Book review on the book runaway slaves rebels on the plantaiton by John Frankiln and Loren Schweninger
Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the plantation
Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the ranch is a literature book that is written by john hope Franklin and Loren Schweininger. The book addresses the existing belief that is associated with American slavery history. In chapter one, the book discusses the day to day resistances that are being staged by the whites. It is believed that during the slavery tenure, the slaves underwent both physical and emotional torture. They were exposed to unbearable conditions. There are those few that managed to run out of the plantations. They are believed to have sought refuge in Canada, while in reality, the slaves went to people who they knew. This is their friends and family members. Information on the runaway destinations is explained in chapter five of the novel.
Throughout the book, an image is created of the struggles that the slaves underwent through. Chapter two explains the escalation of the degree of resistance. The book is organized in such a way that the sections describe the opportunities that each day came with for the slaves to gain their freedom from the slavery of the oppressors, who are the whites. Chapter seven explain the challenges the slaves faced in maintaining the families intact, the reason which motivated their decision to become rebellious and run away.
Franklin and Schweninger conduct research using several articles to come to develop detailed information concerning the practices that existed during the slavery period. They make use of journals, court documents as well as advertisements of that time. This is aimed at discovering the facts of life that existed then and developed an analogy of the rocky relationship that exists between the blacks and the whites. The authors, in their quest for knowledge on slavery, they found out that the court documents and newspapers painted a clear picture of the social gap that existed compared to other sources of information. Chapter three highlight incidences that slaves are leaving without notice. For examples, “the masters were very confident in their advertisements on their missing slaves. They had little or no reason to hide their intentions.”(pg. 295) The masters kept a record of the possible runaway routes as well as information of their relatives just in case any of them decided to run away — chapter four talks on the thirst of freedom the slaves have. Petitioners who sued for freedom realized that it behooved them to be the as forthright and candid as possible” (pg. 295).just as the masters, the victims also were open in there activities to secure freedom because the whole society knew their situation. The slaves believed expressing facts in graphical form could potentially influence the verdict to favor them. That’s why the court documents contained so much information on the type of relationship that the blacks and the white had.
It’s remarkable on how the authors manage to put together the different pieces of information from various sources and be able to make so much sense. But what can be confusing is the mention of several notices on the same paragraph. Moreover, as a reader, I might become more interested in a particular slave who rebelled and the rebel tactics that he employed. The disadvantage of acquiring information from the pieces of advertisement is that not much about the slave is explained. It does not shed light on what mainly happened to the person in question. The narrative to a small extent depicts the pain that the family of the advertised slave must have undergone, because of the uncertainty of the place their relative could have fled to. Additionally, they very well understood the consequences that the found runaways were to face. Chapter eight explains the methods that were used to catch runaways. For example, slave catchers were mandated with the responsibility of finding the runaways. They used dogs to run after them. One of the farm owners admits to using this method. In the book, in one of the days on the firm, one slave tries to escape. The owner calls the “dogs to run after him which bite him so badly, thinking he will stay at home for a while.” (pg. 161)
Chapter nine explains the violence that the slaves initiated. In addition to explaining the method used by runaways, the authors also “seek to establish the motives and responses of the slaveholding class” (pg. xv). Up to this point, the authors have let us know what rewards were given to the apprehenders, the conversations that followed after that is of the hustle that the runaway slave had subjected them to and the tribulations. Masters had the notion that: the most trusted slaves ran away without any brutal treatment and the only thing that would stop the search is if the expenses of searching for him were out costing the possible benefits.
Chapter ten gives an account of the second Seminole war in Florida from 1821 to 1865.the war is narrated to be one of the biggest race wars. The blacks, who were slaves at that time had decided that enough is enough and so they had to do everything to gain freedom and the whites. The tenth chapter brings the book to an end by giving an account of the civil war that erupted in 1861 (pg. 146-160). by this time the Florida population was half whites and half blacks because this is the, that harbored a lot of slaves, about sixty-two thousand
The books provide detailed information on the circumstances that prevailed during the slavery tenure. The authors have done a recommendable job in going through all the available court documents and advertisements in trying to establish the reason the slaves ran away. In the book, the quote “fear, retaliation, anger, hatred and anxiety triggered violence from the slaves”(pg. 79).In some instances when they ran, they made away with the property of their master. For example, Jerry who made away with “a pistol, and eighty dollars in cash” (pg. 145). What such an instance portrays is that the slaves believed that there current condition of slavery is what denied them the opportunity of acquiring property. That is why they took with them some property which gave them a sense of freedom. The occurrence of such events rubbishes claims that the slaves were docile and meek.as a matter of fact the authors state that: most of the violence was spontaneous and was directed towards the owners” (Pg. 77).
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Book review on the book runaway slaves rebels on the plantaiton by John Frankiln and Loren Schweninger was first posted on August 13, 2019 at 10:01 am.
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