In the reading, Many Thousands Gone, Ira Berlin explains many changes over time that occurred in the transition from societies with slaves to slave societies. A dramatic difference between societies with slaves and slave societies was the mark of lineage. In a society with slaves, slaves adopted names that included surnames. Their successors bore names that did not include surnames and could have even gone as far as to be called a name more associated with that of an animal than a person. This worked to destroy the potential of lineage for slaves. This also made it so slaves were bound to the position of juveniles throughout their life cycle. Condemned to a permanent childhood, slaves in a slave society served as extensions of an owners’ estate. They had no right to intimate or personal affairs without the intrusions of planters.
In the beginning, the ethnic origins of a slave mattered little to planters. Slavey transportation included many ethnic origins such as Africans, Native Americans, and Jewish slaves. Eventually, with the destruction of the Native American population, plantation slavery became exclusive to African slavery. This process redefined the meaning of race, with a greater emphasis on the pigment of the skin than ever before. Slave societies employed racial ideologies to rationalize societal order. This transition strengthened the beliefs of white supremacy. Under these distinctions, slaves were not just demoted to the positions of juveniles but were viewed as savages.
The different outlook on slaves’ position is society affected the implementation of violence. In a society with slaves, the use of force and brutality was persistent and common. However, in a slave society, violence was also systematic and merciless. Slave masters employed terror and severe disciplinary action. This attributed to the death of millions. According to Ira Berlin, this change occurred slowly. It was built upon unevenly and repeatedly and Africans were transported from the Old World to the New World.
A powerful write-up. Be careful, however, not to conflate New World slavery with the earlier form Berlin describes as taking place in the Mediterranean or in places like Sao Tome (islands in the Atlantic Ocean), where Jews and other Europeans may have been enslaved—this was not the case in the New World, as Berlin makes clear in the next sentence (p. 97). Although Berlin is depicting a “story of declension” (things getting worse over time) for Africans in the New World, how does he suggest they resisted the violence he describes and attempted to hold on to aspects of their identity?