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In “Social transactions between whites and blacks” by Philip D. Morgan, it is described that racial interactions take place primarily in public spaces, away from one’s house, and frequently outside of one’s community nowadays. In contrast, during the eighteenth century, racial relations took place primarily in private settings, such as the house and the plantation. In the article, Morgan (2011) investigates the constant and unavoidable interactions between races.
Moreover, Morgan (2011) relies heavily on recorded records of contacts between enslavers and enslaved people to demonstrate the wide range of possible outcomes. Morgan’s stories are packed with incredible detail that lets one understand what these interactions presented. It could be claimed that Morgan’s article enriches one’s comprehension of the intertwined lives of blacks and whites, as demonstrated by the constant presence of enslaved people in the personal space of the masters.
In the times of early American slavery, white people unconsciously and consciously placed black people in the domain of their psychological processes. As mentioned in the article, nobody and nothing was immune to the ravages of slavery, a system formed in the crucible of constant, unavoidable face-to-face confrontations (Morgan, 2011). For example, the master’s unconscious realm was overrun by blacks, who emerged in the whites’ dreams. As such, Morgan (2011) provides accounts of the enslavers like Lachlan Bain Mcintosh and Frederick George Mulcaster, who perceived the enslaved people in their dreams quite differently from a negative obstructive role to one of the helper.
The other point of the psychological presence of the blacks in the whites’ minds concerns self-worth. According to Morgan (2011), “for the master, much of his self-image depended on the possession of slaves” (p. 455). The author describes the situations in which black people were perceived as demonstrations of wealth or generosity in the case of gifts. Therefore, Morgan’s article demonstrates that whites and blacks did not live in mutual exclusion, which is observed in the psychological presence of enslaved people in the minds of the masters.
Furthermore, the constant interaction with black people left cultural traces in the white people’s perception of the enslaved people. Namely, Morgan (2011) writes that white and black children often grew up together and interacted in a friendly and malicious manner. However, the predetermined results of such an upbringing in a slave culture was developing to rely on enslaved people. In turn, dependence meant regular contact and interaction, which shaped the cultural stereotypes regarding black. For example, “slaveowners populated their figures of speech with slaves: humble as slaves, yellow as a mulatto, looking skyward ‘like a Negro weeding corn,’ sleeping in one’s clothes ‘like a Negro’” (Morgan, 2011, p. 455).
The presence of language items related to black people is the most pertinent evidence of the frequency, concernment, and involvement of white people in the routine of the blacks. Thus, it could be claimed that the interaction of enslaved people and enslavers was mutual and left traces in the minds and culture of each party.
To conclude, the frequent interactions between white and black people resulted in the constant representation of this relationship in the minds and cultures of both social classes. Such an argument is present in Morgan’s article, which enriches the understanding of this relationship through specific accounts and examples. The dependence and inclusion of white people in blacks’ existence are observed through the presence of slaves in the masters’ dreams, self-perception, and language.
Reference
Morgan, P. D. (2011). Social transactions between whites and blacks. In S. N. Katz, J. M. Murrin, D. Greenberg, D. J. Silverman, & D. Brunsman (Eds.), Colonial America: Essays in Politics and Social Development (6th ed., pp. 454–476). Routledge.
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