I'm currently deep in the production on the slavery and slave rebellion episodes that will be coming next in my podcast. I have struggled a lot with throat clearing, perhaps too much, but it's eye-opening to see a more nuanced view of slavery, not that it wasn't bad, but that it was normal and slaves did enjoy moments of control.
I'm sure you are right that the idea of slavery in our collective unconscious comes from the antebellum period. It was not entirely different before the revolution for many, many (maybe most) slaves. But, there are stories about slaves selling their time and goods, owning property of their own (which was respected when they were sold), and wearing fancy clothes. These are facets that I knew nothing about, and it's been fascinating to learn.
Thanks to you and Isaac for bringing this story to light, I will have to dig into it when I start my Revolution research.
Slavery is the next frontier for my own work (specifically that of the Barbary Pirates; can’t resist controversy after all lol), but I’m seriously under-educated on it (despite reading a few books on it), so that really explains my throat clearing. But yeah the complexity of slavery is, as best I can tell, a simple anti-human cruelty that contained multitudes, so to speak.
I'm currently deep in the production on the slavery and slave rebellion episodes that will be coming next in my podcast. I have struggled a lot with throat clearing, perhaps too much, but it's eye-opening to see a more nuanced view of slavery, not that it wasn't bad, but that it was normal and slaves did enjoy moments of control.
I'm sure you are right that the idea of slavery in our collective unconscious comes from the antebellum period. It was not entirely different before the revolution for many, many (maybe most) slaves. But, there are stories about slaves selling their time and goods, owning property of their own (which was respected when they were sold), and wearing fancy clothes. These are facets that I knew nothing about, and it's been fascinating to learn.
Thanks to you and Isaac for bringing this story to light, I will have to dig into it when I start my Revolution research.
Slavery is the next frontier for my own work (specifically that of the Barbary Pirates; can’t resist controversy after all lol), but I’m seriously under-educated on it (despite reading a few books on it), so that really explains my throat clearing. But yeah the complexity of slavery is, as best I can tell, a simple anti-human cruelty that contained multitudes, so to speak.