Mechal Sobel attempts to redefine our perceptions of the relationship between whites and blacks in early Virginia. The interaction between the races and the influence of each on the worldview of the other is her subject matter.  The “world they made together” is not specifically the physical one they both inhabited, although the second third of the book focuses on “space and the natural world.” Instead Sobel’s book describes great commonalities in a  weltanschaung created through close relationship of the races.

 As a point of departure, Sobel utilizes Thomas Luckman’s definition of worldview.  Luckman describes a world view as “an encompassing system of meaning in which socially relevant categories of time, space, causality and purpose are superordinated to more specific interpretive schemes in which reality is segmented.(8)” Happily, Sobel’s use of Luckman’s definition is clearer than the definition itself.

Sobel clearly states her thesis in the introduction to the book: "It is the thesis of this book that blacks, Africans and Afro-Americans, deeply influenced whites’ perceptions, values, and identity, and that although two world views existed, there was a deep symbiotic relatedness that must be explored if we are to understand either or both of them." (11) Sobel divides her discussion of world view into three categories or attitudes: Time as reflected in work behavior; space and the natural world as reflected in settlement, building and place naming; causality and purpose as reflected in views of death and the afterlife.

Of the three, Sobel believes the question of time the most significant (21). Perception of time (and its “use” as something expendable, much like money or some other resource) conditions all other values. Time was ordered in English society, kept track of with mechanical devices (clocks and watches) and significant for the practice of religion (calls to prayer), economics (calls to markets) and politically, to signal community meetings. Puritans further segmented time, explicitly linking it to productive labor (23).

 African conceptions instead exhibit “presentism” and emphasize “slow movement, patience and waiting (26).”  Time was not measured mechanically, but through tasks, the “cattle clock.” There is recognition of periods of time, but not its calibration. Given their circumstance as slaves, work was seen as punishment, not redemption. African and Afro-American attitudes towards time and work inevitably led to conflict with their masters.

 Sobel finds congruence in the attitude of poor whites and indentured servants. Conflict over perceptions of time resulted from its application to work.  White landowners wanted slaves and hired workers to work harder, and according to their mechanical measures of time. “Indolent white Virginians,” as well as slaves, rebelled against the landowner’s concept of time as something that must be redeemed through work. Both could exhibit pride in a job well done, but their clocks were “work clocks” tied to agriculture, both seasonal and on a daily basis.  Their pace was slow and they shared “an ambivalent attitude toward work,’ as well as “respect for and antagonism to masters (65). Bacon’s rebellion, which Sobel finds included more African participation than previously acknowledged, underscores the unity between lower class whites and Slaves.  Common experiences of the downtrodden contributed to common values and worldview.

Apart from perceptions of time, Sobel also finds an ultimate congruence arising in attitudes toward space and the natural world. Both whites’ and blacks’ felt a magical and spiritual nature associated with place. While Africans’ beliefs in the existence of spirits within rocks, trees and rivers does not seem surprising, her cataloging of similar beliefs among early English settlers is a story perhaps less well known. Sobel ties belief in magic to the settler’s Christianity, with parishes “blessing trees and and physical locations with magical prayers (75).

Sobel’s discussion of space extends to the architecture and physical layout of Virginia communities, finding African influence in the design of housing and arrangement villages. Her conclusions regarding attitudes about space, like those regarding time and work, find divergence of worldview not between races, but between classes. Slaves and less educated whites found “holiness” and  “magical power” in place and, “giving root doctors and even witches an acceptable role to play (165). Other whites viewed the land as something to exploit with no metaphysical attachment to place.

“Causality and Purpose” comprises the third component of Sobel’s inquiry into Virginians worldview.  Causality for Sobel clearly refers primarily to religious belief, and it is this subject that perhaps provides the clearest “proof” of Sobel’s overall thesis.

Sobel begins this section describing similarities between African myths exhibiting similarities with the Christian Bible.  This familiarity enabled easier acceptance by Africans of Christianity as a whole.  Both attributed death to human causes, seeing original human immortality destroyed by human folly (171-172).

Sobel also finds a class element present in attitudes toward religion.  Lower class whites exhibited a somewhat incoherent mix of new values (some influenced or reinforced by Africans) and an imperfect understanding of the ideas of the Reformation. Pre-Reformation ideas and a medieval conception of the devil, as well as belief in spirits remained strong (180). Blacks and poor whites did not feel comfortable in the Anglican churches of society’s elite. The simple wooden churches of the smaller new sects emerging from the Great Awakening appealed to both poor whites and blacks. Until the nineteenth century “virtually all Baptist and Methodist churches were mixed. Sobel finds the early awakenings in Virginia “a shared black and white phenomenon (181).

In Sobel’s eighteenth century Virginia, blacks and whites shared a common culture, set of values and ultimately similar world views.  While certainly differences did exist, true separation only really begins in the next century. The races conditioned and redefined each other in ways not previously understood.

The World They Made Together is ultimately an entertaining and unique book.  While the central thesis is difficult to “prove” definitively, it really is a question of degree.  Previous refusal on the part of some whites to acknowledge African contributions to early Virginian culture stand challenged.

Paul Schmelzer