Slavery and the Making of America

A Q&A with Dr. James Oliver Horton

James Oliver Horton is a featured historian, Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University, and the co-author of the series' companion book, published by Oxford University Press.

Q: How would you describe Slavery and the Making of America? What does the series set out to accomplish?

A: This series is one of the most effective documentaries on the history of slavery that I have seen. It does not isolate the institution in one narrow region during a single limited time period of American history. Instead viewers follow the development of slavery from the earliest days of British North American colonization in the North as well as the South, through the Revolutionary War and into the 19th century as it becomes the profound national wedge that almost tears the country apart.

The series seeks not only to trace the development of slavery as an institution, but also to help viewers understand its impact on all of those associated with it, from those held in its bondage to those who profited so mightily from the wealth that slaves created. Most of all the series seeks to help Americans understand how integral slavery was to the development of the economic, political and social structure of the entire nation.

Q: What are the most common misconceptions we have about slavery?

A: There are many misconceptions about slavery, the most widespread of which is that beyond the South the institution was of little if any significance. In reality, slavery was a part of the labor system in every one of the original 13 colonies. There were large estates in the Narragansett region of Rhode Island that were a great deal like the plantations of South Carolina and there were also large tobacco estates on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley. By the late 18th century, New York City's urban slave population was second only to Charleston, South Carolina's, and New York, along with Newport, Boston and ports in New Jersey, was the major hub of slave trading on the eastern seaboard.

After slavery had been abolished in New York City in 1827, later than in many other parts of the North, New York financiers continued to play a critical role in providing the operating capital that southern plantations depended on.

The profits made in the holding and the trading of slaves enriched America, North as well as South. The 18th century slave trade provided the seed capital that made America's 19th-century industrial revolution possible and by 1840 the value of southern-grown cotton exported abroad was greater than that of all other American exports combined.

Q: How does Slavery and the Making of America differ from other programs about slavery, namely Roots ?

A: Roots, both the book and the film, was a singular achievement that moved far beyond the old romanticized plantation images and provided the most realistic picture of slavery that most Americans had ever seen up to that time. Almost 30 years after Roots it remains the touchstone for the popular understanding of slavery. It was the dynamic and complex story of an African-American family's struggling to cope with the misery of enslavement that left many wanting, even needing, to know more about the system of human bondage that so blatantly contradicted the American commitment to freedom. Slavery and the Making of America addresses that need with a rich, full story of the lives of many African-Americans from many families over the two and one half centuries of American bondage. It presents slavery in a broad American context as the institution shaped much of the country's economic and political system, and helped to form the national culture.

Q: What are some of the more surprising facts that stem from the new scholarship presented in this series?

A: The modern scholarship on the history of slavery stems from the mid-20th century when historians successfully challenged the old pro-slavery pre-Civil War paternalistic stereotypes perpetuated in the history literature from the end of the Civil War down through to the end of the Jim Crow era. Starting in the mid-1950s historians examined the primary documents of the slave period to find the brutality of the institution, and by the 1970s they were starting to appreciate as never before the determined and resourceful resistance of enslaved people struggling to retain self-respect and human dignity in the face of grueling oppression. By the 1980s scholars had begun to understand and be impressed by the strength of those who never gave in to the brutality, the terror or the inhumanity of slavery, and whose struggle stood for the values outlined in American patriotic rhetoric, if not always in its practice. This is a story of strong and determined men, women and even children, that excited scholars in the last generation and will captivate and fascinate today's viewing public.

Q: Why are this series and its new scholarship relevant now?

A: In the mid-1990s then-President Bill Clinton asked Americans to have a conversation on race. This attempt was not as successful as he had hoped it would be, in part because most Americans did not know enough about race and its place in our national history to hold an intelligent conversation. It is even more critical now than it was a decade ago for Americans to talk to one another about this most important and volatile aspect of contemporary American life. Slavery and the struggle against it have shaped American institutions and culture in significant ways, which have in turn shaped all Americans. We will never be able to successfully deal with contemporary racial issues until we understand their history and come to appreciate the fact that America, from its inception, has been a multiracial society built by a variety of peoples, from all the continents of the world, who came to call themselves Americans. This series will provide a significant opening for the complex and difficult conversation we as a nation desperately need to have.