Skilled Labor and Slave Rebellion
Compiled by April Surrell
BA Interdisciplinary Studies (Criminology: Law and Society), Georgia State University, 2014
MA Criminal Justice, University of Alabama, expected graduation: 2017
BA Interdisciplinary Studies (Criminology: Law and Society), Georgia State University, 2014
MA Criminal Justice, University of Alabama, expected graduation: 2017
Abstract
Resistance has long utilized the skilled labor of activists from the ability to make weapons to media influence. Specific skill sets lend themselves to different forms of resistance and activists have evolved over time and are continually evolving today. Nat Turner used skilled labor to aid in his rebellion against slavery, as had other rebels in antebellum America, and we even see skilled labor being used as a form of resistance today as the makers of the movie “The Birth of a Nation” used their skilled labor as directors and actors to bring life to long dead rebellions in order to shed light on current resistance in our nation. Using skilled labor in all forms of resistance has helped disenfranchised groups of people to gain rights and protections throughout the history of America and this type of rebellion shows no intention of ending any time soon. These resources will help to expand the understanding of how skilled labor was important in antebellum America and a vital aspect of slave rebellions like that of Nat Turner.
Primary and Secondary Sources
Monographs and Anthologies
Scholarly Articles
- L. Diane Barnes, Artisan Workers in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008).
- Douglas Walter Bristol, Knights of the Razor: Black Barbers in Slavery and Freedom (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009).
- David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (New York: Oxford Univeristy Press, 2006).
- Larry Jr. Hudson, “All that Cash: Work and Status in the Slave Quarters,” in Working Toward Freedom: Slave Society and Domestic Economy in the American South, ed. Larry Hudson Jr. (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1994), 77-94.
- Terry L. Seip, “Slaves and Free Negroes in Alexandria, 1850-60,” in Plantation, Town and Country: Essays on the Local History of American Slave Society, ed. Elinor Miller and Eugene D. Genovese (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 397-414.
Scholarly Articles
- Ira Berlin and Herbert G. Gutman, “Natives and Immigrants, Free Men and Slaves: Urban Workingmen in the Antebellum American South,” The American Historical Review 88, no. 5 (1983): 1175-1200.
- Errol A. Henderson, “Slave Religion, Slave Hiring, and the Incipient Proletarianization of Enslaved Black Labor: Developing Du Bois’ Thesis on Black Participation in the Civil War as a Revolution,” Journal of African American Studies 19, no. 2 (2015): 192-213.
- Sarah S. Hughes, “Slaves for Hire: The Allocation of Black Labor in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, 1782-1810,” The William and Mary Quarterly 35, no. 2 (1978): 260-286.
- B. Ruby Rich, “Sundance 2016: Uplifting, Tragic, Always Disruptive,” Film Quarterly 69, no. 4 (2016): 98-106.
- Daniel H. Usner Jr., “From African Captivity to American Slavery: The Introduction of Black Laborers to Colonial Louisiana,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 20, no. 1 (1979): 25-48.
