History 371H
Devine
Study
Questions for Jay R. Mandle, Not Slave, Not Free, pp. 1- 67
Broader questions to consider as you read these chapters….
- Why
does Mandle think that it is important to
understand what a “plantation economy” is if we are to understand why the
South (and blacks in the South) remained poor?
- How
did the structure of the southern economy reinforce southern racism?
- Why
was the South “economically backward” in the years from 1865 through 1920?
- To
what extent was the economic experience of African Americans different
from that of non-blacks between 1865 and 1920? How did this different experience affect
blacks’ everyday lives throughout this period?
- How
does Mandle’s exploration of African-Americans’
economic experiences in the South between 1865 and 1920 shed light on the
causes of disproportionate black poverty since 1920?
Introduction
- How
did the relatively slow economic development in the South after 1865
contribute to black poverty?
Conversely, how did black poverty help account for the South’s
relatively slow economic development?
- How did limiting economic opportunities
for blacks in the South in turn undermine economic development across the
region?
- How
might attempts to expand economic opportunities for African Americans
enhance the economic growth rate of the nation as a whole?
Chapter 1
- Why
was slave labor profitable for nineteenth-century southern planters?
- What
effects did the reliance on slave labor have on economic developments in
the South?
- Why
does the author believe that implementing a policy of land redistribution
(taking land from the planters and giving it to the freedman) would have
produced a significantly different economic reality in the South after the
Civil War? Despite the Radical Republicans’
desire to “punish” the southern planters, why was such a policy never
implemented?
- What
was the intended purpose of the Southern Homestead Act? Why did it fail in achieving its
purpose?
- Why
was the rate of black land ownership so low in the postbellum
South? How did the inability to purchase and cultivate one’s own land
contribute to black poverty?
- Why
did a system of plantation tenantry emerge in
the South after the Civil War?
- Some
historians have maintained that both planters and African American tenants
preferred
the sharecropping system. What
evidence does Mandle introduce to counter this
argument? How did the lack of cash
and access to credit limit the planters’ and tenants’ options?
- Why
did the failure of a black farmer-owner class to emerge in the South
insure that Booker T. Washington’s “self help” strategy would not
succeed?
- What
consequences resulted from the lack of a black farmer-owner class and the
persistence of a white-dominated plantation economy?
- According
to Mandle, even if blacks acquired the skills
necessary to succeed as commercial farmers, they were still likely to
remain poor. Why?
Chapter 2
- Why
does the author argue that the existence of a market for black
agricultural labor in the South does not necessarily mean that black labor
was “free”?
- What
factors kept black labor in the South from being “free”? Why was it hard for blacks to escape
plantation labor? Why didn’t they
find work doing other things?
- Mandle
notes that there are three arguments for why blacks did not move north in
order to escape the plantation system.
What are those arguments and why does he find one to be more
persuasive than the other two?
- Why
could one argue that black labor was far less “free” than immigrant labor?
Chapter 3
- Why
does the author believe that the way Census Bureau data was reported
obscures the persistence of the system of southern plantation agriculture?
- What
were the differences between the plantation and non-plantation areas of
the South? Why was it more difficult for blacks to achieve an independent
status in those areas of the South dominated by plantations than elsewhere
in the region?
- What
negative effects did strict planter supervision have on blacks’ chances to
advance economically?
- How
did the plantation credit system undermine blacks’ chances to get ahead
economically?
- Why
did it matter that in tenant-landlord relations, the landlord kept all the
records?
- Mandle
concludes this chapter by saying that “black southern poverty was
structural.” What does it mean to
say poverty is “structural” as opposed to being, say, “cultural”?
Chapter 4
- If
one is trying to measure economic development in the South (or lack of economic
development), why is it useful to examine data from plantation and
non-plantation regions separately? What do we learn when we examine the
data separately?
- How
did advances in labor productivity in cotton compare with advances in
wheat and corn? What role did
mechanization play in labor productivity?
- What
explanations have historians offered that might account for the slow rate
of mechanization in cotton production?
According to the author, why are some explanations more compelling
than others?
- Why
were there relatively few attempts to solve the technical problems
associated with producing cotton?
- One
scholar has maintained that the higher the demand for a product, the
higher the demand for technological advances that would help produce the
product more efficiently (see p. 52).
According to Mandle, did this formula
apply to cotton production?
- With
regard to improving productivity by experimenting with new technological
innovations, how did southern plantation agriculture differ from the
family farm system of the North?
Why did northern family farmers actively embrace new labor-saving
technologies while southern planters largely ignored them?
- According
to Mandle, how did lack of education and lack of
capital contribute to the slow pace of productivity growth in the South?
Chapter
5
- How
did exclusion from the political process affect African Americans’ chances
of escaping poverty?
- The
historian Ulrich Phillips argued that the plantation system “was less
dependent upon slavery than slavery was dependent upon it.” What did he mean by this?
- Why
is a “plantation” more than just a large farm that produces output for a
market? What characteristics does
it have that differentiate it from other means of production?
- How
do the concepts of “cultural hegemony” and “paternalism” shed light on how
a plantation system works?
- How
did whites sustain the system of “paternalism” in the South even after
emancipation? What role did violence play? Why were many African Americans
willing to adhere to the “racial etiquette” associated with paternalism
even though the system was based on the assumption of white supremacy?
- Why
does Mandle believe that it is more useful to
characterize the postbellum South as operating
under a “plantation” mode of production rather than a “capitalist” mode of
production?