Beyond Books	It's a little after 10 in the morning on April 12, 1999, in College Park, Maryland. We are here with Professor Ira Berlin.
Ques	How long was the average time interval between capture in Africa and arrival in the plantation?
Berlin	There is no meaningful average. The Atlantic slave trade lasted over 4 centuries. And, of course, connected very different places in Africa and America. But throughout the trade's long history, the Atlantic crossing rarely took less than a few weeks. And, sometimes, it took many months. If viewed from the point of capture, travel from the interior of Africa to a plantation in the New World could be well over a year.
Ques	What percentage of Southerners were slaveholders?
Berlin	In 1860, the South had a population of 12-1/2 million. Of those, 4 milliion were slaves. The vast majority of the population was white. Of the whites, only 400,000 owned slaves. If the average slave-holding family contained 5 individuals, then only 2 of the 8 million whites held slaves or were members of families that held slaves.
xena	How about Northern percentages?
Berlin	First, slavery in the North was largely a 17th and 18th century phenomenon. The largest concentration of slaves in parts of the Middle Colonies: New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island never reached above 20% of the population. The vast majority of Northerners did not own slaves, either.
gumby	How influential was "The Liberator"?
Berlin	"The Liberator," William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, was an extraordinarily influential newspaper. It played a critical role in creating a cadre of young, northern men and women committed to abolishing slavery.
bfloyd	I know that Harvard University has completed a transatlantic slave trade data base. Is there now a more accurate assessment of how many Africans were transported to North America and which parts of Africa they come from. If so, can you give us a bit of information about that?
Berlin	Good question. The Harvard U. database is a monumental contribution to an understanding of the slave trade. It confirms the overall volume of the slave trade, but tells us many new things of who went where and when. So that, for example, we now know that slaves from the Nigerian interior largely populated the Chesapeake region. Low-country South Carolina, on the other hand, was peopled by Africans from Angola and then from Sengambia. This is akin to understanding that Boston in the 19th century was peopled largely by Irish and that Milwaukee in the 19th century was populated by German-speaking people. And shaped the culture of those two cities in very different ways.
shs	So was the culture of the South influenced by the slaves that populated different areas?
Berlin	In much the same way, the igbos peoples who populated Virginia in the 18th century, shaped that society differently than the Angolans influenced the development of South Carolina.
shs	After the Civil War, what did white America expect now former slaves to do?
Berlin	White Americans had many different ideas about how former slaves would be integrated into the nation. Those ideas shaped American politics for two decades. Some of the Abolitionist tradition believed that the integration should be complete and equal and rapid. But even those of the Abolitionist tradition differed among themselves as to whether former slaves should be given land, political rights, a social equality. And, of course, there were many white Americans who did not believe that black people should be given any of these. That they should be kept in a state of quasi-slavery and that they were not fully prepared to be part of the American republic.
xena	How were mixed-raced children looked upon?
Berlin	By law, children followed the status of their mothers. So that a descendant of a free man (white or black) and a slave woman would be a slave. Meaning many people of equal white or European descent were slaves and they were treated as slaves by their parents and other white people. However, throughout the period of slavery, the black community always accepted people of mixed descent a s part of their own community and incorporated them into African-American society.
bfloyd	Dr. Berlin, I'm a reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Ed. in the Information Technology section. We're always interested in how the Web enhances scholarship. In light of all of the new research on slavery, or early American history, are you participating in any activities to make that data freely available on line. If so, can you share that information with us?
Berlin	My recent book, "Remembering Slavery" which is an audio book composed of both text and tapes constructed from interviews done in the 1930s and 40s is being put online by its publisher, The New Press, and by the Smithsonian Institution, which was part of the Remembering Slavery project.
Ques	How common was it for slaves to revolt?
Berlin	Revolution is never common in the history of the world. Few of us are willing to risk all no matter how desperate our circumstances. However, there was an organized insurrectionary activities or rebellions in which slaves took place, as well as a host of other subversive activities, which ranged from violence against owners and mistresses, to running away, to breaking tools to peeing in the soup. Slaveholders understood they were never safe.
BBFran	Were there common forms of resistance...."work to rule" types of behavior that were common?
Berlin	Yes, many BBFran. In fact, the slaves' understanding and control of the productive processes, everything from growing cotton to making iron, was a great source of power which slaves used to prrotect themselves and to expand their independence within slavery.
shs	What was it like for a free African American in the South? Could they shop in town, interact with whites? How many free African American in the South were there?
Berlin	There were about 1/4 million free blacks. That is a larger number than lived in the so-called Free States. Free African-Americans in the south were constrained by law and custom in a variety of war. They could not sit on juries. They could not travel freely. They could not vote. They could not meet openly. But, they could work independently. They could accumulate property. They could control their own families... And this provided them a small modicum of independence upon which they created their own institutions: schools, churches, fraternal organizations, which gave meaning to their lives.
gumby	I've read that the Bible was used as a justification by some southerners to keep slaves....how widespread was this and what was the role of churches -- both black and white -- during the 19th century in regard to slavery?
Berlin	The established church in the south of various denominations was controlled by slaveholders and articulated the pro-slavery argument. Nonetheless, slaves turned that religion to their own uses and developed an anti-slavery argument from the very same Christian apologies that slaveholders used. The notion, for example, of "free at last" could be used by slaveholders to indicate that slaves would be free, but in another world. And that on this earth they should respect and obey their masters. That idea, "Free at last," was used by slaves in precisely the opposite manner. That they would be free and that they, or perhaps their children, would celebrate the great jubilee.
xena	Did you see Oprah's movie "Beloved"....did you like it...think it was good or accurate?
Berlin	Oprah's dramatization of Toni Morrison's great novel is one understanding of slavery and the aftermath of slavery. Needless to say, there are many other interpretations. For the period following slavery, for many former slaves was a period of enormous liberation and transformation in which they took new names, established new residence, created new institutions, and put African-American life on a different footing.
cyberdino	Was "Uncle Tom's Cabin" read in the South? Did it make any difference?
Berlin	Yes, Uncle Tom's Cabin was read in the south. The reaction to Uncle Tom's Cabin in the south is really quite interesting. Among whites, there was a kind of double-take. At first, recognizing and confirming many of Stowe's insights into the nature of slave life. And then, coming to an understanding of Stowe's antislavery purposes turning away from the novel, rejecting it, ridiculing it, and even creating counter-novels which parodied Stowe's work.
wryguy	When did England outlaw slavery...how did they view slavery in America?
Berlin	The British outlawed slavery within their own empire in 1833. Of course, at that point the United States was independent and the actions of the British Parliament had no effect on American slavery. Except to isolate the U.S. and make it clear that slavery throughout the world was on the defensive. The Somerset Decision outlawed slavery in England itself.
Ques	Were beatings common?
Berlin	Yes. Probably every slave experienced a beating or knew one who did.
shs	What about slavery in other parts of the world, or other parts of the British Empire?
Berlin	Slavery continued to shrink after emancipation in the northern states of the U.S. We've already discussed British abolition. Soon thereafter the French would abolish slavery in their colonies, and in 1888, Brazil, the last major slave state in the new world abolished slavery. Slavery continued to exist in other places and indeed gained new life in parts of Africa even as it was being abolished in the New World. And, in some places, slavery continues to exist today, although illegally and clandestinely.
bfloyd	The recent effort by Disney to create a theme park based on history (and to be located in Virginia) created quite an uproar in the scholarly community. As I recall, there was a lot of discussion about things like how the period of slavery and the Civil war would be interepreted. What made the Disney idea a difficult one to sell. And what, in your view, are some of the best ways to interpret history - for the public - museums, on-line exhibits, films?
Berlin	The Disney affair raised extraordinarily important questions about how the new scholarship on slavery is to be made available to a more general public. This is being done in a variety of forums. One of which is Beyond Books. Another is Oprah's movie. The movies "Glory," "Amistad," etc. We want to display in these various other forums the same complexity that is represented in the scholarship. Meaning two things: First, the violence and imposition both physical and psychological that is part of slavery. That is the very essence of slavery. Second, the refusal of the slaves themselves to be dehumanized by the dehumanizing violence. And, instead to create an extraordinary array of new cultural forms, everything from music to cuisine, to theology, to language, which remade American society. So, slavery is two things. It is death and it is life. It is both our worst nightmare and our period of greatest cultural creativity. Any public exhibition of slavery should try to capture both of those parts of the slave experience.
gumby	Was there any argument made that since the founding fathers did not outlaw slavery, then it must be both legally and morally acceptable?
Berlin	The defenders of slavery drew upon the Constitution as they drew upon the Bible to defend their ownership of men and women.
Ques	Was chattel slavery created only because we failed to reflect on moral issues?
Berlin	Although some moral qualms about enslavement of fellow men and women (most especially the slaves themselves) always existed, no one seriously questioned of the morality of slavery into the mid-18ty century. Until that point, slavery was fully accepted in much the way we accept inequality today -- Something to be regretted but natural. It was justified by the Bible, both old and new testaments; by the Koran, and e very other authoritized moral text. In short, at the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade , the enslavement was not a moral choice for either Africans or Europeans. It was, however, a choice. And there were other choices in finding a labor force for the New World: the enslavement o f Native Americans or Europeans rather than Africans; the use of short term slaves or indentured servants of various nationality, and the use of wage workers. This too would have made a difference in the development of the New World.
bfloyd	Dr. Berlin, is there any sense that the Africans who participated in the slave trade have any understanding of what was happening on the other side (the Americas).
Berlin	Interesting question. Yes, by the 19th century Africans like Europeans were crisscrossing the Atlantic. Some freed slaves were returning to Africa. This is true not simply for slaves or former slaves from the U.S., but from other countries, particularly Brazil. They brought with them a full appreciation of how the Atlantic economy worked and the role of the slave trade in it. Earlier, of course, there was not such an appreciation and indeed for the first Africans enslaved in the 15th and 16th centuries, there was a deep fear that their white enslavers were cannibals and would eat them.
Beyond Books	A final comment from Professor Berlin
Berlin	It is obvious that slavery has captured the imagination of the American people. We can see it in the movies, museum exhibits, the TV shows, and so on. I believe that this represents a coming to terms wit h an important, if difficult, part of our history. Which represents itself a kind of maturation. Slavery is a difficult subject, but an essential one for us to understand if we are to understand who we are as a people and to address slavery's extraordinarily long-lived legacy.
bfloyd	Thank you for offering us this forum. I've enjoyed it. Thank you Dr. Berlin. Bianca -- also a Maryland Un. Graduate in Black Studies -- Class of 77. Couldn't resist.
shs	Thank you Professor Berlin. It was very interesting!
Beyond Books	Thank you everybody for participating.