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Program 9: Slavery/The South and Slave Culture
Donald L. Miller with Pauline Maier and Louis P. Masur
Introduction
Maier: You know, we for so long thought of slavery as a kind of
monolithic institution. And we've really broken out of that. And we have to--
we have somehow in this program to get through the complexity of the
institution.
Miller: An insidious institution becomes the foundation of a culture.
Miller: What makes the South-- is it land?
Maier: Well, they have a staple product. It's a plantation economy.
It's a very different form of social organization.
Masur: Part of what we've learned about slavery is the notion of the
slave family, the notion of a slave culture, and then a wave of studies that
have demonstrated beyond any doubt the power of-- even within slavery-- for
African-Americans to create a religion and a culture and a family. But then,
did we go too far? I mean, have we forgotten that this is an institution of
slavery? An institution of slave labor.
Miller: Today, on A Biography of America, "Slavery".
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