Difference between revisions of "426--Week 6 Questions/Comments--Thursday"
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In reading this chapter, I was struck by how much personal relationships and situations influenced the sentences of slaves accused of murdering white men. Like Amanda, I did not expect to read that white men often petitioned the governor on the behalf of a slave. Granted, as Rothman discusses, slaves were viewed as "valuable" and so many men wanted to save them for work, yet many of the petitioners were neighbors who seem to legitimately have had some feeling for the victims. I also was unaware of the frequency with which slaves were able to testify in court. Ultimately though, this chapter really illustrated the social hierarchy to me. That white men would stand up for a black man who clearly raped a white woman, because she was poor, really surprised me and shows that gender and class were, at least occasionally, as important as race in court cases and public opinion. --Sarah Gardner | In reading this chapter, I was struck by how much personal relationships and situations influenced the sentences of slaves accused of murdering white men. Like Amanda, I did not expect to read that white men often petitioned the governor on the behalf of a slave. Granted, as Rothman discusses, slaves were viewed as "valuable" and so many men wanted to save them for work, yet many of the petitioners were neighbors who seem to legitimately have had some feeling for the victims. I also was unaware of the frequency with which slaves were able to testify in court. Ultimately though, this chapter really illustrated the social hierarchy to me. That white men would stand up for a black man who clearly raped a white woman, because she was poor, really surprised me and shows that gender and class were, at least occasionally, as important as race in court cases and public opinion. --Sarah Gardner | ||
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| + | I agree with Amanda. When I first started to read this chapter, I thought it would be all about black slaves receiving the death penalty for killing white people. But I was surprised at the number of sentences that were not death penalties. I was also surprised that when black men had sex with white women of sordid reputation, no male protection or were poor, they (the slaves) often gained the sympathy of white men. This is mostly because the black slaves were considered more valuable and less contemptible to society. This and, as Amanda wrote above, some of the cases where white men were lenient towards blacks were surprising. - Celia | ||
== Chapter 5 == | == Chapter 5 == | ||
