Fatal Self-Deception
Subtitle: slaveholding paternalism in the Old South
By: Eugene D. Genovese, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Contributors: Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth, 1941-2007
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 250
ISBN-13: 9781107011649; 9781107605022
Subjects: Plantation workers; Plantation owners; Whites; Slavery; Paternalism; Slaves; Social conditions; History
Description: "Slaveholders perpetuated and rationalized a romanticized version of plantation life. However, masters' relations with white plantation laborers and servants remains a largely unstudied subject. Southerners drew on the work of British and European socialists to conclude that all labor, white and black, suffered de facto slavery, and they championed the South's 'Christian slavery' as the most humane and compassionate of social systems, ancient and modern"--

"Slaveholders were preoccupied with presenting slavery as a benign, paternalistic institution in which the planter took care of his family, and slaves were content with their fate. In this book, Eugene D. Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese discuss how slaveholders perpetuated and rationalized this romanticized version of life on the plantation. Slaveholders' paternalism had little to do with ostensible benevolence, kindness, and good cheer. It grew out of the necessity to discipline and morally justify a system of exploitation. At the same time, this book also advocates the examination of masters' relations with white plantation laborers and servants, a largely unstudied subject. Southerners drew on the work of British and European socialists to conclude that all labor, white and black, suffered de facto slavery, and they championed the South's 'Christian slavery' as the most humane and compassionate of social systems, ancient and modern"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. 'Boisterous passions'; title: 2. The complete household; title: 3. Strangers within the gates; title: 4. Loyal and loving slaves; title: 5. The blacks' best and most faithful friend; title: 6. Guardians of a helpless race; title: 7. Devotion unto death