The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders, by James Oakes (W.W. Norton and Company:London and New York, 1998), Pp. 307, ISBN 0-393-31705-6
In his book The Ruling Race, James Oakes brings attention to a controversial topic of a controversial institution by studying those Americans who owned slaves in the antebellum South. The nature and quality of these individuals defined the Peculiar Institution, and as such, a study of this class is essential to understanding how and why slavery perpetuated itself.
Part of the problem, Oakes notes, is that the study of slavery is often exclusively on the slaves themselves: while extremely important, the result has been that the relatively small slaveholding class of the South has adopted a singular and unified image in the minds of historians. This is hardly accurate: the average Southern slaveholder did not own many slaves, whereas a few wealthy planters had many. Thus, the majority of slaves in the South were owned by a minority of planters, thus dictating that not all slaveowners could possibly have the same resources, experiences, or even values.
A second theme is the concept of paternalism versus liberalism, or more specifically, liberal capitalism. Oakes utilizes Eugene Genovese's definition of paternalism freely, as he finds it an accurate term. In Genovese's assessment, paternalism is not the myth of a benevolent slave society, but the reality of a hierarchical order in which all parties involved were expected to know their place. Oakes, however, disagrees with Genovese's findings that the South retreated into a paternalist society, strictly regimented by the time of the Civil War. Oakes argues the opposite: that liberal ideas had a much stronger presence in the South than assumed, and that paternalism eventually subsided to liberalism.
The result is a slave owning class filled with contradiction. While there were slaveowners who strongly supported slavery, Oakes demonstrates that there were others filled with guilt over perpetuating slave owning practices, and a desire to somehow break free from the cycle. Often, the argument for slavery came down to economic ideals: it was seen as the most profitable method for an individual to rise in the world. There were strong racial images attached to these debates, placing blacks at an inferior level under whites, but Oakes argues that this was generally a last resort when the economic defense foundered. Regardless, the defense of slavery lay not in paternalist class structure, but liberal property rights.
Oakes notes that while a paternalist structure did indeed emerge, the point of that structure was not to justify or explain a slaveowner's right to hold bondsmen, but to provide an efficient and economical system for managing a plantation. The layers presented to this model show lines of control and walls between the lowest and upper classes, deliberately designed to seperate the slaveowner from the slave. This says two things: that the paternalist system of the South was based on profit acquisition through efficiency, and that slaveowner's desired some sort of wall to keep them from facing the source of their income. The arrogant tone of paternalist rhetoric seems out of place with this presented model.
Oakes is successful in demonstrating the wide range of individuals and groups that occupied the slaveowning class. He argues that Southern conservatives retreated into paternal rhetoric, while their actions demonstrated a continued reliance on a capitalist model. There is no argument with his assertion that the paternal model was an anachronism: Oakes gives ample argument to its outdated tendencies by the time of the Civil War, when it was at its relative strongest.
A strong weakness, though, is his continued reliance on slaveowning operations of a certain size: Oakes does not give the same attention to smaller slaveowners that he apparently desired. Several times, he offhandedly notes the discrepency, as most literature from that time period was written by slaveowners of greater class. Regardless, it still paints a fascinating picture of men and women at the mercy of blight, crop failure, erratic weather, and a labor force that held rightful indignation at being owned.
Oakes argument still stands, though, that it was a liberal ideal (the ownership of property) that compelled the eventual Secession and the resulting war afterwards. It was not a defense of an outdated social structure, but a defense of the right to own property, even human property.
Patrick McCarron
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders. By James Oakes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders is a detailed examination of the development of the slaveholding class in the antebellum South. In his work, author James Oakes has two main goals. First, he strives to establish an accurate portrayal of the slaveholding class including its relative diversity. And second, he wants to investigate general patterns of slaveholder politics, ideology, economics, and demography while taking this diversity into account. He addresses the roles of both race and social class in the minds of Southern slaveholders along with the complex relationship of capitalism and slavery. Oakes also focuses on the dilemma of American slavery in a society which values freedom so highly. He endeavors to show that racism and defense of slavery were not contradicting the American value system, but were actually an integral part of these values for the slaveholding South.
Oakes begins his work with a look at American slaveholders during the Revolutionary era. According to Oakes, many of the fundamental features of the slaveholding class were established prior to the Revolution and continued in much the same way through the antebellum period. These included the importance of protecting private property, the profitability of slaveholding, and the racist defense of slavery and the subhuman status of blacks. He argues that the success of the Revolution confirmed these patterns of living for slaveholders, solidifying their commitment slavery.
By looking at the demographic of the slaveholding class, Oakes shows that there was no typical slaveholder. Drawing attention to smaller scale slaveholders rather than planters, he points out the economic diversity of the group. The slaveholding class also contained members of varied heritage including immigrants of Scotch-Irish, French, and German origin, Native Americans, and even a small number of freed African Americans.
Despite their wide-ranging background, some unifying characteristics amongst slaveholders did exist. According to Oakes, materialism was prevalent throughout the slaveholding class. Virtually all slaveholders were perpetually in search of wealth through the accumulation land and other property. They shared a perception of success as expansion of property and their way of living. Thus, westward migration became an integral part of the ideology of the slaveholding class.
Religion was also an important influence on slaveholders. Although there were exceptions, the slaveholding population was overwhelmingly Protestant. Most slaveholders recognized the contradictions of being both Christian and a slaveholder and never found a completely satisfying religious rationalization of slavery. Christianity represents the most profound rift between the behavior and beliefs of slaveholders.
Political ideology also presented a challenge to the thinking of slaveholders. Oakes asserts that slaveholders were very much products of Southern traditions including an emphasis on patriarchal family, a sense of class consciousness, and aspirations for wealth and stability. Most slaveholders, though supportive of racist and philosophical explanations, upheld slavery as a largely economically practical institution. Also supporters of the American principles of freedom and equality, slaveholders had to find a way to rationalize their political ideals with their economic needs. Creating a subhuman category for the enslaved served to alleviate some of this conflict. Slaveholders incorporated these justifications for slavery into their worldview and American traditions. Oakes argues that in the minds of Southern slaveholders, secession was an extension of these values.
Using examples from the private papers and diaries of numerous members of the slaveholding class, Oakes does a good job of bringing out the details and difficulties of their lives and status as slaveholders. He argues that the history of slaveholders was not a neat, uniform narrative, but was rather a complex, at times even contradictory, experience for a class that was more diverse than most realize.
Texas Christian University Colby Bosher
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders. By James Oakes. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1982. 307 pp.
In his work, A Ruling Race, James Oakes provides a depiction of the entire slaveholding class. While prior historiography emphasizes the image of the slave owning planters, Oakes does not believe the planters provide an accurate representation of the whole slaveholding class. Oakes argues that the slaveholding class consisted of diverse ethnic groups shaped by differing political, ideological, economic, and demographic development (ix). Oakes divides the slaveholding class into three categories, that of small slaveholders, middle-class masters, and planters. The author analyzes the religious, social, and material justifications of slavery used by these three groups. By looking at the justifications used for slavery, Oakes presents the moral dilemmas existent in the minds of many slave owners.
With their focus upon white male planter-elites and the owners of large numbers of slaves, Oakes contends that previous historians overlooked the majority of the slaveholding class. More than half of the slave owners possessed five slaves or fewer. Furthermore, slave owners consisted of more than just white males. Free blacks, Native Americans, mulattos, immigrants, and women owned slaves. In fact, women, who often inherited slaves from their husbands, represented ten percent of the slaveholding class (50). With this in mind, Oakes states, “the typical master did not really exist” (51). Nevertheless, Oakes recognizes the existence of patterns in the average slaveholder, and according to Oakes, the median slaveholder was about forty-four years old, most likely male and white, and by 1850 almost always native-born in the South (51).
Using divisions of small slave owners, middle-class masters, and planters, Oakes presents complex diversity and similarities within the slaveholding class. Amongst the three groups, the relationship between masters and slaves differed, especially for the small slave owners. The small slave owners consisted of those owning five slaves or fewer, and they moved and shifted jobs frequently (52). The middle-class masters included mainly well-educated professionals. The middle-class often combined careers, so fluctuations in agriculture did not affect them as much. The masters represented 25% of all slaveholders, and they held the majority of slaves in the South (57). These two groups moved in and out of the slaveholding class depending upon the season, market, and their personal wealth. The planter aristocracy comprised of those with established familial, inherited wealth. A lack of struggle for slaves or land distinguished the planters from the small slave owners or middle-class masters. Nevertheless, less than two and a half percent ever owned 50 slaves or more (65).
Yet, the potential for social and demographic mobility led to similar ideological foundations amidst the three groups. Oakes describes the primary goals of both small slave owners and planters as purchasing land and slaves and moving west in pursuit of their objective (76). For all three groups, the acquisition of slaves signaled increased wealth, and the three groups felt the constant need to improve their status. Southern parents placed stress upon personal achievement and success, especially amongst the planter aristocracy. According to Oakes, because of the presence of the opportunity for social mobility, the slavery system did not conflict with the democratic ideals of freedom for whites.
Oakes illustrates the difficulties of the slaveholding classes to justify slavery using the ideals of religion. Although almost all slave owners were Evangelical Christians, difficulties flourished in justifying slavery utilizing Protestantism and revival Christianity. Oakes argues that evangelical Protestantism transformed the culture of slaveholding more than anything thereafter. The institution of slavery conflicted with the religious ideals of anti-materialism and equality, and this moral dilemma presented a number of slaveholders with a paradox. Oakes describes the paradox for slaveholders by stating, “to succeed was to risk one’s soul, to fail was a disgrace” (122). Ironically, often slaveholders believed slaves went to heaven, and slaveholders descended to hell.
Oakes addresses the question of how the same men that fought for democracy in the American Revolution fought less than a century later for slavery. Oakes portrays the idea that the slaveholders’ decision to secede was not a rejection of principles upon which America was founded but a reaffirmation (235). According to Oakes, the slaveholders thought their freedom for personal property and fortune was at stake. The slaveholders accepted the analogy between secession and Revolution (239).
In his rather chronological, well-laid out work, Oakes portrays diversity present within the slave owning class. Oakes divides the slaveholding class into three groups. Although the groups consisted of a variety of ethnic backgrounds, similar ideology drove the slaveholders. Because of the opportunity for social mobility and personal gain, the slaveholders did not believe slavery conflicted with democratic ideals. On the eve of war, slaveholders argued that they were fighting for the same freedom and democracy they fought for during the American Revolution.
Joi-lee Beachler
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders. By James Oakes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. ISBN 0394521633. E441 O18 1982.
Oakes suggested that historians had closely examined the life of slaves but had neglected that of slaveholders, an oversight he intended to correct with an accurate portrait that demonstrated both the diversity and the commonalties of political, economic, ideological, and demographic development of the class. In doing so he confronted issues of typicality, the nature of power, and (most prevailing) how slaveholders could maintain their commitment to slavery in the face of secession from a nation they had helped to create. He particularly took issue with Genovese’s monolithic image of a paternalistic planter class (large slaveholders), finding instead an erosion of paternalism and toward liberal democracy and free-market commercialism.
Paternalism was eroded by the democratization of immigrants, the arrival of great numbers of artisan, Scotch-Irish, and Germans that came to accept slavery. That trend split the ranks of slaveholders along class, race, ethnic, and religious lines but the need to discipline and control slaves and devotion to ideas of property created commons bond. Long before the nineteenth century the fundamental aspects of the slave system, including a rejection of paternalism, were set.
Slavery created wealth, expanding the South’s highest stratum so that the nation’s twelve wealthiest counties lay below the Mason-Dixon (Adams County, Mississippi had the highest per capita wealth) Although slaveholders never accounted for a majority of the Southern population a clear majority of Southerners had a direct material interest in slavery. Still, slaveholders were diverse, they included women, Indians, immigrants, and free blacks but patterns were also evident, the average slaveholder was a forty-four year old white male, native born in the South, owning eight to nine slaves and land valued under $3,000, and involved in agriculture. However, the average slaveholder disappeared from history books, replaced by a planter legend in which Southern society is analyzed from the perspective of a tiny elite.
Clear patterns distinguished small, medium, and large slave owners. Small owners were very mobile, traveling in a constant struggle to succeed in the face of economic insecurity. Middle-class masters practiced grasping materialism in their quest to become part of the planter class. They began life with the advantages small owners, were migratory in their early years and often had an occupation or skill unrelated to agriculture. They were the single most influential class in the South, their education and wealth gave them control of much of the press and they were elected disproportionately to political offices. Planters began where middle-class owners left off, usually substantial holding by inheritance which they tended to increase by acquiring slaves rather than land.
The tradition of Southern revivalism was established in the 18th century transformed the culture of slaveholding more than anything thereafter, excepting the war. Evangelism grew from the same roots as Northern and British movements but religious significance derives from context as much as content; in the South evangelism served the slave society. Religion was the only philosophical justification of slavery that gained any popularity among slaveholders. Slaveholders fashioned a world view that made freedom and bondage inseparable, justified individual achievement, and culminated in a progressive ideology that saw a future of expansion and abundance. The positivitiveness of their outlook developed from a prosperity born of slavery that reinforced the idea of the uniqueness of American life.
The premise of master-slave management theory was black inferiority, its organizing principle was absolute control by the master, and its structure was bureaucratic. Plantation management theory formed around the concept of forced obedience achieved through punishments. The greatest flaw in the theory was its failure to recognize the extent to which slaves altered the conditions of their life. Slave autonomy and resistance shaped the course of slaveholding, in many ways they frustrated, infuriated, and manipulated their owners.
The intense devotion to capitalism diminished the influence of paternalism in slavery, rendering paternalism anachronistic in the 19th century. However, paternalism was weakened not destroyed by 17th and 18th century forces of the rise of a market economy, the broad distribution of slave wealth, and the diversity of the master class. Slaveholding paternalism suffered the same decline as British paternalism, attacked by the Enlightenment. Paternalism persisted in those masters reared under the influence of the military, born in the Northeast under Federalist influence, and those in the oldest areas of settlement. Because paternalists were prominent in major points of entry observers were often deceived into believing they were the norm.
Continuous economic growth and sustained physical and demographic expansion in the context of democratization were the bases of dominant slave ideology. Many believed that prosperity was divinely inspired, viewing slaves and western lands as cores in a physical and economically mobile culture. In those fundamental ways the slaveholding experience coincided with the larger American experience. Except for the defense of bondage the ideology was similar to the Republican ideology of the 1850s. But while the North viewed slavery an antithetical to freedom, slaveholders insisted that freedom was not possible without slavery. By placing slavery at the heart of their society Southerners came into conflict with the northern tradition, resulting in two incompatible views of slavery that would lead to the Civil War. By the 1850s slaveholders feared that slavery would not survive and turned to secession. Some proposed solutions to the internal crises, reopening trade and expanding slaveholding and requiring all white men to own slaves, further antagonized the anti-slavery forces, bringing to the fore the fear of an abolition that would impoverish the South. That fear left no option but secession, the aim of which was to protect slavery, not states rights or Southern nationalism.
Harold Rich
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders. By James Oakes. (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, c. 1998, Pp. ix, 307, ISBN 0-393-31705-6.)
The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders by James Oakes examines specifics of the entire slaveholding class of the antebellum South. Oakes probes the class and finds many contradictions and differences with the myth of the slaveholder and the reality of slave ownership. His main purpose is to attack and destroy the notion that the “planter” class typified slaveholders in general. The focus of the attack centers on the idea that slaveholders were diversified and, for the most part, completely rejected paternalism. The author utilizes extensive footnotes, a scholarly bibliography and a modicum of statistics.
In the first chapter, Oakes describes the early slaveholders as paternalistic and the fact that this paternalism came from England. Paternalism contributed to the structure but not the ideology nor to the culture of slaveholders. In the second chapter the author begins to peel away at the stereotypical planter slaveowner. He notes that after 1800, slaveholders became mobile, both literally and socially and that individuals owning slaves increased in number. Far from the stereotype, women, Indians and even freedmen owned slaves. Ten percent of slaveowners were women (although the vast majority of them inherited their slaves) and ten percent of slaveholders were urban.
Oakes describes the average slaveholder. The average slaveholder was a white male, born in the south, and 44 years old. He owned 8 or 9 slaves, around $3,000 worth of land and was in the business of agriculture. The difference between the average and the myth of the planter is striking. Unfortunately, according to the author, most writers and historians analysize slaveholders from the elite perspective and the difference between the elite and the average have disappeared.
The author breaks up the slaveholding class into three groups. The first included the small slaveowners. These owners controlled no more than five slaves. They comprised the majority of slaveholders. Their stability in the economy and society often fluctuated with the ups and downs of the agricultural market. The second group included the middle-class, mostly professionals. These slaveowners owned the majority of slaves and usually had a small advantage over the small owner and therefore their status was more stable. Finally, the elite group of slaveowners owned 20 or more slaves and had the advantage of inherited stability (comparatively) in the economy and society.
The author contends that the driving force behind all levels of slaveownership was expansion and acquisition. All slaveowners sought to expand their lands and acquire more slaves. This desire for expansion of one’s property came from an immense pressure from the family and society to succeed and prosper. The measure of prosperity was land and slaves. The more a slaveowner had of each the more prosperous he was perceived by society. This desire produced instability and mobility among slaveowners not the stereotypical stagnation of the myth. The mobility within society and the mobility of individuals towards the west came from this definition of prosperity. The culture of the slaveowner came from history, experience and mobility, NOT from plantation agriculture.
In chapter three the author notes that the west offered new opportunities for all levels of slaveowners and many moved and moved frequently. The average house of these mobile slaveowners rarely matched the mythic plantation in size or accruements. Many slaveholders lived on the frontier or were so involved in acquisition of land and slaves, they had little money to live any better than those on the frontier. This squalor and mobility often frustrated the women of the south, because they continually broke familiar or friendly ties as they moved west.
In chapter four the author debunks the notion that religion provided a haven and defense of slavery. Evangelical Protestantism often left the average slaveholder with an immense sense of guilt with little hope of redemption and a fear of death. The anti-materialism and anti-slavery of southern religion remained contradictory throughout the antebellum period. In chapter five the author delves into the mind of the slaveowner and describes the abject fear of failure prevalent throughout the South. The author also argues that the defense of slavery came from the “gospel of prosperity” and not from obscure intellectual arguments. Oakes also concludes that the South became more democratic and anti-elitist than the planter myth ever allowed.
In chapter six the author takes a look at the slave/master relationship. Again, he notes the immense difference between the mythic ideal and reality. Often the master had to deal with the fact that slaves were valuable and that slaves knew that they had value. Their (passive) resistance to the master contradicted the myth of obedience and control. The myth also never took into account the individuals. Individuals often had trouble being rational, efficient or apathetic to their slaves.
In the last chapter of the book, the author describes paternalism as debilitated, yet not altogether dead. The diversity, democracy and mobility of the average slaveholder created incredible opposites to paternalism. The outgoing nature of paternalism caused the few paternalists to become even more animated, stubborn and conservative and the more animated, stubborn and conservative they became the less and less they represented the mainstream slaveholder.
Oakes concludes that the slaveowner seceded from the Union because of his intense democratic nature (and therefore dislike of federalism) and because the South saw its gospel of prosperity threatened. This position is arguable, but the value of the work comes not from its conclusion, but from its illumination of the slaveowner. The glaring differences between the slaveholding population and the planter myth must have been blinding when the author began this work. The author attacks (in a very scholarly manner) Genovese and his notions of paternalism and the idea that the south was anti-capitalistic. The author destroys the notion that all slaveowners had paternalistic tendencies. Oakes also claims that the desire to expand and prosper were incredibly capitalistic in nature (even if that prosperity did not necessarily include monetary wealth). Oakes’ attack on the notions of Genovese destroys the myth of the paternalistic planter as the typical slaveowner.
Texas Christian University Scott Cowin