Introduction
Walter Johnson's book Soul By Soul: Life Within the Antebellum Market details the New Orleans slave pens in an attempt to provide a more in-depth view of the American slave system.
The Purpose of Johnson's Novel
All of the literature on American slavery has still ignored the point of selling, which Johnson attempted to correct in his novel.
A Multifaceted Perspective
Johnson tried to explore the slave trade from the perspectives of the slave, the dealer, and the slave trader, not just the moment of purchase.
Through the analysis of the interaction between these three principles, it gives a picture of life in the slave pens that is more clear and accurate.
The Brutality of Slavery
This cultural history explains an account of slavery that is gripping at its most brutal form where families were separated, children were sold, and an uncertainty of a new master.
This essay will focus on why Americans in the 19th century wanted to own slaves and how the purchase of slaves reflected on the society, desires, and fears as explained in Walter Johnson's book.
The Need for Slaves in the 19th Century
According to Johnson in his book, Americans in the 19th century felt the need to have slaves because the slave body apart from being depended on to provide economic well-being it was also needed for freedom to be possible (JOHNSON 274).
This meant that for everything to run smoothly in their day to day life there had to be services provided by a slave.
Slaves were used as servants in the house and workers in the field, but then it would depend on their skin tone where they would be placed to work.
The slaves who had a darker skin tone were sold for field hands while the lighter ones worked in the domestic sphere.
The young adult slaves, on the other hand, were sold at a higher price mainly because it was believed that they would last longer and produce children.
Slavery was a trade that gave an economic advantage to the traders and many others.
It was also a way of racial domination where the whites wanted to establish a lasting control over the blacks that is why they viewed them more as property than human beings.
Slavery meant that the structure of white supremacy was hierarchical and patriarchal which was based on masculinist honor and male privilege which was rooted in economic power and raw force (JOHNSON 276).
Slave Ownership and Desires
Slaves were purchased as part of a fantasy to erase the humanity of the slaves and reducing them to puppets that they could control while gaining economically from their suffering.
Buying a slave meant that one would attain a social status as well as a laborer.
Many of the slave owners believed that they were judged by the quality of their slaves thus making them feel that it was crucial to have slaves and most especially the ones that were healthy and strong.
Slavery was a way of establishing an economic foundation which was to be used to support the dominant planter ruling class (Schermerhorn 269).
White slave owners needed the slaves as a way of projecting their desires, fantasies, and hopes.
Buying a slave was a way of achieving intelligence, independence, manhood, social status among others.
During the process of buying a slave, the buyer together with the slave trader did a procedure called race making where they would grade the skin color of the laborers along with associated attributes.
For example, those who were light-skinned were viewed to be more intelligent and best suited for skilled work yet, they were more likely to run away.
This process enabled them to read the bodies of the slaves through race and made them feel they were demonstrating their own mastery.
In a way, the slave owners were affirming their whiteness through the process of race making.
The Reflections of Slaves in the Purchase
The purchase of slaves reflected a society that exploited the humanity of the slaves by dismantling them in the coffles, and later repackaging their bodies in auction houses, showrooms, jails, and pens.
It portrayed a society that did not care about the wellbeing of the black race they were focused on having complete dominion over them as even sometimes there were slaves who were sold on the verge of death from sicknesses such as consumption, gonorrhea, scrofula, and syphilis (King 479).
The purchase of sale also reflected a society that was racist one that judged slaves and graded them for sale by considering the color of their skin, gender, age, height, and weight.
For men, those who were strong were considered to be the top tiers or extra men while the weak ones were known as ordinary men or second rate.
Women also got priced in regards to their skin color whereby the lighter ones were considered to be weak and could not work in the fields they were best suited for the domestic chores.
It was deemed that the blacker one was, the healthier and stronger slave which meant that they were best suited for fieldwork.
Desires Projected Onto Slaves
The purchase of slaves reflected the desires of the buyers through how they packaged them and attributed them to fit what they wanted.
For instance, the buyers projected a fantasy of white masculinity onto the bodies of women who were light-skinned (Monnet 155).
Most light-skinned slave women were sold for sex or companionship to designate a desire that the buyers fancied.
Some of the slave traders and owners would pay top dollar for these women and force them to be their mistresses without even considering their age.
The buying of slaves also reflected a desire to achieve the highest social status and respect as the labor from slaves established an economic advantage.
It revealed people who were hungry for more power and money that is why they preferred buying the young adult slaves as they were still strong and could work more.
This act also reflected the fear that they had of the blacks one day becoming more superior than them.
This is the reason as to why they violated them, separated them from their families, and sold their young children in a bid to destroy their history.
The slave trade provided a limited degree of opportunity for the slaves to shape their future this made it easy for the traders to make them cooperate and erase their humanity.
Conclusion
Soul By Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Market focuses on the domestic slave trade that took place in New Orleans and the slave pen where the bodies of slaves were turned into commodities that shaped the identities of blacks and whites.
The slave owners were the consumers who developed personal characters.
The bodies of slaves were viewed as things that could be graded and evaluated in a market that was based on fantasy such as paternalism.
Slaves were an easy way of establishing economic dominance.
Works Cited
JOHNSON, WALTER. SOUL BY SOUL: life inside the antebellum slave market. TANTOR MEDIA INC, 2017. 272-320
King, Wilma. Stolen childhood: slave youth in nineteenth-Century America. Indiana University Press, 2012. 477-498
Monnet, Agnieszka Soltysik. The Poetics and Politics of the American Gothic: Gender and Slavery in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. Taylor & Francis, 2017. 147-163
Schermerhorn, Calvin. Money over mastery, family over freedom slavery in the antebellum upper South. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. 255-286