Philip Morgan "British encounters with Africans and African-Americans, circa 1600-1780" in Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan, eds., Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (Chapel Hill, 1981), 395-436.

Seeking to set encounter in an Atlantic perspective, Morgan relates the tale of an Ibo boy who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1756. The boy experiences horrible cruelty and also some relatively decent treatment once he's accepted as member of a crew on a British ship and then traveled the world as a black mariner. Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano), as he became know, was to be a traveler in Africa, Britain and the New World over the next 40 years ties together the three areas of black-white contact in the 18th C. Quickly citing some of the more impressive demographic statistics (black slaves in the Caribbean, for example), he goes on to say that:

The differential migration flows and the survival and fertility rates of whites and blacks, just as much as Equiano's manifold adventures, underlie an obvious, but all too easily overlooked fact: encounter between whites and blacks varied enormously. They varied most notable across space, over time, by social rank, and according to arena of contact. All of these variations influenced the ways in which Africans and British whites experienced each other. (p. 162-3)

I

Morgan differentiates between slave holding and slave societies. In slave holding societies, the numbers of slaves and their relative importance to the health of the economy is small. IN slave societies, the labor of slaves is the mainstay of the economy and the numbers of slaves are necessarily much higher. In the former race relations are more flexible, and in the latter they become hardened.

As examples of slave holding societies, Morgan points to 17th C Britain, New England, Bermuda and Virginia. In all of these places, slaves were not clearly delineated from non-free white labor, they were rarely confined to the drudgery of field work, they could often do work for pay and they were even on occasion allowed to purchase their own freedom. In Britain, slave owning was seen as a sign of "luxury," the blacker the more exotic. In slave holding societies as opposed to slave societies, there doesn't seem to be an equation of black = evil.

Morgan also points to frequent interracial sexual relations between black males and white females. In colonial New England, interracial marriages were legal in the 18th Century. Sex between black slaves and indentured servants seems to have been relatively common in early Virginia. Morgan points to the incident where an Irish domestic (Nell Butler) indentured to Lord Baltimore insisted on marrying one of his slaves (Charles) despite the fact that this meant bondage for herself and her children (Perhaps follow up on this in The Devil's Lane?)

II

In contrast to these four slave holding societies, Morgan explores three slave societies. These societies grappled with the consequences of importing large numbers of alien black slaves. Ruling elites rigidified the slave holding system in these areas, more clearly defining the legal boundaries between slave and free, severely limiting the kind of work that slaves were allowed to do, and harshly punishing interracial sex where black males were involved.

In the mid-17th C Barbados became Britain's first slave society. Richard Dunn has noted the headlong plunge of the planters into a slave society, and Bryan Edwards has pointed to the key role played by fear in this new slave society. Keeping black slaves at arm's length, Dunn's conclusion is that the Barbadians were the first to portray the blacks as brutes and sub-human. And above all, the punishments for black men's sexual activity with white women was punished by burning at the stake and/or castration. Jamaica has 4 to 1 ration of black to white in 1690. By 1780 it was 12 to 1 and there were more than a quarter million slaves on Jamaica. As would be expected, the slave code on Jamaica was amongst the most brutal and masters thought up their own punishments outside of the code that were even harsher. Thomas Thistlewood applied face brands, rubbed urine in wounds, and applied Derby's dose for eating sugar cane (the slave Derby defecated into the culprit's mouth and their mouth was then gagged shut for several hours). (p. 175) South Carolina was a slave society form it's inception and it displayed all of cruelty of Jamaica and Barbados from the very start. Indeed the South Carolina slave code was modeled on the Barbados slave code. Not unsurprisingly, the most significant slave revolt in the 18th C took place in the SC low country.

As time went on, relations became less severely oppressive. Morgan points to three areas in which this happened - economic roles, sexual roles and access to freedom. In terms of economic roles, slaves in slave societies slowly began to take on supervisory, domestic and supervisory roles. There emerged a significant skilled or semi-skilled slaves, which in turn introduced a new element into master-slave relations. As Clement Caines noted, cane boilers on Jamaica became increasingly valued and well treated by masters. Those working as drivers, domestics and tradesmen could get better food, clothes and even their own house. In terms of sexual relations, a pattern of exploitation of black women by white men developed that Morgan points out may not have been as simply exploitative as some have assumed. In Jamaica and other plantation island, female slaves were more likely to be manumitted than male. Female slaves used sex to gain freedom as sex acted as a "racial solvent." (p. 179) Where there were more white women, there was less open race mixing, but it still did occur (witness the American south and middle colonies). Increasingly slaves in Jamaica and to a lesser degree in Barbados gained their freedom and formed a third group in a system that only had room for two groups.

II

Morgan observes that slavery spread along an increasing slave frontier. Moving ever westward, British colonies moved the slave system from the Caribbean into the mainland. At the same time, British traders on the Gold Coast of Africa entered an alliance with black slave traders on the Western coast of Africa to exploit the black masses. Yet on the Gold Coast the European traders intermarried with black slaves, who even inherited their estates and became wealthy. There is evidence that slavery on the frontier of slave societies was less hardened than elsewhere. In Honduras and the Cayman Islands, slaves were known to cut logs and fish for their masters. This same pattern emerged in very early S. Carolina, where slaves cleared land, worked with wood, cultivated provisions and raised cattle. Because these societies had few white women, the white males took black female concubines. Mulatto children produced by these unions were sometimes manumitted, creating a free black population. In the borderlands, slaves also served military functions in fighting Indian wars. Many blacks served as armed militiamen in the Yamasee War 1718 in early S Carolina, but as rice culture began to dominate white began to fear armed blacks and relegated them to field work. Some blacks on the frontier escaped to form maroon colonies, as was the case in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. Maroons in Florida allied with Indians to fight against whites, and there are many other parallels between Indian and Maroon. Turning in the end of this section to the life in towns, Morgan points out that the visible threat posed by black slaves in towns lead to greater harshness of slave conditions in the towns. White artisans also resented the economic competition which slaves posed. Yet there was also a countervailing set of forces that worked to loosen these strictures. In Kingston, Jamaica, Bridgetown, Barbados and Charleston, South Carolina slaves did in fact perform extra compensated labor. Diverse living opportunities, miscegenation and havens for run away slaves to hide amongst the free blacks and mulattos served to open up even greater flexibility in urban environments.

III

Black-White contact was often shaped by class interests as well. In situations where lower class whites found their interests similar to black slaves or freedmen, it was not uncommon for them to band together against elite whites. Morgan points to the case of David Spens, a free black in Scotland whom the authorities were seeking to re-enslave. Miners (colliers) in Scotland raised substantial sums for his legal defense. Seen by the mine owners as dark, dirty and sub-human themselves, the colliers were natural allies of Mr. Spens.

In other situations where blacks posed little threat to poor whites' economic interests, there could also be close ties. This held true throughout the British Empire on maritime vessels, as black and white sailors seems to have easy interaction. Witness the life story of Olaudah Equiano. Witness also the participation of blacks and indentured servants together in Bacon's Rebellion. In the British Caribbean (particularly Barbados), the Irish and Scots mingled with blacks to the extent that blacks sometimes spoke with a brogue. Irish mothers even carried their babies in the West Indian fashion on their hips.

As Edmund S. Morgan pointed out in American Slavery, American Freedom, the late 17th C saw a class rapprochement between elite and poor whites at the expense of the poor white-black alliances of the earlier 17th C. As more blacks arrived from Africa, legal barriers between whites and blacks arose, fostering antagonism by favoring whites over blacks at the law.

Class antagonisms also developed within the black slave population as masters increasingly differentiated between slave drivers and common slaves. Maters also increasingly showed preference toward Creole slaves over recent imports from Africa. Favoring the Creoles with better jobs and living conditions, masters believed Creoles to be crafty, audacious, saucy, deceitful, but not sub-human. Certain particularly clever slaves impressed their masters, as was the case with some Moslem slaves who showed knowledge of Arabic and the Koran. Even field hands could win their masters' respect, as Richard Dunn's preference for Coromantines shows. It was also not always the case the masters preferred light skinned creoles as sexual partners.

Morgan turns next to focus on the ambiguous role of the "slave driver," the classic "man in the middle." Elevated above their fellows and invested with authority to produce results in the fields, the driver was also given favors not available to his fellows. In many instances, drivers showed tremendous loyalty to their masters, as the example of the Jamaican driver who bargained shrewdly with the merchant in his master's best interests. In the ultimate test of loyalty, the slave insurrection, drivers could go either way. In the 1832-3 Jamaican uprising, Samuel Williams, convinced his crew to stay loyal to the whites. Yet, many other slave drivers participated (even lead) slave rebellions in Jamaica and elsewhere. The Tobago conspiracy of 1801 was lead by drivers.

Concluding this section with the a brief consideration of the role of black slave women in New World slavery, he notes that planters were likely to use women for the most back breaking field labor because they proved more hearty than males. Yet the "sedentary, contentious, and resilient slave women played vital roles in fashioning black culture and guiding cultural exchanges with whites." (p. 203)

IV

This section focuses on black-white cultural exchange, or the "clash of cultures" in the areas of language, music, the economy and general attitudes. Places with close contact and small black populations certainly had cross cultural exchange, but especially societies with huge black populations like Barbados and Jamaica that tried to keep blacks confined were subject to these effects.

In an interesting twist on African Cultural Holocaust (which Butler claims happened with African religion), Morgan points to the survival and adaptation of African language systems. By "grafting' European words onto African grammar and syntax, the language system survived. Whites even adopted some of the African words and at times even the grammar and phraseology. This was particularly true in Barbados, but to a limited extent it also happened in Jamaica. On the American mainland, travelers commented on immigrant picking up words and phrases from black language. In parts of South Carolina and Georgia, white and blacks spoke strongly African influenced Creole called Gullah. Though linguists debate which African languages influenced Gullah, there is little debate over the assertion that Gullah is a Creole derived language. Manner of speaking was also influenced from African origins:

In fact, black speech was peppered with proverbs, which which were a highly prestigious form of speech in many African languages. The verbal dexterity of Caribbean and North American blacks, evident in their rapping, rhyming, and playing the dozens (verbal contests, usually insulting), suggest another continuity. (pp. 206-7)

Much the same pattern of internal continuities and external adaptations also appears in black music. Harkening back to the work of Melville Herskovitz, he claims that

African-American music developed in ways akin to the formation of creole languages. A basic grammar, as it were, with an emphasis on the importance of music and dance in everyday life and the role of rhythm and percussion in musical style, survived the middle passage. (p. 208)

18th C Virginians danced to Negro music played on banjos and fiddles.

In the economic realm, exchange also took place. Morgan joins A. Crosby in pointing out the movement of plant species from the old world to the new, this time from Africa to the more torrid zones of the Caribbean and the lower North American colonies. Among the African imports were great millet, pearl millet, bananas, plantains, eddoes, the "Guinea" or "Negro" yam, and akee. Low country South Carolina slaves introduced sesame seeds into the diet and sesame cakes have been a staple in that region ever since. Even more important economically perhaps than this exchange was the ability for slaves to raise crops on their own small plots of land. In some instances this grew very large, as with the example Morgan gives of the Codrington family estate on Barbados, but even when slaves worked tiny plots after long hours of grueling labor, their contributions to the local economies was tremendous. In 18th C Jamaica, slave grown produce filled the markets and allowed the planters to feed themselves while they concentrated every last effort on sugar cane. Much of the differences between slavery in South Carolina and Virginia can be traced back to the differences in oversight models. Slaves in S. Carolina who cultivated rice were able to exercise a good deal more independence and therefore grew more produce. On the Virginia tobacco plantations this was not the case.

Turning finally to the attitudes which black and whites displayed toward each other, the explains the two schools of thought that have dominated the debate over the intensification of white racism over the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The first school, of which Winthrop D. Jordan's White over Black is an exemplar, emphasizes "the fateful association of blackness with evil, danger, and filth in English culture (in other cultures too it might be added) and the acute sense of revulsion that English people displayed for all things African." (p. 212) The other school, of which Edmund S. Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom is an exemplar, holds that prejudice arose or "hardened only when blacks were made into plantation laborers; this process occurred primarily for economic reasons and because Africans were both the most available and the most valuable source of labor." Though Morgan argues that both have a grain of truth to them, he does tilt toward the latter view, noting that in Britain racism was not all that virulent (even though there were negative stereotypes). It was in full blown plantation societies that real virulent racism developed. Concluding by noting the varieties of ways in which blacks viewed white, Morgan reinforces his point that relations varied over time and from place to place but that the general trend was toward the hardening of racial boundaries and that to the great detriment of blacks (both slave and free).

V

Ends the article with the story of Billy Blue, a black Australian folk hero. Though assimilated to the culture of Australia, Blue was able to maintain the posture of the African trickster, thereby preserving his cultural heritage in a new land.

Review for relevance