Slavery And Freedom An Interpretation Of The Old South Chapter Summaries

Oakes, James. Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1990. The novel, Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South, James Oakes compares the lives of enslaved African Americans and their owners. It explains very thoroughly every aspect and detail of the Old South and its policies on slavery. He uses helpful quotes from slaves and their owners back in that time period to show you how they thought of themselves and their slaves. The “Old South” time period was from 1790 to 1860.

James Oakes is an American historian, and a Distinguished Professor of History and Graduate School Humanities professor at the graduate center of the University of New York, where he teaches history courses

Slavery can be defined as a system where people are treated almost like a piece of property; they are entitled to their owner. It is to be unfree, or the complete denial of freedom, having limited or no rights at all. Slavery has existed well before written history and has existed in many cultures. It was a tremendously unfair system that slaves had no say in or control. No matter what they tried or did, they could not prevent it. Louisiana laws said that slaves had no brother, no sister, no mother, no father, no daughter, no son, and no ancestors (4). Which basically meant mothers or fathers could not tell their children what to do if they had the chance. James Oakes explains that the slave people were outliers, not because they were black or where they came from, but because they were so cut off from society no one really knew they were there, making it basically a system of social death (4). Society is least free when people are involved in an absolutely inequitable relationship they cannot escape. If you were an African American during this time, it was nothing but hell your whole life. From the time African Americans were born, and from the time they died, they were enslaved during this time period. At birth, most babies were purchased or traded and torn away from their mothers, most of the time never seeing their mothers again. But in more recent times, slavery has been outlawed in all

Some say there are still roughly about 20 million slaves worldwide. Chattel slaves, or a living tool, as the Greeks explained them as nothing less than flesh and bone (5). Although the slave owner had a strong power over the slave, that power had no part in any other societies. The services and actions required to repay the loan, was mostly done with more time enslaved (5). Slaves outside of their polity could not be demanded by their allegiance or expect any legal and political rights within that allegiance (4). In Slavery and Freedom: An Interpretation of the Old South it talks about instances where slaves were fed up with slave owners orders and tried to escape. And in both instances, both slaves were shot, but not killed. One of these cases ended in the master being indicted by their actions, and one ended in the slave being sentenced to death. The point is, this was a not an uncommon thing to happen in the south. Slaves were fed up with slavery and wanted to put an end to it. Oakes always interprets in a way that whatever slave owners have, the slaves do