• "magnolia and moonshine" thesis from plantation records
• slavery "less an business than a life," like a "school" and was not profitable

• slavery not a benevolent school, but a repressive labor system, a moral evil
• "I have assumed that the slaves were merely ordinary human beings, that innately Negroes are after all, only white men with black skins, nothing more, nothing less."

• used psychology of Bruno Bettelheim's "total institutions," not plantation records
• slavery changed personality of slave, created the submissive, shuffling Sambo totally dependent on authoritarian masters, due to infantilisim.

• slaves perserved own identity, rebelled often, but only 9 "rebellions" in 250 "conspiracies" cited

• historical novel based on the 4000-word confession of Turner to lawyer Thomas Gray Oct. 31, 1931, the day after his capture.
• The confession was not authentic, but shaped by a troubled personality, aspiring to white society, secretly yearned for Margaret Whitehead.

• Many small rebellions as slaves acculturated, their work role cushioned the effects of the labor system.

• "no one slave personality; rather, "there was a great variety in slave behavior."

• slavery was profitable, successful, helped by the slaves themselves, "a record of black achievement under adversity."

• master-slave relationship shaped system, slaves became dependent on the paternalism of the ruling class.
• not profitable as a labor system.

• slaves had own culture, families, religion, acted on own beliefs.

• a "black ethos" developed of songs, folk tales, spirituals to create sense of community.

• important ritual of the counterclockwise "ring shout"

• Slave family life was vital to the ability of slaves to endure the system.

Links:

• Antebellum South
• Gone With the Wind
• Chronology of Slavery