"Don't let de paddle rollers catch you": punishment, control, and resistance in the slave South

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dc.contributor.authorViar, Kristin D.en
dc.contributor.departmentHistoryen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T21:43:52Zen
dc.date.adate2008-08-25en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T21:43:52Zen
dc.date.issued1997en
dc.date.rdate2008-08-25en
dc.date.sdate2008-08-25en
dc.description.abstractThis thesis explores the nature of white-slave relations in the U.S. South during the thirty-year period that preceded the Civil War. It asks one central question: How did slaveowners, overseers, patrollers, and nonslaveowners attempt to physically and psychologically punish slaves and control their behavior? An analysis of the Virginia ex-slave narratives serves as a case study of the ways white agents of authority treated slaves, and state slave codes and state supreme court cases provide information on the legal aspects of slave treatment and limits on white behavior. Additional sources that shed light on antebellum race relations include fugitive slave accounts, slave autobiographies, articles in Southern agricultural journals by owners and overseers, and white travelers’ accounts. An examination of these sources shows that slave treatment was fundamentally coercive; that the threat of violence by whites against slaves was an inseparable element of all white-slave interactions; that slave punishment and abuse was frequent and ritualized; that white and slave perceptions of slave punishment differed significantly; and that slaves influenced white behavior, refused to legitimize white authority, and actively resisted abuse.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Artsen
dc.format.extentiv, 83 leavesen
dc.format.mediumBTDen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.otheretd-08252008-162849en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-08252008-162849/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/44449en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartLD5655.V855_1997.V537.pdfen
dc.relation.isformatofOCLC# 37320092en
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectpunishmenten
dc.subjectslaveryen
dc.subjectSouthen
dc.subject.lccLD5655.V855 1997.V537en
dc.title"Don't let de paddle rollers catch you": punishment, control, and resistance in the slave Southen
dc.typeThesisen
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten
thesis.degree.disciplineHistoryen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Artsen

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