A Curse Upon the Nation : Race, Freedom, and Extermination in America and the Atlantic World

How the specter of a race war has justified violence, molded collective memory, and permeated the rhetoric of slavery and freedom From the inception of slavery as a pillar of the Atlantic World economy, both Europeans and Africans feared their mass extermination by the other in a race war. In the United States, says Kay Wright Lewis, this ingrained dread nourished a preoccupation with slave rebellions and would later help fuel the Civil War, thwart the aims of Reconstruction, justify Jim Crow, and even inform civil rights movement strategy. And yet, says Lewis, the historiography of slavery is all but silent on extermination as a category of analysis. Moreover, little of the existing sparse scholarship interrogates the black perspective on extermination. A Curse upon the Nation addresses both of these issues. To explain how this belief in an impending race war shaped eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American politics, culture, and commerce, Lewis examines a wide range of texts including letters, newspapers, pamphlets, travel accounts, slave narratives, government documents, and abolitionist tracts. She foregrounds her readings in the long record of exterminatory warfare in Europe and its colonies, placing lopsided reprisals against African slave revolts—or even rumors of revolts—in a continuum with past brutal incursions against the Irish, Scots, Native Americans, and other groups out of favor with the empire. Lewis also shows how extermination became entwined with ideas about race and freedom from early in the process of enslavement, making survival an important form of resistance for African peoples in America. For African Americans, enslaved and free, the potential for one-sided violence was always present and deeply traumatic. This groundbreaking study reevaluates how extermination shaped black understanding of the Atlantic slave trade and the political, social, and economic worlds in which it thrived. <p>From the inception of slavery as a pillar of the Atlantic World economy, both Europeans and Africans feared their mass extermination by the other in a race war. In the United States, says Kay Wright Lewis, this ingrained dread nourished a preoccupation with slave rebellions and would later help fuel the Civil War, thwart the aims of Reconstruction, justify Jim Crow, and even inform civil rights movement strategy. And yet, says Lewis, the historiography of slavery is all but silent on extermination as a category of analysis. Moreover, little of the existing sparse scholarship interrogates the black perspective on extermination. <i>A Curse upon the Nation</i> addresses both of these issues.</p><p>To explain how this belief in an impending race war shaped eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American politics, culture, and commerce, Lewis examines a wide range of texts including letters, newspapers, pamphlets, travel accounts, slave narratives, government documents, and abolitionist tracts. She foregrounds her readings in the long record of exterminatory warfare in Europe and its colonies, placing lopsided reprisals against African slave revolts—or even rumors of revolts—in a continuum with past brutal incursions against the Irish, Scots, Native Americans, and other groups out of favor with the empire. Lewis also shows how extermination became entwined with ideas about race and freedom from early in the process of enslavement, making survival an important form of resistance for African peoples in America.</p><p>For African Americans, enslaved and free, the potential for one-sided violence was always present and deeply traumatic. This groundbreaking study reevaluates how extermination shaped black understanding of the Atlantic slave trade and the political, social, and economic worlds in which it thrived.</p> Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 INTRODUCTION: The Legacy and Human Cost of Slavery......Page 12 CHAPTER ONE: “Nits Make Lice”: Genocidal Violence in Colonial America......Page 22 CHAPTER TWO: A “State of War Continued”: White Fear, Black Warriors......Page 45 CHAPTER THREE: “The Past Is Never Dead”: The Continuity of African and European Warfare Practices......Page 70 CHAPTER FOUR: The Abridgment of Hope: After Nat Turner......Page 94 CHAPTER FIVE: “In the Hands of the Master”: The Virginia Debates......Page 114 CHAPTER SIX: Would Have to “See His Blood Flow”: Reopening the African Slave Trade......Page 136 CHAPTER SEVEN: John Brown’s Mistake: The Power of Memory and the Dangers of Violence......Page 153 CHAPTER EIGHT: Making “Hell for a Country”: The Civil War and Post–Civil War Era......Page 186 EPILOGUE: The“Place for Which Our Fathers Sighed”......Page 212 Acknowledgments......Page 224 Notes......Page 226 B......Page 280 C......Page 282 F......Page 283 H......Page 284 K......Page 285 M......Page 286 P......Page 287 R......Page 288 S......Page 289 T......Page 290 W......Page 291 Y......Page 292