American Abolitionism and Slave-Breeding Discourse: A Re-evaluation

Smithers, Gregory D.

doi:10.1080/0144039x.2011.622119

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Their highly successful propaganda emphasized the misery of the slaves' condition and the cruelty of slave drivers (Carey, 2005; Taylor, 2004). Conversely, slave owners did not argue the case for a theoretical notion of ownership in persons, but tried to depict slaves as essentially different from full human beings (Smithers, 2012).…”

Section: Explaining (Supposedly) Peripheral Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ownership psychology as a cognitive adaptation: A minimalist model

Boyer

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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Ownership is universal and ubiquitous in human societies, yet the psychology underpinning ownership intuitions is generally not described in a coherent and computationally tractable manner. Ownership intuitions are commonly assumed to derive from culturally transmitted social norms, or from a mentally represented implicit theory. While the social norms account is entirely ad hoc, the mental theory requires prior assumptions about possession and ownership that must be explained. Here I propose such an explanation, arguing that the intuitions result from the interaction of two cognitive systems. One of these handles competitive interactions for the possession of resources observed in many species including humans. The other handles mutually beneficial cooperation between agents, as observed in communal sharing, collective action and trade. Together, these systems attend to specific cues in the environment, and produce definite intuitions such as “this is hers”, “that is not mine”. This computational model provides an explanation for ownership intuitions, not just in straightforward cases of property, but also in disputed ownership (squatters, indigenous rights), historical changes (abolition of slavery), as well as apparently marginal cases, such as the questions, whether people own their seats on the bus, or their places in a queue, and how people understand “cultural appropriation” and slavery. In contrast to some previous theories, the model is empirically testable and free of ad hoc stipulations.

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Section: Explaining (Supposedly) Peripheral Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ownership psychology as a cognitive adaptation: A minimalist model

Boyer

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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“…verify the existence of such a practice, at least at significant scale (Smithers 2012). Nevertheless, the charge reflected the brute economic fact that enslaved women were expropriated of both their productive and reproductive labor.…”

Section: Confiscation By Commodificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Throughout the antebellum period, abolitionists alleged that slaveholding border-states like Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky—where poor soil could not sustain large-scale agriculture—were home to a practice of commercial “slave-breeding,” wherein slaveholders adapted techniques from animal husbandry to breed human beings for sale in the domestic slave trade. “Men, women, and children,” the Maryland-born Douglass (2014, 334) claimed, “are reared for the market, just as horses, sheep, and swine are raised for the market.” 21 Since that time, historians have debated the reliability of these allegations and have generally been unable to find sufficient evidence to verify the existence of such a practice, at least at significant scale (Smithers 2012). Nevertheless, the charge reflected the brute economic fact that enslaved women were expropriated of both their productive and reproductive labor.…”

Section: Confiscation By Commodificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Not Subjects of the Market, but Subject to the Market: Capitalist Slavery as Expropriation

Gorup

2023

Political Theory

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This essay draws political theory into dialogue with recent work in economic history and the history of capitalism to develop an account of the unique injustice produced by capitalist slavery in the antebellum United States. Prevailing approaches to thinking about slavery in political theory tend to disembed it from its broader socioeconomic context, which has led theorists to overlook some of the distinctive horrors associated with capitalist slavery in particular. In response, I develop a theory of capitalist slavery as expropriation, conceived as violent domination harnessed to the imperatives of capital accumulation. Capitalist slavery-as-expropriation encompasses two analytically distinct moments: the moment of confiscation, in which human lives and capacities are enclosed via commodification, and the moment of conscription, in which enslaved labor is mobilized via routine violence. Though enslaved people were not market subjects, this framework reveals the extent to which they were nevertheless subject to the market.

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“…One of the many interesting applications of Boyer's theory concerns the reprehensible practice of slavery. He notes that a view of ownership intuitions as based on accepted social norms or from a mental theory of ownership would necessitate that “the abolitionist movement that started in 18th century England required a drastic change in conceptions of ownership.” Boyer argues that, instead, those in favor of retaining the practice of slavery focused on “depicting slaves as essentially different from full human beings (Smithers, 2012),” and that “As many historians have noted (Carey, 2005), the emergence of abolitionism did not result from the adoption of a different mental theory or social norm about the domain of ownership, but from a widening of the ‘moral circle’ (Pinker, 2011; Singer, 1981)”.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%