Mastering Emotions

343 Pages·2012·1.6 MB·English

by  Erin Dwyer

Mastering Emotions: The Emotional Politics of
Slavery
Citation
Dwyer, Erin. 2012. Mastering Emotions: The Emotional Politics of Slavery. Doctoral dissertation,
Harvard University.
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http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:9282890
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© 2012, Erin Austin Dwyer
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iii

Professor
 Walter
 Johnson

 Erin
 Austin
 Dwyer

Mastering
 Emotions:
 The
 Emotional
 Politics
 of
 Slavery

Abstract

  Mastering
 Emotions:
 The
 Emotional
 Politics
 of
 Slavery
 explores
 how
 the

emotions
 and
 affective
 norms
 of
 the
 Antebellum
 South
 were
 conditioned
 upon
 and

constructed
 through
 the
 institution
 of
 slavery.
 Though
 slavery
 is
 a
 subject
 wrought

with
 emotion,
 there
 has
 been
 no
 focus
 in
 recent
 historical
 scholarship
 on
 the
 affective

dimensions
 of
 slavery.
 Studies
 in
 the
 history
 of
 emotion
 have
 also
 largely
 ignored

slavery.
 My
 intervention
 in
 these
 fields
 reveals
 the
 ways
 that
 both
 slaveholders
 and

slaves
 wielded
 fear,
 trust,
 jealousy,
 and
 affection
 in
 their
 interactions
 with
 one

another.
 The
 project
 also
 sheds
 light
 on
 how
 the
 emotional
 norms
 of
 societies
 are

learned
 and
 policed,
 manipulated
 and
 enforced.
 I
 argue
 that
 the
 emotions
 of

slaveholders
 and
 slaves
 alike
 were
 irrevocably
 shaped
 by
 slavery.
 The
 daily

negotiations
 and
 contestations
 that
 occurred
 between
 slaveholders
 and
 slaves

through
 and
 about
 feelings,
 in
 conjunction
 with
 larger
 debates
 about
 race,
 freedom,

and
 emotional
 norms,
 form
 the
 backbone
 of
 what
 I
 call
 the
 emotional
 politics
 of

slavery.
 Mastering
 Emotions
 examines
 how
 the
 affective
 norms
 of
 slavery
 were

taught,
 how
 emotional
 transgressions
 were
 punished,
 and
 the
 long-­‐term
 impacts
 of

those
 emotional
 norms
 on
 the
 affective
 landscape
 of
 the
 post-­‐Reconstruction
 South.

  To
 gain
 insight
 into
 the
 emotional
 lives
 and
 affective
 experiences
 of
 enslaved

people
 and
 free
 people
 of
 color
 I
 use
 a
 variety
 of
 primary
 sources
 such
 as
 slave
iv

narratives,
 letters,
 and
 court
 testimony.
 Steeped
 in
 the
 mode
 of
 sentimentalism,

which
 encouraged
 people
 to
 reflect
 upon
 and
 articulate
 their
 feelings,
 slaveholders

revealed
 how
 they
 felt
 about
 their
 slaves,
 and
 how
 they
 believed
 their
 slaves
 felt,
 in

diaries,
 wills
 and
 even
 records
 of
 slave
 sales
 and
 manumissions.

 Studying
 the
 affective
 terrain
 of
 the
 Antebellum
 South
 provides
 fresh
 insight

into
 the
 politics
 of
 slavery,
 revealing
 how
 those
 in
 bondage
 used
 feelings
 to
 resist

slavery,
 and
 how
 the
 planter
 class
 employed
 emotions
 to
 enforce
 the
 institution.
 This

project
 also
 contributes
 to
 the
 burgeoning
 field
 of
 affective
 history
 by
 complicating

understandings
 of
 how
 emotions
 are
 constructed
 in
 relation
 to
 power,
 and
 how

power
 operates
 in
 affective
 relations.
v

Erin Austin Dwyer

“Mastering Emotions: The Emotional Politics of Slavery”

Abstract
iii-iv

Introduction
1-37

Chapter One: "No One Can Imagine My Feelings”: Race, Slavery and Emotional
Exceptionality
38-86

Chapter Two: “To Change Their Sentiments”: The Emotions the Slaves Made
87-124

Chapter Three: “Born and Reared in Slavery”: Learning the Affective Norms of Slavery
124-175

Chapter Four: “Breach of Confidence:” The Mechanics of Trust and Mistrust in the
Antebellum South
176-245

Chapter Five: “He Wouldn’t Whip, He’d Punish”: Affective Control in the Antebellum
Slave South
246-276

Chapter Six: “The Pursuit of Happiness”: Freedom, Race and Emotions
277-328

Bibliography
329-338
1

Introduction

“The passions are a numerous crowd
Imperious positive and loud…
If they grow wild and rave
They are thy masters, thou their slaves.”1

In an article published in the DeBow’s Review in 1851, Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright
introduced an affliction that he claimed was “well known to our planters and overseers,”
but was as yet unrecognized by the medical profession: “Drapetomania, or the disease
causing Negroes to run away.” Cartwright asserted that this condition was “curable” as
long as slaveholders used moderation in the treatment of their slaves. They were to
neither be “too familiar” with a slave and treat them as an equal, nor to be “cruel to him,
or punishing him in anger,” but to be “be kind and gracious.” Cartwright claimed that
slaveholders needed to inspire “awe and reverence” in their slaves, or else “they will
despise their masters.” According to Cartwright, once an enslaved person had lost respect
for their owner, or began to loathe them, they “become sulky and dissatisfied.”
Furthermore, he advised that “the cause of this sulkiness and dissatisfaction should be
inquired into and removed,” otherwise the slaves were likely to run.2
Cartwright’s attempt to medicalize enslaved resistance reveals a great deal about
the role feelings played in maintaining slavery, as well as the extent to which enslaved
people irrevocably shaped the emotional norms and practices of the Antebellum South.

1 Poem citied in Catherine Clinton The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South (New York:
Pantheon Books) 66
2 Samuel Cartwright, “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race – Concluded,” De Bow’s Review 11
(September 1851): 331-336
2

He posited that slaveholders’ affective expressions, and feelings like anger and affection,
would trigger emotional responses in their slaves, including “awe and reverence,”
“sulkiness and dissatisfaction,” or even loathing. But slaveholders were not only
provoking their slaves’ sentiments, enslaved people were also influencing slaveowners
through their emotions. If Cartwright is to be believed, a slaveholder was supposed to be
upset if their slaves “despis(ed)” them, should hope to be respected by them, and should
take action to “remove” any cause for “sulkiness and dissatisfaction” that their slaves
might feel, lest they run away. Planters and overseers were not only expected to be aware
of their slaves emotional states, they were supposed to actively respond to them. In this
way, this passage sheds light on the myriad ways that slavery constructed emotions in the
Antebellum South, and how feelings could be used to police and challenge the institution.
Works like Cartwright’s also speak volumes about the debates that raged in the
Antebellum South over what the parameters of the emotional norms of slavery would be
for slaveowners and for the enslaved. Was the affective objective for planters for their
slaves to love them or be afraid of them? Should slaveholders express any sort of
affection to slaves, or only induce fear? Did enslaved people gain more from deploying
fear or trustworthiness? What emotions needed to be feigned, and which needed to be
concealed?3 Would the governing hierarchy of these emotional standards be defined by
race or by free status? And if the affective norms of the Antebellum South were rooted in
slavery and slave status, then what would become of these practices with the coming of
Emancipation?

3 For more on the performance of emotions in daily life see Erving Goffman The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday, 1990)
3

In my dissertation I will argue that the emotions of the Antebellum South were
not manufactured by elites, but rather were conditioned upon and constructed through the
institution of slavery. For slaveholder and slaves alike, emotions were irrevocably shaped
by slavery. These sentiments were central to how slaveholders maintained the institution,
and how enslaved people endured and resisted it. The daily negotiations and contestations
that occurred between slaveholders and slaves through and about feelings, in conjunction
with larger debates about race, freedom and affective norms, form the back bone of what I
term the emotional politics of slavery. In “Mastering Emotions” I examine how the
affective strictures and practices of slavery were individually learned, collectively
constructed, and socially embedded, and how these norms were impacted by the coming
of Emancipation.
Increasing work has been done on how emotions are individually and socially
constructed, and the role that feelings play in society. In his work on emotions and the
French Revolution, William Reddy points out that in modern, Western culture, people
have long viewed emotions "as private, quasi-biological responses that endanger our
reason."4 Though there are biological components to feelings, such perceptions ignore
how emotions are socially, culturally, politically and temporally contingent. This belief
also implies that feelings are at odds with reason, eliding all the ways that emotions are
strategically, and rationally employed. Instead, Reddy would argue that emotions are
deliberately used to shore up and resist political institutions, which he refers to as
“emotional regimes.” According to Reddy, one can quantify how free a particular

4 William M. Reddy The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework For the History of Emotions (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2001) 113
4

“emotional regime” is by examining how much that society polices and restricts
emotional expression. 5
While William Reddy’s phrase “emotional regime” is useful for understanding
how the planter class saw themselves as affective masters, of their slaves and of
themselves, the term belies the fact that the emotional norms and practices of the
Antebellum South were not determined solely or even primarily by planters and policy
makers. Historians Peter Stearns and Carol Stearns, pioneers in the field of the history of
emotions, provide a more democratic understanding of how emotional norms develop in
a given society. Unlike the hierarchical implications of the term “emotional regime,” the
Stearns argue that there can be multiple, competing or overlapping affective standards
within a single society, and that studying these affective “subcultures” can shed light on
exactly how elites attempt to create and enforce “dominant culture” of emotions.6
I would argue that the emotional norms of slavery were not produced in a top-down or
unidirectional fashion, nor did slaves’ affective practices and experiences function as a
separate emotional subculture.
Though slavery is a subject wrought with emotion, there has been no explicit focus
in recent historical scholarship on the affective dimensions of slavery. Psychological
histories of slavery of the 1940s-1960s served only to infantilize enslaved people,

5 Reddy defines an “emotional regime” as “the set of normative emotions and the official rituals, practices,
and emotives that express and inculcate them; a necessary underpinning of any stable political regime.” He
argues that restrictive “emotional regimes” will employ a number of forms of “emotional management” to
keep emotions circumscribed at all times, while some regimes “use such strict emotional discipline only in
certain institutions (armies, schools, priesthoods) or only at certain times of the year or certain stages of the
life cycle. These regimes set few limits on emotional navigation outside these restricted domains." William
M. Reddy The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework For the History of Emotions (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2001) 125, 129
6 Peter N. Stearns with Carol Z. Stearns, “Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional
Standards”, The American Historical Review, 90:4, (Oct., 1985), 813-836, 828
5

ignoring the nuanced and complex emotional landscape of slavery.7 Writings in
subsequent decades examined the invaluable support provided by loving enslaved
families, but did little to explore how emotions could be used strategically outside of the
slave family, how emotional norms were learned and challenged, and what relationships
existed between the feelings and affective lives of slaves and those who enslaved them.8 I
argue instead that the emotions of enslaved people and slaveholders were contingent
upon one another, constructed by slavery, but not solely characterized by the institution.
Meanwhile, studies in the history of emotion have largely ignored slavery, preferring to
focus on sentimentalism and the antislavery movement. I propose an intervention in these
fields, bringing together the history of slavery and the history of emotions. I will also draw
from cultural anthropology and psychology to portray how the institution of slavery
fundamentally shaped the emotions of slaveholders and slaves through a variety of
emotional behaviors and practices.
Historical evidence poses a challenge for this project, as slaves were all too
often legally barred from writing, and thus recording their thoughts and feelings. To gain
insight into the emotional lives and affective experiences of enslaved people and free
people of color I use a variety of primary sources such as slave narratives, letters, and
court testimony. Steeped in the mode of sentimentalism, which emphasized emotional
reflection and articulation, slaveholders revealed how they felt about their slaves, and

7 This school is best exemplified by Stanley Elkins’ Slavery, which argues that enslaved people were
fundamentally characterized by emotional trauma, and Wilbur J. Cash’s The Mind of the South (New York:
Alfred Knopf, 1941) which argued that members of the planter class suffered from a “guilt complex” about
slavery.
8 See John Blassingame The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1972); Herbert Gutman The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New
York: Vintage Books, 1977); Jacqueline Jones Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and
the Family From Slavery to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1985); Brenda Stevenson Life in Black
and White: Family and Community in the Slave South (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997)