Friday, November 18, 2011

Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion

            Peter H. Wood’s book, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion, does an exceptional job of detailing and summarizing the history of Black Slaves in South Carolina. Unlike other historical books written on slavery during the colonial period, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion provides very interesting perspectives on the role of slavery in South Carolina, and the external factors impacting the population of the colonial slaves. Throughout this blog, I hope to provide readers with a brief summary of the book, highlight points of both criticism and praise, and most importantly provide new insights and information pertaining to Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion. More specifically, I am going to explore two ideas that Wood details throughout the book very well, then go on to provide two points of criticism. While examining these four sections, I will provide pictures, maps and information pertaining to the topic at hand in order to further educate readers on the history of slavery during the colonial period.
            Before we begin, it is important to understand the geography and climate of colonial South Carolina. To view a map of colonial South Carolina, Click here. The image shown in the previous link, allows us to view the geographical location of South Carolina in the eighteenth century. The region is located on the southern coast of North America, entailing a warmer climate, and harsh conditions for Black slaves.
This website provides specific details of the climate of South Carolina. With this website and the map above, it is most important to recognize that both whites and blacks living in South Carolina were living in very hot and harsh condition. Any form of labor, or extensive time outdoors would enhance these conditions, and make survival more difficult. With this information in mind, the first topic that I would like to discuss is the introduction of rice into South Carolina.
 Peter Wood states, “No development had greater impact upon the course of South Carolina history than the successful introduction of rice” (Wood, 35). Throughout the book, Peter Wood uses excellent detail in order to highlight the importance of this seed, and the impacts it had not only on the colony itself, but also the relationship between white and black people. As Wood explains, the introduction of the rice seed could be directly correlated with the increase of slave labor. Colonists chose to use black slaves because “Negroes could be held for unlimited terms, and there was no means by which word of harsh or arbitrary treatment could reach their homelands or affect the further flow of slaves” (Wood, 45). In other words, white colonists could reap the benefits of the rice production, and the intensive black slave labor with no repercussions. To view images of rice seeds click here. To view an image of a rice plant, click here.
Wood goes into outstanding detail of the information discussed briefly above. He describes the conditions that black slaves were forced to live in due to the introduction of the rice seed, and uses specific people (both slaves and colonists) to help emphasize his discussion of the rice seed. I consider this section to be a very strong segment in Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion. Wood gives a very accurate and concise summary, while including a lot of interesting and new perspectives on the topic.
This picture (please click) shows a very accurate depiction of the “black labor- white rice” (Wood, 35). The white colonist is sitting on his horse, while black slaves work tremendously hard in the field of rice. This is a very accurate depiction of the relationship between Europeans and Negroes.
             The next topic of Black Majority that I would like to discuss is the importance of health and disease. Wood does a superb job in summarizing the different diseases and their impacts on both black slaves and white colonists. The first disease Wood discusses is Malaria. Although Wood gives a brief definition of the disease in the book, a more in depth description of the disease and its treatments can be found at this website. This site provides information on symptoms, treatments, causes, history, and different types of the disease; all of which help in understanding the great impact that this disease had on South Carolinians. To put it into perspective, Wood points out that in the year 1711 alone, “nearly two hundred whites, and in between three hundred and four hundred slaves had been carried off by disease” (Wood, 77). Although there were many other diseases such as Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Cholera and Sickle Cell that affected the Europeans and Negroes, Malaria had the greatest impact. The mosquito-borne malaria (see picture below), and other diseases affected the population of South Carolina in serious ways; and Wood does an excellent job in outlining these different diseases, providing readers with specific examples of settlers who spoke about the disease, and giving reasons of why the disease was so easily spread throughout South Carolina. Peter Wood’s section on health and disease was another informative, well done section of his book.
            For a picture of the mosquito, the culprit of carrying this terrible disease, click here.
The two topics above (the introduction of rice and disease) are in my opinion, the two best sections of Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion. Peter Wood does a fantastic job of giving great detail and explicit information in order to portray his arguments and opinions to his readers. However, no book can be perfect.
            I would now like to explore two areas of the book that I did not find as exceptional as the topics above, and the majority of the book. The first area I was not as happy with was the explanation of the Slave Trade. Throughout the earlier sections of the book, there are several times that Wood briefly mentions the existence of the slave trade. Without a brief summary or explanation, Peter Wood goes on in discussing other topics. I found myself researching the slave trade, and trying to get a better explanation of what exactly occurred throughout the trade. Here is a website that provides phenomenal insight into the process of the slave trade. This website also helped me grasp a better understanding. Both of these sites are clear, concise, and able to understand. Understanding the slave trade was imperative for me in understanding the majority of this book.
            My second criticism for this book is not entirely fair, simply because it was unpreventable. The reason that Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina From 1670 Through The Stono Rebellion proved to be such an exceptional book, was because of amount of research Peter Wood clearly put into it. He had many sources that backed up any information he provided his readers with, which drastically helped in the understanding of the book. However, when I reached the end of the book, I realized that the men and women accounted for throughout the book were mostly White Europeans. It made me doubt that a lot of the information given to me was inaccurate simply because there was a discrepancy between the number of Europeans represented, and the number of Negroes. Although this discrepancy is unfortunately unavoidable, it is a shame. I would have liked to hear the differences between the statements of black slaves and white Europeans.
            To summarize this blog, I chose to highlight two great points of the book and two low points. I chose very specific areas to talk about, simply because Peter Wood does such an amazing job of detailing the Negroes in colonial South Carolina. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in black slavery throughout colonial periods, most specifically in South Carolina. 





Works Cited:
1.Bossak, Brian H. "Weather and Climate Controls." Encyclopedia of Geography. 2010. SAGE Publications. 17 Nov. 2011. <http://sage-ereference.com/view/geography/n1235.xml>.
2. Elizabeth Fenn, “Native Americans and the Pre-contact Ecology of New England,” lecture to History 111A, Duke University, November 4, 2011
3. Elizabeth Fenn, “The Ecological Encounter Between Europeans and Native Americans,” History 111A, Duke University, Novermber 4, 2011
4."Malaria." Black's Medical Dictionary, 42nd Edition. London: A&C Black, 2010. Credo Reference. Web. 17 November 2011.
5. Manning, P. (1990). The slave trade: The formal demography of a global system. Social Science History, 14(2), pp. 255-279. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1171441
6. Walsh, L. (2003). The transatlantic slave trade and colonial chesapeake slavery. Magazine of History, 17(3), 11-11-15.