Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (Norton Library)

I could not put this book down, i learned so much about my people that i never learned in any history class in all my years of schooling in America. That is another story altogether. Peter Wood did an excellent job in examining numerous sources.His ability to identify and understand the diversity of the african backgrounds of the slaves was refreshing. He's helping to undermine the prevalent thought among scholars that the slaves had no technology and were blank slates for Europeans to paint in their own images. He identified the fact that some "Planters" requested slaves from certain areas such as the rice coast, (modern day sierra leone belongs to this coast.)Which in itself shows that Planters were well aware of their slaves origin and the differences between them. I can't say much more without giving away too much of the book. But it's highly recommended.

We keep wondering why we continue to make the same mistakes and operate in ways that don't serve us as a country. Well this book helps to enlighten us as to why that is. The lessons learned in the early days by White men or Europeans and those values have stayed with us as a country as we continued to push further and further away from the coasts into lands that belonged to Native Tribes. It also speaks about the introduction of Africans into America and the fear that Europeans had for those same peoples brought here to cultivate the land and increase the bank books of the slave holders. Again, I loved this book and learned a lot from it.

Great history book with a treasure trove of new information from primary sources. One of my top 4 history books of all times. My ancestry is rooted in Carolina and the relationships between my black, white and Indian ancestors. Reading this expanded my understanding of my family's history. Thanks Peter Wood! Great work that I will read again and again and never be without.

In depth, complete history of not just slavery, but the "times", what was happening in general, Indian slavery and lots of documentation. Great historical book without bias or attitude.

In Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion, historian Peter H. Wood examines the rise of a distinct slave culture in South Carolina during the colonial period. Wood’s argument stems from the assertion that South Carolina was, in effect, a colony of a colony, having been settled by Barbadians looking for greater land opportunities. He argues, “Those who traveled to [the Carolina] coast from Barbados – both blacks and whites – were to make of a significant segment of the first permanent colony in that region” and “the activities of a group of Barbadian Adventurers helped lay out the terms under which the Carolina coast would eventually be colonized.” Wood structures his argument chronologically as he traces the evolution of colonial South Carolina, only occasionally skipping ahead or backwards to illustrate a point. Wood’s evidence includes county records, the wills of deceased slave owners, and, in some cases, accounts of slaves themselves. While Wood’s argument is well founded and would have been revolutionary in 1974, it is tainted with holdovers from the pre-Civil Rights era and Wood himself is hesitant at times to give agency to the black population of South Carolina. Wood begins his argument by describing how South Carolina began as a colony of Barbados, itself a colony. He writes of the proprietors of the colony, “For these men in London, a slave colony in Carolina might dovetail nicely with their interests.” The wording in the original headright system led to “an increase in the number of Negroes who would be transported involuntarily to Carolina during the early years” since their presence secured more land for their masters. Wood attributes the early ability of South Carolina farmers to cultivate rice to “Negroes from the West Coast of Africa” who “were widely familiar with rice planting.” Wood states that the ability of the black population to grow faster than the white was due to two factors: the first was accelerated population growth from the import of more slaves every year, and the second was the black population’s immunity to certain tropical diseases for which the white population had no natural defenses. Wood’s chronicle continues through the expanding black population, eventually leading him to use a quote describing the colony as “a Negro country.” He concludes his account with black resistance to increasing restrictions and the Stono Rebellion, which effectively ended the “freedoms” that slaves had available to them. When Wood writes of the trade skills of slaves, he does so from the perspective of the master and speaks little, if at all, about what these trades meant to the black population itself. One example of this is the offhand reference to a master’s will which listed “a Negro silversmith named Limus appraised at the exceptional value of £300.” He primarily discusses the profits a trained slave could bring to his master if resold. Even Gullah, a language created by the slaves themselves, is cast less as something done to preserve elements of culture and more as a natural pidginizing process, at times encouraged by whites who adopted elements of African languages including some names. Even with this hesitancy to grant agency to the black population, Wood clearly defines which generation he belongs to through his consistent use of the term Negro. It is his primary term for the slave population and helps to explain why he is hesitant at points to give agency. Overall, Wood’s argument for a black majority, not only in population but in culture, is sound, but, had more effort been made to getting the black side of the story instead of relying so heavily on white sources, the book have a more balanced tone.

Excellent book on the subject of race in the southern colonies.

Peter Wood presents a very thorough account of Africans in South Carolina in the 1700s. From the first Africans to arrive on a Spanish expedition in 1526 and the African migrants arriving from Barbados in 1670 to the social tensions of the 1700s, Wood covers such topics as cattle raising, rice cultivation, disease, family life, religion, Black English, growing anxieties between whites and blacks, and the Stono Rebellion in 1739. Blacks became the majority population in South Carolina by the early 1700s. They were brought in as laborers and were immune to many lowland diseases that led to the higher mortality and morbidity rate among European settlers. Interestingly, the sickle cell trait heightened Africans' resistance to malaria. What I gathered from this work is that, while Africans were enslaved by the whites, Africans shaped South Carolina more than any other group through such things as their knowledge of cattle grazing, rice planting and cleaning, etc. Interesting book but, due to the narrowness of the study, I would only recommend it to those interested in black history or South Carolina.

I ordered this booking while taking a recent class from the retired author Peter Wood. This book was responsible for the way we are taught about slavery now. Before Peters book the schools still presented slavery as a necessary good and the slave was happy and loved the life he/she lead. Peters research is still very relevant and a wonderfully insightful read., If you are interested in history at all this is a must read!