Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market.  By Walter Johnson. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999.  220 pp.

            Walter Johnson’s prize-winning Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market is cultural history at its best.  That is, of course, for those who enjoy cultural history.  For those who do not, Soul by Soul is cultural history at its worst.  For those in between, it is a mixed bag.

            Like any cultural historian worth his salt, Johnson works with a “text,” from which deep, symbolic meanings can be expertly extrapolated.  In Soul by Soul, Johnson’s “text” is the American slave trade from Revolutionary times to the Civil War, particularly as it took shape in the major slave markets where “people were turned into products and sold at a price.”  (p. 214.)  According to Johnson, “[t]he Old South was made by slaves,” (p. 102) and “[t]he history of the antebellum South was made (and occasionally unmade) in the slave pens.”  (p. 214.) 

“Making history” is a favorite theme of cultural historians and Johnson takes that ball and runs with it throughout Soul by Soul: by “detaching slaves from their history and replacing human singularity with fashioned salability,” (p. 129), slave traders did not just sell slaves but “made” them; slaves themselves, while being transported to the market or waiting to be sold there, fashioned “communities” in which the rare escape or the even rarer revolt were hatched but where also “important knowledge about the trade” (p. 77) was exchanged that could ultimately help a slave to “shape a sale to suit themselves” (p. 161) and thus “turn their own commodification against their enslavement,” (p. 164); whites who obtained economic independence and social status through slaveholding were “constructing themselves out of slaves,” (p. 88) and “using the ideological imperatives of slaveholding culture” to gain “freedom out of slavery,” (p. 116); and, when slaves “mouthed off, slowed down, slipped away, fought back, got sick, and sometimes died,” (p. 204), the slaveholders “who were making themselves out of slaves must have realized that they might also be unmade by slaves.”  (p. 205.) 

A recurring motif in Johnson’s analysis of an Old South “made” and “unmade” by slavery is the morally reprehensible folly of turning human beings into commodities and selling them.  As Johnson notes, brutality was “the natural result of slaveholders’ inevitable failure to live through the stolen bodies of their slaves.”  (p. 206.)  Disappointed slaveholders “would use brutality to close the distance between the roles they imagined for themselves and the failings of the slaves they bought as props for their performance.”  (p. 206.)   

There was, however, a nonviolent alternative to brutality that disgruntled slaveholders could turn to in the South, namely, suing the slave seller for breach of warranty.  Slaves were, after all, a commodity, and the laws in southern states required sellers to warrant their slaves much like any other “product.”  But, as Johnson points out, slave sellers could defend themselves in such suits by showing that the buyer had mistreated the slaves after purchasing them.  Thus, in an irony that Johnson finds delicious, the same techniques that buyers used to examine slaves’ bodies before purchase so as to detect “punishment” by previous owners were later used in court to prove “mistreatment” of those same slaves by the buyers.          

  Besides ironies, as a cultural historian, Johnson thrives on symbolism.  Hence, when slave buyers routinely deemed slaves with darker skin as being less intelligent and more suited for physical labor than those with lighter skin, Johnson says such buyers “reproduced the notions of race that underwrote the system as a whole.” (p. 161.)  Johnson also describes the “shared communion in the rites of the slave market --- the looking, stripping, touching, bantering, and evaluating ---” (p. 149-150) that white buyers experienced when they collectively examined slaves on display; within that “communion,” the “talk about black ‘breeders’ set off the elaborate rituals of white courtship; and the violation of black bodies emphasized the inviolability of white ones.”  (p. 149.) 

Johnson similarly lays on the symbolism thick and heavy in describing those slaveholders who purposely purchased slaves with a reputation for disobedience to prove that they could “break” them: “Slave breaking was a technology of the soul.  Buying slaves to break them represented a fantasy of mastery embodied in the public subjugation of another, of private omnipotence transmuted into public reputation.”  (p. 107.)

Johnson relies heavily on primary sources in Soul by Soul: slave narratives, court records, private letters, and records of slave sale.  Emphasizing depth more than breadth, he uses only Louisiana court records and focuses almost exclusively on the New Orleans market instead of other slave trading hubs. 

Finally, Johnson’s writing style is pretentious.  But those who like cultural history won’t mind; those who don’t, won’t care.            

Joe Rzeppa

   Soul by Soul is an in-depth look at the South’s largest antebellum slave market, located in New Orleans. Author Walter Johnson constructs a vivid portrait of what he calls the essence of slavery, namely the buying and selling of a commodity. Johnson’s description of the slave market brings to mind the analogy of an automobile showroom. Just as one goes to a car dealer to kick the tires and look at the merchandise, the slave showrooms of New Orleans were no different, barring one major exception. What were being sold in antebellum New Orleans were human beings, not inanimate automobiles. But those involved in buying and selling slaves tried not to think of slaves as people, they were property, a commodity, chattel, to be bought and sold as slave owners and slave traders wished.

   Slaves were graded for sale, by skin color, height, weight, gender and age. The top tiers were “Extra men”, then “#1 men”, followed by “Second rate or ordinary men”. Women were also priced accordingly. The antebellum “science” of skin color analysis revealed several points: First, lighter skinned women were too weak to work in the fields and were best suited for household or domestic chores. The blacker the skin, the healthier the slave was. The blacker slaves, it followed, were best suited to work in the fields. A certain classification of woman, “Fancy”, had another connotation. Some slave owners and traders paid top dollar for these women, often forcing them to be their mistresses. Sexual predation was certainly present at the slave houses of the period.

   The packaging and presentation of the slaves for sale was quite elaborate. Again, the analogy of an automobile showroom comes to mind. The best possible face was put on a prospective sale. First came the “dressing up”, then came the high-powered and persuasive pitch by the slave trader. The dressing up involved the fattening up of slaves for sale, feeding them lots of milk, butter, and bacon. Next slaves’ skins were oiled to a glowing sheen, so their skin and complexion looked “healthy”. After this came elaborate grooming from the barber and hairdresser, including hair cuts, shaves, and the plucking of facial hair. Following this slaves were outfitted in elegant clothing, the ladies in calico dresses, the men in suits and hats. “Fancy” women were sexualized, dressed in such a manner to showcase their assets in the best light possible. Finally, the slaves were presented in tasteful showrooms that were nicely appointed with sitting chairs, fireplaces and wood floors.

   If the presentation and packaging didn’t make the sale, the trader quickly stepped in to help move it along. Each slave would be given his or her own story. One was an excellent domestic, great with children; another was a wonderful cook with a good disposition. A third was a strapping field hand who worked all day under the searing sun with nary a complaint. The trader created a myth about each slave, just as a used car salesman gives every car their own identity: “This is a one of a kind vehicle, she runs like a top, they do not make them like this anymore.” A story or “pedigree” helped make the slave sale, and gave the buyer an image or fantasy of what he was buying. It did not matter if the fantasy was false, what mattered was that the buyer believed it.

   The people buying the slaves wanted to believe. It was upon these slaves their futures and identities were staked, though they would not admit this. These slaves determined whether the slave owner would be rich or poor, and what their standing in society would be. When they looked at these slaves they wanted to pick that “certain” slave that would help their dream come true. The slaves were the embodiment of buyers’ aspirations. Just as the “right” car or “dream” automobile makes a man, so did the right slave. The buyer believed these slaves in their bondage and service to him would translate into wealth and financial independence. For white women, slaves represented liberty from household work and chores, owning house slaves freed her to be a genteel lady of society.

   Of course no buyer took the trader at his word. Buyers would interview the slaves about their “story,” to try and find out the truth. Blacks had some power in this process, which involved the choosing of lesser evils. Slaves would play to a buyer they favored, telling them what they wanted to hear. If they did not like a buyer they would put themselves in the worst possible light. If that failed, they would tell the prospective buyer simply not to buy them, they would not work for them. So slaves had some influence over their sale, both in their carriage and deportment, and in how they answered questions. Slaves also shared information with one other, about what to look for in a prospective buyer and how to play the game. The buying of slaves was a contest played on both sides of the table. Sometimes traders would cajole the slaves into going along with their sale by promising them something in return. But in the end traders were often at the mercy of the slaves, because a slave had to act as “advertised” by the seller.

   Besides being complicit in their sale, slaves also had other options available to them. Sometimes, to avoid being sold, they would maim themselves, cutting off their fingers or even a hand. They would threaten suicide. Rather than have their children sold, they would hide them in the woods. They would threaten to run away. Other times they did escape. Some tried to revolt and were killed.

   While in the pens, slaves were locked in cells. After hours, the showroom glitz gave way to jailhouse reality. Crammed quarters, poor sanitary conditions, the smells, the noise, life here resembled that of cattle packed into holding pens.

   Then there were the degrading inspections by the slave buyers. Men and women were stripped naked to see what they were “made of”. Buyers would probe and poke in their intrusive inquisitiveness, violating the slaves’ bodies. The message was that blacks could be violated, but whites were inviolate. Slaves also lived in constant fear: who would buy them, and how would they be treated? What would happen to their families they had been forcibly separated from, to their husbands, wives and children? Two-thirds of all interstate slave sales shattered a slave family. The system of slavery did not recognize these people or their feelings; they were property and as such did not have rights.

   During the antebellum period two million slaves were sold in America. Slave sales accounted for 15% of the South’s staple economy, totaling more than half a billion dollars. Theses sales also created a huge service industry. Slaves had to be seen by doctors, and then outfitted and provisioned. This cost was factored into a slave’s price, 14% of which went to cover these additional expenses. Tens of millions of dollars were made by this service industry.

   Johnson uses many slave narratives in his book. These accounts have been controversial in the past. White supremacist historians such as Ulrich Phillips have dismissed the authenticity of these narratives, while abolitionist, anti-slavery writers have too often woven their own agendas into them. By conducting meticulous research into sellers’ letters and ledgers of the period, Johnson has been able to corroborate the authenticity of the slave narratives. The result is an accurate perspective of what occurred in the slave showrooms of New Orleans. “The crude spectacle that was daily on view in the slave pen-a human body publicly stripped, examined, priced and sold-thus became an image that stood for the whole of slavery.” (p. 219)

   What is, on the whole, an excellent scholarly work, is marred by a dense and obtuse writing style. This approach will unfortunately relegate this book solely to the shelves of academic libraries, rather than crossing over to a more general audience. This is regrettable, because this is a major and thought-provoking work in the study of American slavery, which if written in a more engaging style, would offer much to the reading public.

Glen Ely