Kenneth Stampp A Troublesome Property Analysis

What happened in the past will not change. How we perceive historical events will always change. Although slavery has been deemed immoral by the vast majority of historians, that does not mean it was completely wrong. Every historian provides a unique perspective on slavery, the economic system in early American history, based on personal experiences and the time period they grew up in. By looking at the ideas of Kenneth Stampp, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, and Eugene Genovese we can understand the attitudes of the slaves towards their work from a multitude of perspectives to develop one of our own design. The basis of Stampp’s argument in, A Troublesome Property, is that there is a desire for freedom in a slaves. He says non-slaves
Having grown up in a WWI and WWII world, especially with experience working in Germany, it is only logical that he would have a stronger opinion on the immorality of slavery, even with its economic benefits. He lived in a time were once again people were marked and corralled together because of a characteristic they could not help but be born with. All of Stampp’s points and his background place him in the Progressive school of history. After all, a large part of his argument is based on his idea that “the slaves were merely ordinary human beings, that innately Negroes are after all, only white men with black skins , nothing more, nothing less” (256). His exposure to death and prejudice ultimately influenced his perception of what defines a human, and he found that the answer was to be more inclusive of all people; every person was completely and without out a doubt a person. While some were saying slaves wanted to be controlled, Stampp argues that slaves wanted freedom and, “all knew that some Negroes had been emancipated; they knew that freedom was a possible condition” (258). Stampp believed in change, that it was necessary and inevitable. He knew the slaves wanted change, in fact, “ the prevalence of theft was a clear sign that slaves were discontented, at least with the standard of living imposed upon them” (269). His disagreement with Dr. Cartwright’s“dissertations on Negro diseases [which] are mere curiosities” shows that he wants to change the way we think about the mind of a slave; they are not different from us, just separated from us (266). Cartwright’s statement would most likely be ignored or refuted by the other authors, Fogel and Engerman and Genovese because it is irrelevant to the economy and efficiency of the slaves’ work for Fogel and Engerman. Genovese would argue that this dissertation would contradict the paternalist