Once a sleepy plantation society; the region from the Chesapeake Bay to coastal North Carolina modernized and diversified its economy in the years before the Civil War. Central to this industrializing process was slave labor. Money over Mastery; Family over Freedom tells the story of how slaves seized opportunities in these conditions to protect their family members from the auction block.Calvin Schermerhorn argues that the African American family provided the key to economic growth in the antebellum Chesapeake. To maximize profits in the burgeoning regional industries; slaveholders needed to employ or hire out a healthy supply of strong slaves; which tended to scatter family members. From each generation; they also selected the young; fit; and fertile for sale or removal to the cotton South. Conscious of this pattern; the enslaved were sometimes able to negotiate mutually beneficial labor terms―to save their families despite that new economy.Moving focus away from the traditional master-slave relationship in a staple-crop setting; Schermerhorn demonstrates through extensive primary research that the slaves in the upper South were integral to the development of the region’s modern political economy; whose architects embraced invention and ingenuity even while deploying slaves to shoulder the burdens of its construction; production; and maintenance. Money over Mastery; Family over Freedom proposes a new way of understanding the role of American slaves in the antebellum marketplace. Rather than work against it; as one might suppose; enslaved people engaged with the market somewhat as did free Americans. Slaves focused their energy and attention; however; not on making money; as slaveholders increasingly did; but on keeping their kin out of the human coffles of the slave trade.
#157713 in Books Tyndale House Publishers 2013-09-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.10 x .88 x 5.40l; .75 #File Name: 1414336373320 pagesTyndale House Publishers Inc
Review
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. This Is An Important BookBy NanaI wish I could place a copy of it into the hands of everyone I know.While Carolyn Maull was growing up in "black" Birmingham; I was spending every long summer of my school years visiting my grandparents in "white" Birmingham. While her father was waiting on tables at the Birmingham Country Club; I was receiving gracious engraved invitations from my grandparents' friends to enjoy swimming there during my summer visits. I wonder how many times I was entertained at Sunday after-church dinner in that sunlit; high-ceilinged dining room.I wonder how many times I was driven past the imposing structure of the 16th Street Baptist Church. It's as familiar to me as any other Birmingham landmark. But where I might have seen it in passing; Carolyn Maull was there every Sunday morning of her life. It was her church; her Sunday School; her four young friends whose lives were destroyed by hatred. For as ignorant as I was (and I was pretty ignorant); I carried one searing lesson away from that terrible September day when four young girls had their lives snatched away. I was the same age as they were--twelve years old in 1963. I've been able to move freely through my life's story--through school and college; marriage; family; and career; and into the sorrows of widowhood and the joys of being a grandmother. I've been able to do all of that; but their lives were stopped in an instant. They were robbed of their futures by a monstrous hatred; shored up by an unbelievable indifference.Read this book and Carolyn Maull will tell you what it was like to grow up as an African-American child in the most segregated; most racially violent city in America. You'll learn about how anxious parents tried to shelter their children; hedging them about with rules and restrictions designed to protect them from the worst of the violence. You'll understand just a little better about the baffling restrictions on everything from water fountains to lunch counters to highway restrooms. You'll feel some of the confusion and hurt that she felt when reaction to this bombing; and all the others; was muted and stifled--swept under the rug so that some semblance of normal life could go on. You'll feel at least some of the fear and pain of a little girl who; upon hearing of the murder of Medgar Evers in Mississippi could only think; "Is that going to happen to my Daddy; too? Is somebody going to shoot him in front of our house?"The author has paid a terrible personal price for the events of that long-ago Sunday morning. She has shared her struggle with us in all frankness; and we can rejoice with her that she has forgiven; she has prevailed; and she has grown stronger. I believe this book is vital to the chronicles of those terrible times; and that it contains lessons we can apply now and in the future. I'd like to see it on best-seller lists all over the country. Please avail yourself of this story and give it a thoughtful; careful reading.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. It is important to rememberBy Adam ShieldsWhile the World Watched is a first person account of the 1963 16th Street Church Bombing where four young teenage girls died; and her life after that bombing. This is a book well worth reading to get a sense of the civil rights movement for someone that was a young teen. She was probably the last person to see the four girls before they died (she left the bathroom just before the bomb went off). The book does a good job not lionizing the civil rights movement; while at the same time showing how normal people were both scared and pissed off by the system.It also spends time talking about pain; depression; eventual decent into alcoholism and what would probably be described as PTSD today. That is a side that most other books don't seem to mention and I think is important to telling the whole story of the civil rights movement.Other reviews complain about the long extended quotes of speeches; sermons; songs and other documents of the era. I think that these other documents (especially in the audiobook) give greater context.I expected that much of the book would be about the particular day; but really the book is mostly about her life after the day. Today she is the head of the foundation that oversees the 16th Street church and she has gone to seminary and works for reconciliation. That story is as important as remembering the bombing.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Great Story Lost in Poor EditingBy Becki MayoI really wanted to love this book. Carolyn has a powerful and inspiring story to tell. I just wish it wasn't buried below pages and pages of quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and President Kennedy.Around halfway through the book I just started to feel like I couldn't keep going. I came here to Goodreads to see if other people had the same experience with the book or if I just wasn't trying hard enough. But it appears from other reviews that my complaints are pretty similar to the complaints of others. The story was very disjointed. At times I had a hard time keeping track of whether we were in the present; a flashback to a memory or even a jump ahead to some other piece of history that they wanted to reference. There were far too many quotes from other people that were stuck in to the story in weird places and made it hard for the story to flow.Carolyn lived through more than anyone should. She is incredibly brave and I'm grateful to her for sharing her story. I just wish the editor or whoever she worked with to put the story together; had done a better job of conveying her incredibly powerful message.
