Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947; reprint ed., Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).
How did differing patterns of slavery in the Americas lead to differing patterns of post‐ emancipation race relations in the Americas; specifically, why is Latin America now a better place for people of African descent than the United States?
A thesis in history is about why or how something happened in the past This requires a “something that happened in the
past” – a historical phenomenon
“the Negro” … “is excluded and denied” in the present‐day [1940s] US, but not in Latin America (42). How did this come to be? What did the history of slavery have to do with the formation of the present outcome?
Latin America is a better place for people of African descent than the United States. 2. Differences in the institutions of slavery in these places led to predictable differences in post‐emancipation race relations. 3. There were important differences in the institutions of slavery in the New World. 1.
As evident in patterns of emancipation, slavery (and hence post‐emancipation race relations) in the United States was harsher than in Latin America because ‐‐ due to a legacy of Catholicism and Roman law ‐‐ Latin American slavery recognized to a greater degree the moral value of the slave.
1. 2. 3.
4.
Slavery in the United States was “harsher” than slavery in Latin America. Patterns of emancipation reflect differences in harshness. Differences in harshness were due to differences in the degrees to which slavery recognized the “moral value” or humanity of the slave. Slave systems differed in the moral value each placed on the slave as a result of a legacy of Roman law and Catholicism.
The key is differing processes of emancipation. The processes were different. b/c emancipation in
the US “denied to the negro the moral status required for effective legal freedom” (42) Emancipation in the US “denied to the negro the moral status required for effective legal freedom” (42)
And where did these different processes come from? From distinct histories. b/c “the institution of
slavery was developed in a different moral and legal setting” in each place. Everything revolves around the “moral condition” of the slave. differences in the “moral condition” of the slave evident in:
(a) Status of the slave in law Was there a pre‐existing tradition of slave law? Was the law accessible to the enslaved? Did the law protect slaves from maltreatment? How easy is it for slaves to buy their freedom?
(b) Role of church Catholic church recognizes fundamental
humanity of slave, e.g., ease of manumission
(c) Social policy Historical experience with slavery
all this makes manumission much more possible in Latin America than in Anglo‐ America What is the connection between ease of manumission
and freedpeoples’ welfare and status after manumission? It is evident in different ways the institution ends in different areas: in Latin America, where boundaries between slavery and freedom were more permeable, slavery ends w/out bloodshed; in US, where boundaries are strict, it takes the CW. [105ff]
And where manumission was easy, life after slavery was better. [69, 91‐93, 100] “Endowing the slave with a moral personality before emancipation, before he achieved a legal equality, made the transition from freedom easy, and his incorporation into the free community natural.” [100]
There is something called the “moral value” of the slave, based on law and church ordinance. 2. We can judge the “harshness” of slavery in terms of the “moral value” placed on the slave. 3. The nature of slavery determines the nature of post‐emancipation race relations. 1.
Patterns of emancipation reflect differences in the “harshness” of slave systems? Catholicism granted the slaves more “humanity” than Protestantism? Were pathways to emancipation really more available in the Brazilian case?
Was there really a connection between ease of manumission and ease of abolition? Were there differences between how these societies viewed the moral status of the slaves? Were postemancipation outcomes really dependent upon character of slavery and/or abolition?
If the method of abolition in Brazil contributed to a peaceful end to slavery, why exactly was violence a component of abolition elsewhere? Is (was) Brazil really such a relative paradise on issues of race? What other factors might explain differing outcomes in each place?
Maybe New World Slavery was not so new? Can we see in Tannenbaum a rejoinder to Mier and Kopytoff’s rigid dichotomy between African and New World Slavery? Perhaps the “moral” status of the slave in Latin America
suggests the capacity to incorporate the enslaved into New World society as “persons”?
How do we square this with Smallwood’s portrait of the extreme chattelization (dehumanization) of Africans caught up in the slave trade? If Africans in the trade were commodified out of social existence,
there seems to have been room in at least some New World slave societies for incorporation
Does Sweet’s portrayal of Domingos Alvares support or undermine the “moral status” argument? Domingos was able to reconstruct community in highly limited ways But Sweet’s understanding of manumission challenges Tannenbaum
directly
Winthrop Jordan suggested that despite a common tradition of racial thinking, British colonies in the West Indies and mainland North America evolved quite differences experiences of race. Does his work suggest a critique of Tannenbaum’s? In Jordan’s work, abstract structures (legal reasoning, racial reasoning)
gave way to materials conditions, which conditioned the shape of race life
Reading Berlin, does Tannenbaum’s rigid dichotomy between Latin American and British slavery hold up? Berlin also demonstrates the significance of material
factors (particularly, the racial and demographic consequences of the crop that is grown) in determining outcomes He also offers examples of the kind of flexibility and range in American slavery that Tannenbaum denies
The acceptance of the idea of the spiritual equality of all men made for a friendly, an elastic milieu within which social change could occur in peace. On the other hand, where the slave was denied a moral status, the law and the mores hardened and became stratified, and their historical outcome proved to be violence and revolution (vii-ix).
In spite of his [”the Negro’s”] complete identification with the mores of the United States, he is excluded and denied. This barrier . . . has served to deny to him the very things that are of greatest value among us — equality of opportunity for growth and development as a man among men. . . . The Emancipation may have legally freed the Negro, but it failed morally to free the white man, and by that failure it denied to the Negro the moral status requisite for effective legal freedom (42).
But this did not occur in [Latin America] . . . because the very nature of the institution of slavery was developed in a different legal and moral setting, and in turn shaped the political and ethical biases that have manifestly separated the United States from the other parts of the New World in this respect. (42)
This body of law, containing the legal tradition of the Spanish people and also influenced by the Catholic doctrine of the equality of all men in the sight of God, was biased in favor of freedom and opened the gates to manumission when slavery was transferred to the New World. . . . A hundred social devices narrowed the gap between bondage and liberty, encouraged the master to release his slave, and the bondsman to achieve freedom on his own account (53-54).
If the Latin-American environment was favorable to freedom, the British and American were hostile. Legal obstacles were placed in the way of manumission, and it was discouraged in every other manner. The presumption was in favor of slavery (65).
Just as the favoring of manumission is perhaps the most characteristic and significant feature of the Latin-American slave system, so opposition to manumission and denial of opportunities for it are the primary aspect of slavery in the British West Indies and in the United States. The frequency and ease of manumission, more than any other factor, influence the character and ultimate outcome of the two slave systems in this hemisphere. For the ease of manumission bespeaks, even if only implicitly, a friendly attitude toward the person whose freedom is thus made possible and encouraged, just as the systematic obstruction of manumissions implies a complete, if unconscious, attitude of hostility to those whose freedom is opposed or denied (69).
Under the influence of the law and religion, the social milieu in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies made easy room for the Negroes passing from slavery to freedom. The older Mediterranean tradition of the defense of the slave, combined with the effect of Latin-American experience, had prepared an environment into which the Negro freed from slavery could fit without visible handicap. Slavery itself carried no taint. . . . The law and religion both frowned upon any attempts to convert this into a means of further oppression (89).
The difference between the systems lies in the fact that in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies the cruelties and brutalities were against the law, that they were punishable, and that they were perhaps not so frequent as in the British West Indies and the North American colonies. . . . More important was the fact that the road was open to freedom, and, once free, the Negro enjoyed, on the whole, a legal status equal to that of any other subject of the King or to that of any other citizen of the state. . . . (94-95)
Whereas freedom in one place [Latin America] meant moral status, in the other it meant almost the opposite. In the British West Indies the achievement of manumission merely involved a release from the obligation to serve a special master. It did not carry with it any new rights. . . . (94-95)
In the United States a very similar policy toward freedmen developed. An act of manumission was merely a withdrawal of the rights of the master. It did not confer citizenship upon the freedmen. . . . The law, the church, and social policy all conspired to prevent the identification of the liberated Negro with the community. He was to be kept as a separate, a lesser, being. In spite of being manumitted, he was not considered a free moral agent (94-95).
1‐6: intro 6‐14: population enumeration (background) 14‐39: slave trade (doesn’t contribute to his argument) 39‐43: thesis statement 43‐48: concept of “moral equality” and “personality” of the enslaved 48‐61: ease of manumission (legal and social) 61‐65: ease of manumission (supported by church) 65‐71: difficulty of manumission in UK/US case 71‐82: further limitations on moral status of the slave in UK/US case 82‐91: differing roles of church in each case 91‐93: how life in freedom differed (differing ease of incorporation of the freed into society) 93‐105: outcomes: differences on equality in freedom 105‐12: outcomes: differences in ways slavery itself ended 112‐: outcomes: differences on persistence of racial differences and categories
What explains the different status of “the negro” today in Brazil and the US? The difference owed to differing patterns of
emancipation, with Latin American systems providing easier means of freedom and the Anglo‐ American systems harder This was due to historical differences in law, church, and social policy And where emancipation was easier, status after freedom was more equitable
