Title: Speculators and slaves
First published: 1989
Description: In this groundbreaking work, Michael Tadman establishes that all levels of white society in the antebellum South were deeply involved in a massive interregional trade in slaves. Using countless previously untapped manuscript sources, he documents black resilience in the face of the pervasive indifference of slaveholders toward slaves and their families. This new paperback edition of Speculators and Slaves offers a substantial new Introduction that advances a major thesis of master-slave relationships. By exploring the gulf between the slaveholders' self-image as benevolent paternalists and their actual behavior, Tadman critiques the theories of close accommodation and paternalistic hegemony that are currently influential.
Subjects: History, Slave-trade, Slave traders, Slaves, Social conditions, Slaveholders, Slave labor, Slavery, united states, Slave trade
Places: Southern States, United States
Time periods: 19th century, 1775-1865
LC classification: HT985