The Peculiar Institution - wikipedia The Peculiar Institution First edition ( publ. Vintage Books ) The Peculiar Institution : Slavery in the Ante - Bellum South is a non-fiction book about slavery published in 1956, by academic Kenneth M. Stampp of the University of California, Berkeley and other universities. The book describes and analyzes multiple facets of slavery in the American South from the 17th through the mid-19th century, including demographics, lives of slaves and slaveholders, the Southern economy and labor systems, the Northern and abolitionist response, slave trading, and political issues of the time. An interesting element of the book is how Stampp analyzes the standard view of historians such as Ulrich Phillips that many Southern slave owners were very kind to their slaves and provided well for them. While it was sometimes known for slaves to have lives as good as or better than those of poor Northern workers, Stampp exposes this behavior as a selfish strategy to ease the lives of some slaves in order to prevent dissent among the rest, or to prevent possible legal action for mistreatment of slaves, arguing that this treatment did little to convince slaves that their lives were acceptable, and that dissent and opposition were common, making slaves `` a troublesome property ''. Contents 1 Key points 2 Organization 3 Use by Martin Luther King, Jr. 4 References Key points Stampp 's main thrust was to counter the arguments of prior historians who had characterized slavery generally as a benign, paternalistic tradition, helpful in many ways to the slaves, which encouraged racial harmony in the Southern states. Stampp also characterizes some critics of slavery for claiming that `` to the Negroes, slavery seemed natural ; knowing no other life, they accepted it without giving the matter much thought. Not that slavery was a good thing, mind you -- but still, it probably hurt the Negroes less than the it did the whites. Indeed, the whites were really more enslaved than were the Negro slaves '' ( 429 ). Stampp condemns such an argument and likens it to pro-slavery arguments before the Civil War, which were `` based on some obscure and baffling logic '' ( 429 ). Stampp held that the national debate over the morality of slavery was the focal point of the U.S. Civil War, rather than states ' rights in rejection of the Slavery Amendment. Stampp wrote, `` Prior to the Civil War southern slavery was America 's most profound and vexatious social problem. More than any other problem, slavery nagged at the public conscience ; offering no easy solution... '' ( vii ). The book was for Stampp not only about 19th century history but a necessary examination for Americans in the 1950s because `` it is an article of faith that knowledge of the past is a key to understanding the present, '' and `` one must know what slavery meant to the Negro and how he reacted to it before one can comprehend his more recent tribulations '' ( vii ). Later work by other historians qualified certain of Stampp 's findings, but The Peculiar Institution remains a central text in the study of U.S. slavery. Organization The organization of The Peculiar Institution includes the following chapters : I. `` The Setting '' - background and demographics in the Old South. II. `` From Day Clean to First Dark '' - slaves ' toilsome daily lives ; slavery within southern labor systems. III. `` A Troublesome Property '' - defiance of slaves ; Stampp asserts that African - American slaves actively resisted slavery, not just through uprisings and escape, but also through work slowdowns, feigning illness, damaging plantation machinery and work implements, theft, and other means. He lauds these actions as honorable resistance by slaves, which could be used as models by other oppressed groups, not least black Americans in the 1950s. IV. `` To Make Them Stand in Fear '' - disciplinary practices and submission ; slave feelings of inferiority ; fear and dependence in slave life ; religion ; incentives offered to slaves ; power structures ; cruelty of slaveowners and overseers. V. `` Chattels Personal '' - conflicts in racial classifications ; slave laws and codes ; limited freedoms for slaves. VI. `` Slavemongering '' - slave movement and sales ; African slave trade prior to the nineteenth century ; separation of slave families. VII. `` Maintenance, Morbidity and Mortality '' - slave food, clothing, housing and sickness. VIII. `` Between Two Cultures '' - class and caste systems ; personal relationships of slaves and masters ; social positions ; sex, family, religion, leisure. IX. `` Profit and Loss '' - slave value ; economic gains and losses through slavery ; slavery in the economic system ; agrarian vs. industrial development in the Old South ; land exhaustion in the Old South. X. `` He Who Has Endured '' - moral ambiguity of slaveowners ; the desperate defense of slavery ; destructive effects of slavery on free labor, non-slaveowners and white yeomen in the Old South ; intellectual torpor in the South due to rigid pro-slavery positions. Use by Martin Luther King, Jr. In Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community ? ( 1967 ), author Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes extensively from The Peculiar Institution. King describes Stampp 's `` fascinating '' depiction of `` the psychological indoctrination that was necessary from the master 's viewpoint to make a good slave. '' References Jump up ^ Stampp, Kenneth ( 1956 ). The Peculiar Institution : Slavery in the Ante - Bellum South. New York : Vintage Books. Jump up ^ King, Martin Luther, Jr. ( 1967 ). Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community ?. p. 39. ISBN 9780807000687. CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list ( link ) hide Slave narratives Slave Narrative Collection Captivity narrative Individuals by continent of enslavement Africa Robert Adams ( c. 1790 -- ? ) Francis Bok ( b. 1979 ) James Leander Cathcart ( 1767 -- 1843 ) Ólafur Egilsson ( 1564 -- 1639 ) Hark Olufs ( 1708 -- 1754 ) Mende Nazer ( b. 1982 ) Thomas Pellow ( 1705 -- ? ) Joseph Pitts ( 1663 -- 1735 ? ) Guðríður Símonardóttir ( 1598 -- 1682 ) Europe Lovisa von Burghausen ( 1698 -- 1733 ) Olaudah Equiano ( c. 1745 Nigeria -- 31 March 1797 Eng ) Ukawsaw Gronniosaw ( c. 1705 Bornu -- 1775 Eng ) Roustam Raza ( 1783 -- 1845 ) Brigitta Scherzenfeldt ( 1684 -- 1736 ) North America : Canada Marie - Joseph Angélique ( c. 1710 Portugal -- 1734 Montreal ) John R. Jewitt ( 1783 England -- 1821 United States ) North America : Caribbean Juan Francisco Manzano ( 1797 -- 1854, Cuba ) Esteban Montejo ( 1860 -- 1965, Cuba ) Mary Prince Venerable Pierre Toussaint ( 1766 Saint - Dominque -- June 30, 1853 NY ) Marcos Xiorro ( c. 1819 -- ? ? ?, Puerto Rico ) North America : United States Sam Aleckson Jordan Anderson William J. Anderson Jared Maurice Arter Solomon Bayley Polly Berry Henry Bibb Leonard Black Henry `` Box '' Brown John Brown William Wells Brown Peter Bruner ( 1845 KY -- 1938 OH ) Ellen and William Craft Hannah Crafts Lucinda Davis Noah Davis Lucy Delaney Ayuba Suleiman Diallo Frederick Douglass Kate Drumgoold Jordan Winston Early ( 1814 -- after 1894 ) Sarah Jane Woodson Early David George Moses Grandy William Green ( 19th century MD ) William Grimes Josiah Henson Fountain Hughes ( 1848 / 1854 VA -- 1957 ) John Andrew Jackson Harriet Ann Jacobs John Jea Thomas James ( minister ) Paul Jennings ( 1799 -- 1874 ) Elizabeth Keckley Boston King Lunsford Lane J. Vance Lewis Jermain Wesley Loguen Solomon Northup John Parker ( 1827 VA -- 1900 ) William Parker James Robert Moses Roper Omar ibn Said William Henry Singleton Venture Smith Austin Steward ( 1793 VA -- 1860 ) Venerable Pierre Toussaint ( 1766 Saint - Dominque -- 1853 NY ) Harriet Tubman Wallace Turnage Bethany Veney Booker T. Washington Wallace Willis ( 19th century Indian Territory ) Harriet E. Wilson Zamba Zembola ( b.c. 1780 Congo ) South America Osifekunde ( c. 1795 Nigeria -- ? Brazil ) Mahommah Gardo Baquaqua ( 1845 -- 1847, Brazil ) Miguel de Buría ( ? Puerto Rico -- 1555 Venezuela ) Non-fiction books The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano ( 1789 ) The Narrative of Robert Adams ( 1816 ) American Slavery as It Is ( 1839 ) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave ( 1845 ) The Life of Josiah Henson ( 1849 ) Twelve Years a Slave ( 1853 ) My Bondage and My Freedom ( 1855 ) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl ( 1861 ) The Underground Railroad Records ( 1872 ) Life and Times of Frederick Douglass ( 1881 ) Up from Slavery ( 1901 ) The Peculiar Institution ( 1956 ) The Slave Community ( 1972 ) Fiction / novels Oroonoko ( 1688 ) Sab ( 1841 ) Uncle Tom 's Cabin ( 1852 ) The Heroic Slave ( 1852 ) Clotel ( 1853 ) Dred : A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp ( 1856 ) The Bondwoman 's Narrative ( 1853 ? -- 1861 ? ) Our Nig ( 1859 ) Jubilee ( 1966 ) The Confessions of Nat Turner ( 1967 ) Roots : The Saga of an American Family ( 1976 ) Underground to Canada ( 1977 ) Kindred ( 1979 ) Dessa Rose ( 1986 ) Beloved ( 1987 ) Middle Passage ( 1990 ) Queen : The Story of an American Family ( 1993 ) Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons ( 1996 ) Ama : A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade ( 2001 ) Walk Through Darkness ( 2002 ) The Known World ( 2003 ) Unburnable ( 2006 ) Copper Sun ( 2006 ) The Book of Negroes ( 2007 ) The Underground Railroad ( 2016 ) Young adult books Amos Fortune, Free Man ( 1951 ) I, Juan de Pareja ( 1965 ) The Slave - Girl from Jerusalem ( 2007 ) Essay To a Southern Slaveholder ( 1848 ) A Key to Uncle Tom 's Cabin ( 1853 ) Plays The Escape ; or, A Leap for Freedom ( 1858 ) The Octoroon ( 1859 ) Related African - American literature Caribbean literature Films featuring slavery Songs of the Underground Railroad Book of Negroes ( 1783 ) Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book ( 1847 ) Slave Songs of the United States ( 1867 ) Amazing Grace : An Anthology of Poems about Slavery ( 2002 ) The Hemingses of Monticello ( 2008 ) Documentaries Unchained Memories ( 2003 ) Frederick Douglass and the White Negro ( 2008 ) Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Peculiar_Institution&oldid=847915169 '' Categories : 1956 books Slavery in the United States Hidden categories : CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list All articles with specifically marked weasel - worded phrases Articles with specifically marked weasel - worded phrases from March 2012 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from December 2010 Wikipedia articles needing clarification from March 2012 Talk Contents About Wikipedia Add links This page was last edited on 28 June 2018, at 17 : 13 ( UTC ). 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Question: the peculiar institution in southern vernacular was a reference to
Answer: slavery