This week's reading highlighted the personal and economic relationship slaveowners had with their slaves in the nineteenth century antebellum South. Our first reading dealt with the hardship many slaves were exposed to in regards to epilepsy. Boster discusses the story of a fifteen-year-old slave girl who is tried for arson, who also is found out to have epilepsy. Epilepsy in the nineteenth century was thought to be some sort of possession, hysteria, or psychopathy and was therefore impossible to treat as a legitimate illness by the doctors of the time. In the 1800s, however, it was seen as a serious medical issue. Epilepsy through history, as Boster points out, is most commonly attributed to slaves in multiple cultures and time periods. We now know this anomaly is a result of the disease's association with physical trauma and onslaughts of these seizures can be provoked by physical and emotional stress. Boster shows us that epilepsy was considered to be so serious it was placed higher than ulcers and asthma in many cases. She also says epilepsy was used as an umbrella term for "unsoundness."
Additionally, because epilepsy was so common within slave populations, the disease subsequently lowered the value of the slave in the eyes of the slaveholder. Both Boster and Davis point out that this behavior on the part of the slaveholder/buyer was essential to understanding the underlying nature of slavery in the nineteenth century antebellum South.
The ownership of a quality body was very important to the slave-buying class. Because buying another human was so expensive (especially if you planned to own more than a dozen) slaveowners used great care when buying slaves. As Davis points out they wanted to "promote good health and the natural increase in the size of slave families." Oddly enough, he also points out that slaveholders wanted to provide a high standard of living for their investments. From a modern perspective this strikes us as completely counter-intuitive because of the conditions we know slaves endured. This brings me to my first question: Davis says that the slaveowners were convinced that their best interest and their slave's best interest were identical, and an ideal living quality was essential to a wealthy planation. All it would take is one look at slave quarters and know that a "high standard of living" was not available for most slaves. So why were slaveowners convinced of this? Did they think they were fulfilling their "best interest" even though many of their slaves were ill and living in poor shelter?
My second question returns to epilepsy: Why was epilepsy (and all the things it meant during the 1800s) so important to slave owners/ buyers? Why was there such a fixation surrounding a disease that was fairly common for slaves (ie more so than constantly debilitating diseases/disorders like asthma and arthritis)?
This week, the running theme between the two readings seemed to be the importance of physical condition for slaves and slave owners looking to make a profit. In “An Epeleptick Bondswoman,” Dea H. Boster highlighted the effects of epilepsy on a slave’s life and sale. I found it interesting when Boster noted that “A slave could be returned and the purchaser reimbursed if the slave experienced fits in the month following sale” (273-274). Here, it’s clear that epilepsy was a liability for slave sales and a prominent issue. In answer to Simone’s question, the sheer frequency of epilepsy was important to slave buyers and sellers because it could easily jeopardize a sale, making a slave’s worth drop considerably if they couldn’t sell. Or, it could deplete the slave’s value further if they were hindered by their disability on the job. The “fixation” Simone mentioned, I think, was likely caused because of the mythology surrounding epilepsy during that time period: since epilepsy was a mark of possession or evil spirits in general, there was fear about the illness, both because watching a seizure in and of itself is quite frightening for those who don’t understand the circumstances and because people at the time tied a dark and sometimes demonic causation to the illness since they didn’t understand it. This connotation of evil separated epilepsy from other illness such as asthma and arthritis.
ReplyDeleteIn relation to Simone’s first question, I think that the “high standard of living” may seem to imply that they all had clean houses, plenty of food, and soft beds to sleep in, but I think that the reason that they convinced themselves the squalid conditions they offered were of high standard was multifaceted: the high standard of living had to include little or no monetary draw back, or it would not have been the highest standard for the owners, and that there was still this sentiment floating around that the slaves were being saved from their savage lives in Africa, so what they were provided with could have been the highest standard of living for all they knew.
ReplyDeleteIn relation to Simone’s second question, I agree with Kayla in that there was such a stigma against epilepsy because it seemed to be debilitating to the point that slaves would be unable to work, to fetch a good dime at market, or even be a profitable investment.
The fascination with epilepsy in relation to slavery was mainly to do with control over bodies and physical forms. Epilepsy as a disease took away slaves' control over their bodies. Since slaveowners controlled the behaviors of the slaves by proxy, the slaves' loss of control over their bodies resulted in the masters losing the only way with which they were able to coerce the slaves into doing what they wanted, which was through speaking. The slaveowners essentially saw epilepsy as a way of subverting their dominance over the slaves.
ReplyDeleteI see your point Simone that it seems rather paradoxical to claim that the owner's interests were in those of minting good living quarters for the slaves, but I think it actually makes sense. Although we can clearly see that the slave's quarters were terrible, I think that from the owner's point of view they were actually decent slave quarters that allowed the slaves the necessary components of life. Whether that is true or not is a different story, but I do think that the owners believed that the slaves had to be taken care of to some degree otherwise there would be a decrease in the quality of labor, however I think what they considered to be taken care of was much different than what we do. The slave owners as we discussed actually in many circumstances felt that they were doing the slaves a favor by simply providing them with the meager shelter they did, which would explain the separation between what we believe to be a reasonable life style to what they did.
ReplyDeleteIn response to your second question, I tend to agree with Trevor that epilepsy was simply a factor that inhibited the owners from controlling their slaves to the fullest extent and decreases the ability of the slaves to work at maximum efficiency. Similar to any modern corporation, if the owner's employees are always sick or injured, they will be losing money relative to what they could be making. Therefore the owners found it particularly important for their slaves to avoid contracting epilepsy.
maintaining. lol.
DeleteIn this week’s reading it was interesting to read about how epilepsy had an effect on a slave’s life and also how it changed the value of them in the market because there was so real treatment for it. To answer your first question, slave owners were convinced that the housing they had for the slaves was standard because most had standard homes for slaves where they had access to all of the basic needs. Trying to understand why they were convinced of this is hard to imagine because today we have a different view of equality. Like many other things regarding slavery, you have to go back and understand that at that time so people thought they gave their slaves their basic needs and some still believed that by enslaving them they were saving the slaves.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your second question, epilepsy might have been so important to the slave owners because they didn’t have treatment for it and because it decreased their economic gain or profit from that slave. Even if it was common it doesn’t mean that they didn’t lose as much or that it’d be any less important to them.
In response to your first question Simone, a lot of slave holders believed themselves to be "paternalistic" and believed that their interests were also the slave's interests. In their world and strange rational, they convinced themselves that they the relationship was mutually beneficial. It is almost hard to believe that slave owners felt offended by the escape of their slaves.
ReplyDeleteBoster's text of how slaves were affected by epilepsy was less surprising due to the fact that in modern days, we know epilepsy is linked to physical trauma. It was interesting to see that 14.5% of slaves suffering from nervous or mental disorders were categorized as epileptic or "epileptic-like". I agree with Kayla that physical health played a factor in the price of the slave and therefore the economic aspect intrigued slave owners. There was also so much they did not know about the disease and a lot of folklore surrounding epilepsy.
As Simone mentions, both authors highlight the masters’ views and perceptions of the slave trade and slave ownership. As Davis points out, this is a frequently overlooked perspective when looking at United States slavery. Yet again, Davis also toys with the question of whether the slave trade was truly just a business or if it happened to be so much more, including emotion and mental “games” between slaves and their masters.
ReplyDeleteTo address Simone’s first question, the masters likely thought the slaves liked them because although the conditions were poor, they may have thought the conditions they provided were not quite as bad as other plantations. Another less popular theory could be based on the white supremacist notion that these slaves were immature like children, or were even animals. Thus slave masters may have thought they would have been obedient and submissive regardless of their living conditions.
Lastly, going back to the “power struggle” between the masters and slaves, this thought of slaves testing masters’ boundaries, lacing insults in praise, etc. caught my attention. This led me to the realization that slave ownership was not a cut-and-dry dominance over slaves, and resistance to orders was inevitable. Not only this, but some slaves had strategies to be sold for higher prices, which was esteemed by both slaves and owners. Due to this fact, does that mean the institution of slavery was so strong that some slaves fed into it?
Here's Matt's comment:
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the first question, although it seems obsurd to us today that slave owners would consider their slaves’ living condition as “high standard,” I think it is consistent with other aspects of slavery. For example, the “paternalism” of slavery also seems to be obsurd in that it is hard to imagine that slave owners actually thought they were benefiting the slaves. In the same vain, I am not all that surprised that slave owners thought/attempted to make their slaves’ conditions what they considered to be “high standard,” because it is consistent with other delusions within slavery.
In regards to the last question, I think the fixation behind epilepsy is attributed to the fact that it was understood so little. There was seemingly no cure for it, and its effects were strange. Therefore, I think slave owners cared about it that much simply because it was not understood/misunderstood.
Here is Julia's comment:
ReplyDeleteTo answer Simone’s first question I believe that many slave owners were unable to resolve the paradox that they themselves had created. They wanted to believe that they were doing the best they could for their slaves but they could also not been seen as being too “soft” of a slave owner or they might have risked a revolt or their social standing may have taken a dive. Because of these two conflicting ideas they might have thought that they were providing for their slaves and in some cases they went to great lengths to cure their slaves of illnesses hiring doctors and the like. On the other hand they were going to do the minimal amount that was necessary to keep their slaves working because it was all about profit margins. An owner would not spend double the amount of money that they needed to in order to keep a slave alive.
To answer Simone’s other question I believe that epilepsy was the focus of many people’s worries because it was often unpredictable and that made it much harder to deal with. I also believe that the lack of knowledge about the disease contributed to the fact that many were so afraid of it. That lack of knowledge made it very hard to treat and meant that it was far less likely that an owner would get a return on their investment.
As many of my classmates pointed out, the Davis and Boster readings paired nicely this week. Like many others, I thought it was interesting to see the economic disadvantage that epilepsy took in the slave marketplace, because, as Davis states, protecting the value of their capital investment” (194) while maximizing productivity was of the best interest of the slave owner. In relation to Boster’s reading, I found it especially surprising to see, as discussed in class, that epilepsy “could be constructed as a direct result of torturous slaveholders and used to exemplify the brutality of the peculiar institution”(287); in addition, as Kayla first points out, the disease could also “jeopardize a sale” of a slave. However, it is even more surprising to see that the conditions suffered in 19th century Southern slavery were not seen as “etiological explanations… in mainstream medical literature and planters’ medical guides that discuss epilepsy in slaves” (285). This reinforced the owners’ mindsets that beatings of and brutality towards slaves were appropriate punishments because their actions were disavowed as an actual cause for the illness or pain. As Davis later discusses, “every immigrant group faced this volatile question of acculturation,” (200) which is precisely the plight suffered by epileptic blacks; epileptic slaves did not fit into the social construct of blacks in the antebellum South.
ReplyDelete