Bound by Blood

Two years ago, I had the fortunate opportunity to take a ‘History of the American South’ course at Rhodes. As one would guess, the course had strong ties to our present class ‘African American History’, with one of those ties being a focus on family makeup. In my previous course, I actually wrote an essay on the antebellum planter family structure and its role in society. Thus, during this semester I have been able to make comparisons on that subject since our class focused particularly on the African American families, and my essay’s focus was on white family relations. I am going to reference the article, The Structure of Antebellum Planter Families: "The Ties that Bound us was Strong”, and hopefully provide some new insight.

During the antebellum period, family structure acted powerfully within society especially amongst southern planters. In her article, Joan Cashin exposes the significant function that extended family served. She notes that although historians have depicted the antebellum planter family as a close-knit model, in reality it extended outside the borders of just the parents and children; rather, it included aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and cousins. She shows that this extension is based upon the relationships and bonds built in addition to the active roles held in each other’s lives.

Cashin mentions several different kinds of visits families made to one another, distinguishing ceremonial visits, informal visits, and extended visits, with each bringing family from outside of the “nuclear core” into the innate relationships of the household. On more extensive stays, the visitors were naturally included in household routine and activities, leading the visitors to eventually embrace their new roles in the family. Extended family were also expected to take part in raising “the next generation”, as well as to house children for extended periods for various reasons. Furthermore, courtship and marriage typically emerged, as many marriages were the product of relationships built during these visits. Beneficially, marrying within the family secured family wealth and property in addition to assurance of the adjoining family’s history, an essential factor in maintaining status and class.

Similarly, close bonds with extended family led to shared inheritance and opportunities to become each other’s allies in business, politics, and society. There was mutual responsibility amongst family members to lead the next generation and to provide and assist in governing one another. For that reason, since future of a family relied heavily on inheritance, familial connections in business, and support from their own vast number, then the family structure is partly, if not greatly, responsible for representation in society.

In looking at what we’ve learned so far about African American families during the Antebellum, it’s ironic how the planter families so greatly owed their existence to the family model. Yet, at the same time they were generally the ones destroying the families of their slaves. In the south, slaves were constantly being sold and disconnected from their loved ones, though they too deeply valued family relationships. Essentially, a slave’s family is all a slave had. As the force of fear of disconnection grew amongst slaves, they began to take action. This decision to act, more than any other evidence, is a testament to just how important those connections were to slaves. Adding to the hypocrisy that created slavery, in this case African American slaves were marginalized when they shared the same values as whites.

Cashin, Joan E. "The Structure of Antebellum Planter Families: "The Ties that Bound us was Strong" The Journal of Southern History 56.1 (1990): 55-70