Book Review

Canada and the United States

This collection of essays explores antislavery violence from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of the Civil War. As editors John R. Mc-Kivigan and Stanley Harrold point out in a thoughtful and well-grounded introduction, historians have long debated the role of violence in the antislavery movement. In a volume suitably dedicated to Herbert Aptheker, the editors conclude that forcible resistance by both slaves and abolitionists made the antislavery crusade "a major precursor of the much more violent Civil War" (p. 2).	1
Both the quantity and significance of slave resistance have long been central to disputes over the character of slavery. Was slave rebelliousness, for example, a serious threat to the system, or mostly the product of fevered white imaginations? Donald Egerton, in an essay on the Gabriel insurrection, argues the former, but a more persuasive or widespread and varied answer might be a bit of each. Too often, Egerton's case for resistance—as in his book-length treatment of this episode—rests on creative analysis and imaginative conjecture rather than on solid evidence. Yet, to be fair, insurrections are by their very nature shadowy, and so information is fragmentary at best. This was certainly the case with the large 1811 rebellion in Louisiana. Junius Rodriguez presents a well-researched and chilling account of an elusive episode that historians will undoubtedly mine for their undergraduate lectures. He argues that the notions of freedom brought in by slaves from Santo Domingo sowed the seeds of insurrection, but the connection between ideology and action is asserted rather than established.	2
Such incidents of slave resistance assumed an importance far beyond their local significance, especially in a romantic era during which the exploits of heroic individuals became both a major theme of popular culture and potent political symbols. Madison Washington, who led the December 1841 mutiny of slaves aboard the ship Creole, actually prevented other slaves from killing all the whites on board. According to Harrold, abolitionists (including some blacks), who deplored violence and believed that slaves were docile, nevertheless praised Washington's "moderate" use of force. This limited violence did not offend sensitive consciences, although John Brown himself readily appropriated the romantic image of the slave rebel to inspire larger numbers of slaves to use presumably much greater force.	. . .