Slaves In Walter Johnson's Soul By Soul

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In a time when domestic and international markets demanded cotton, the invention of the cotton gin, and the forcible relocation of Native American nations, New Orleans developed into the main southern slave-trading hub of the 19th century. Walter Johnson, author of Soul by Soul, organized the book as a process or cycle of the internal southern slave trade. This book transitions chronologically from slaveholders placing slaves on the market to the end with them being sold. The dichotomous nature between slaves and planters revealed how interdependent they were for knowledge and resources to fulfill their plans, then to find out their dreams were dashed by their realities.
At any moment a plantation owner could sell his slaves. For slaves the …show more content…
This was only part of a constant relationship between traders, slave-buyers, and slaves for information. Slaves judged the character of potential buyers just as much as the buyers were of slaves. For example, slaves thought they could determine the demeanor of buyers through the types of question they asked. Typically owners instructed their slaves what buyers wanted and to act accordingly, which gave slaves the opportunity to manipulate transactions to favor themselves. Some slaves were hired out during the sales to other businesses. Their interaction with the outside world gave them knowledge that they facilitated to other slaves, presenting them with ideas or conspiracies to escape. All of this information provided slaves with chances to manufacture their own sales. Instead, both slaves and slaveholders were disappointed with their outcomes. Fantasies embodied by slaveholders were no more durable than the slaves expected to epitomize it. Slaves that died or escaped in frequent numbers could potentially derail profit margins and annual harvests. At the same time, slaves struggled to resist the planter class. In the case of the slave traders that abused their slaves, economic laws such as the Rendition Act were created to protect consumers from insidious trading. Bringing them to court was the closest thing towards claiming justice as court-cases were forced to acknowledge the brutality of the slaves’ former owners. Throughout the process of the internal slave trade, Walter Johnson described the experience of slave life as “soul murder” or the brutal experience physically, emotionally, and sexually that created little will to
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