This thesis examines the world of enslaved men in the antebellum southern United States. Using oral interviews conducted with formerly enslaved people, full-length slave autobiographies, as well as enslaved folklore, plantation records, trial papers, and petitions, it underscores that the lives of enslaved men were intertwined with one another, and that male interdependence was a fact of enslaved life. It examines how pursuits such as drinking, gambling, wrestling, hunting, and evading the patrol gangs brought enslaved men together in an all-male subculture through which they constructed their own independent notions of masculinity, friendship, solidarity and resistance. The thesis argues that homosocial company was integral to the gendered identity and self-esteem of enslaved men. The emotional landscape they created with other men offered them a vital mutual support network through which to resist the dehumanising features of enslaved life. Through each other, they forged an oppositional masculine culture that defied and subverted the authority of the slaveholder that structured their everyday lives. Despite the controls designed to locate the enslaved in plantation space, enslaved men illicitly left plantations at night, evaded patrol gangs, engaged in theft, and spread news, gossip and rumours from plantation to plantation across the South. Evidence indicates that this distinct male world proved the foundation for conspiracy, rebellion and running away.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:541150 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Lussana, Sergio |
| Publisher | University of Warwick |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/38179/ |
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