To see who was best on the plantation: enslaved fighting contests and masculinity in the antebellum plantation South
2010; Southern Historical Association; Volume: 76; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2325-6893
Autores Tópico(s)Race, History, and American Society
ResumoFORMERLY ENSLAVED WITH ABOUT SEVENTY-FIVE OTHERS ON a COTTON plantation in Jackson County, Alabama, John Finnely recalled one of the few amusements he and his fellow slaves shared in their days of bondage. For 'joyments, remembered Finnely, weuns have de co'n buskin' an' de nigger fights. Finnely delighted in his recollection of the slave fights he witnessed growing up in antebellum Alabama, noting that although the fights were mo' fo' de w'ite fo'k's 'joyment, the slaves were also 'lowed to see it. According to Finnely, the masters of different plantations matched their slaves by size and then bet on them. Finnely's master had one slave who weighed 150 pounds and who was an awful good fightah; he was quick lak a cat an' powe'ful fo' his size an' he lak to fight. The fighter, named Tom, would always win de battle quick. None last long wid him. Such was Finnely's love of the fights that he disclosed that the contests had made him reconsider his plans for running away to freedom: think an' think 'bout gittin' freedom ... I's think, well, I's gwine to run off.... Den I's think ob some ob de 'joyment on de Marster's place dat I's lak, sich as de co'n huskin', nigger fights, an' de singin' an' den I's don't know w'at to do. (1) Finnely's account illuminates a part of antebellum slave life that has generally been overlooked by historians, that of organized fighting practices and their role in the lives of enslaved men. Some scholars, such as Daniel P. Black, have argued against the possibility that enslaved men could engage in such activities under slavery. For instance, Black contends that besides as field beasts and sexual beings, black men were never allowed to demonstrate their physical strength. (2) However, contrary to Black's claim, there is evidence that enslaved men engaged in various pursuits, such as wrestling, as a way to demonstrate their physical prowess. Recently, in a work spanning three continents and several centuries, historian T. J. Desch Obi has traced the rich martial arts tradition of West and West Central Africa across the Atlantic to the slave communities of North and South America and the Caribbean. Desch Obi's insightful analysis has done much to highlight this neglected cultural world of African people in the Americas, examining the origins and development of activities such as capoeira, kalenda, and wrestling. (3) This article will build on Desch Obi's work by analyzing slave testimony to recreate the world of organized slave fights and to explore the implications of these activities for the identities of men enslaved in the antebellum American South. At present, the historiography on enslaved men is particularly undeveloped because historians have tended to view the normative slave experience as male and hence have neglected to analyze enslaved men from a gendered perspective. (4) The lack of focus on enslaved men and masculinity markedly contrasts with the plethora of work in recent years on masculinity in the white antebellum South. Bertram Wyatt-Brown's Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (1982) was a trailblazer in this field, sparking a huge surge in scholarship that continues to this day. By exploring the lives of men and using masculinity as a category of analysis, these works have considerably deepened our knowledge of the unique social and cultural worlds of the antebellum American South. (5) The historiographical direction of this article owes much to the immense advances made in the past two decades by historians researching gender and the lives of enslaved women. (6) Deborah Gray White's Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (1985) pioneered this approach in slave studies, placing the life cycle, family, labor, and social life of enslaved women at the center of analysis. Such a perspective was long overdue, with previous studies of slavery essentially ignoring the gendered experiences of enslaved women in the antebellum South. …
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