Microhistory: A Response to Post-Modernism

Alexander Loutsky

History 200 Professor Jonathan Sassi May 21, 2010

Loutsky 2 Richard Brown says post-modernism is the latest intellectual fashion. He claims that post-modernism challenges the truth claims historians have made, and he thinks this is a good thing.1 Post-modernism, to be sure, is a reaction to the very confident claims of the modernists.2 The modernists' optimism grew from the fruits of the Enlightenment which brought unimaginable innovation in all areas of life, even how they saw truth. The modernist believed that the truth in history could be understood through the same scientific methodology used in the physical sciences. In fact, this methodology was applied to all areas of knowledge, universally. Objectivity was the goal and subjectivity was to be avoided. Leopold von Ranke believed that the allowing of the evidence to speak for itself was of paramount importance in the telling of history.3 Historians believe this today as well. But Ranke also believed in a totally objective and scientific history, which, historians in this post-modern period call into question. The result of this postured science and objectivity has been grand narratives and syntheses which added more interpretation and imagination to what happened, than the reality of what really did happen.4 This is one reason post-modernism looks at the truth claims made by historians with great skepticism; indeed, in its extreme, some post-modernists are so skeptical, they think it is impossible to know the truth of what really happened, at all.5 Yet, as Arnold noted, the more we see history over the past, we see that . . . history has changed over time . . . [and] that it can change again.6 For just as modernity has been called into question by postmodernity, modernity has called into question the linear and polemical narratives of their

Richard D. Brown, "Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge," Journal of the Early Republic 23, no. 1: 1 (2003): 2-3, 9. 2 Jonathan Sassi, Microhistory and Postmodernism (Lecture, College of Staten Island, Staten Island, NY, April 28, 2010). 3 John H. Arnold, History A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 36. 4 Brown, "Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge," 7. 5 Ibid., 3, 20. 6 Arnold, History A Very Short Introduction, 37.

Loutsky 3 predecessors; 7 because, they, too, wanted to write a more accurate and truthful account of the past.8 Thus, the post-modern challenge to the truth claims of modern historians has inspired them to write history more accurately and truthfully. Randy J. Sparks, in his compelling history of the eighteenth century Atlantic World, The two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth Century Odyssey, has, through the experience of the Robin Johns, responded to this post-modern challenge with a microhistory, which reveals the Atlantic World in a very genuine way.9 A microhistory, according to Brown, is an approach to history borne out of this postmodern challenge. Since post-modernism challenges the legitimacy of historians truth claims with skepticism, modern historians, like Sparks, have taken to reconstruct the past and to tell a believable history with a microhistorical approach. This is one reason why Brown thinks the post-modern challenge is good. The other reason is, it keeps historians from being complacent about their truth claims.10 There is good reason to hold suspect many of the grand narratives and syntheses that historians have claimed in the past. For one, there is a flaw in the reasoning that history is objective. Brown says [h]istory is . . . a subjective construction derived from facts.11 If one takes the point of view that historical truths can be obtained by strict scientific objectivity, one fails to see that those truths in the physical and life sciences can only be empirically proven because they are, reproducible. Historians cannot reproduce the interrelated complexity of human lives and their institutions from the past; they can only reconstruct parts of them with the evidence they have been able to recover and the subjectivity of mind to predict the limitations. Hence, being subjective is a good thing; especially, if it is the subjective mind

Ibid, 16. Ibid., 21. 9 Randy J. Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth Century Atlantic Odyssey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). 10 Brown, "Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge," 9. 11 Ibid., 3.
8

Loutsky 4 directing the thoughts toward being skeptical, and critical of ones sources, as well as ones interpretation of those sources. Being skeptical and critical are, after all, the first and second virtues of a . . . good modern historian; with the third virtue being the art of good guessing.12 Also, not only has this modernist view about objectivity been the impetus for this post-modern challenge, but their notion of truth as well. For the modernist, utter certainty was achievable. Truth was more of a black and white construction. Modern historians, however, see that . . . truths have only higher or lower degrees of probability . . . , that the conception of their being an absolute truth is unachievable, and such an expectation, can only give rise to doubt. This is because there is no way to recreate the occurrences of the past exactly as they happened. Moreover, . . . truths that possess a high degree of uncertainty supply crucial insights for understanding the past. 13 Here the mind of the historian subjectively realizes the distinct objectivity, or the uniqueness, of the history he or she is attempting to reconstruct, realizing its limitations. Subjectivity, then, sensitizes the mind to the limitations of interpretation and to the value of truth in the research and reconstruction of history. So, if history is a subjective construction derived from facts, as Brown states, how then does microhistory, in a practical way, approach the facts? The first way is done by scale. Microhistory is looking at smaller places and doing so intensively.14 When Sparks writes of the eighteenth century Atlantic World he does so through the experiences of the Robin Johns. Using the letters written between the Robin Johns and Charles Wesley, Sparks begins to tell [t]heir story written in their own hand.15 Sparks informs us that he is writing a microhistory and focuses on those various experiences of the Robin

12

13

Arnold, History A Very Short Introduction, 25. Brown, "Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge," 8 . 14 Ibid., 10. 15 Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar, 1.

Loutsky 5 Johns in a seven year period, and connects them to other historical events as they intersect each other, in place and time.16 By focusing on the small, Sparks is able to give much more detail. Sparks makes direct connections between the Robin Johns and the 1767 Massacre; Methodisms entry into the African continent; the testing of the Somerset Law; and British Abolitionism.17 Indeed, through exhaustive investigation, Sparks reconstructs the Robin Johns odyssey from the 1767 Massacre to the first Methodist missions in Calabar; from being slave traders, to becoming slaves themselves, and then, their ironic reentry into slave trading. Sparks also enriches his ability to make better interpretations by researching the growth and emergence of the Atlantic World, its peoples and emerging cultures. He explores the histories of the English, the Caribbean--and other parts of the Americas with its native peoples, as well as the slave trade. Sparks uses other sources to learn of the plants and animals, the various diseases; and the rise of economic systems and empires. The notion of Atlantic creoles, for instance, became all the more visible, since, the Robin Johns where such individuals; furthermore, it corroborated Ira Berlin's assertion that Atlantic creoles had more to do with culture than with birth.18 Some critics of microhistory have contended that microhistory attempts to interpret the larger culture, by the individual, or that the microcosm would define the macrocosm. But this is an overstated and exaggerated assertion, not only are microhistorians more circumspect, with regard to their claims, but there is no method to show that the . . . microcosm is a miniature version of the macrocosm. For we would have to know both completely to make such an argument; and this is implausible.19

16

17

Ibid., 3. Ibid., 96. 18 Ibid., 3-4. 19 Brown, "Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge," 14.

Loutsky 6 Microhistory not only focuses on the small intensively, it also takes advantage and concentrates its analysis on unusual events. Brown mentions this as the exceptional normal.20 It was normal, for instance, to find that slaves were unable to write, they kept no journals and were illiterate; therefore, historians cannot fully know the truth of their experience, that is, from their own perspective. The Robin Johns, however, were exceptional in that they were literate and able to communicate their experiences. This gives a glimpse into the experiences related to being captured into slavery, enduring the arduous middle passage, and then, being sold into slavery in strange and foreign places: experiences which otherwise would be lost in the past. Although Sparks could be criticized for the paucity of direct sources of the Robin Johns experience of the middle passage, but it must be kept in mind, the Robin Johns did not keep a journal aboard the ships they were in; even so, Sparks was able to reconstruct, with detail, many of the facts of the middle passage using The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database, in addition to other sources.21 This database was able to corroborate the Robin Johns account of their experiences with the various Captains and their respective ships, which sailed on specific dates and voyages. On this database, each voyage has a Unique Identity Number, each describing in detail how many slaves were on board each ship upon departure, and how many arrived to their destination, citing an approximate death rate for the middle passage at about 14.9 percent, as well.22 From this, Sparks reconstructed what the middle passage may have been for the Robin Johns with a very high level of probability. As a result of this reconstruction and the Robin Johns literacy, they were a rare source, an exceptional source, for insight into slavery, from the slave's perspective.

Ibid., 15 . Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, http://www.slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces (accessed May 19, 2010). 22 Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar, 74.
21

20

Loutsky 7 Another approach used in microhistory according to Brown is Community studies. Sparks studied the development of the Ekpe, a socio-economic convention used by the Efut. The Efik had purchased the Ekpe system from the Efut, in about 1650.23 With the use of Ekpe, a new power structure was introduced into Calabar society, instead of the traditional culture, based on age and ancestry, a new leadership emerged of elite slave traders. Membership to Ekpe was open to alleven slavesbut the upper levels could only be bought by wealthy slave traders. Sparks demonstrated with this extensive community study, how this system evolved to be the governing body of Efik society, both in Old Town and in New Town, Calabar. This system made laws, enforced them, organized towns, reshaped their various religions, and imposed trade boycotts. Sparks argues that this complex Ekpe system may explain more fully the 1767 Massacre. Sparks relates how Grandy King George had taken the highest title of, Grand Ekpe, and had taken advantage of the comey, by sanctioning New Town, so that no ships would dock on their waters. The monopolization by Old Town of the trade may have instigated the retaliation which caused this bloody transaction.24 These community or identity studies add much texture to the history being written. Dimension is added to this texture when one sees the connectedness of all the sources, particularly primary sources, and how these sources cross-corroborate each other. Sparks use of the letters between the Robin Johns and Wesley, was able to reveal their ordeal, their creolized culture, their conversion to Methodism; the letters of Grandy King George revealed much about the relationship between Africans and English traders, it testified about the kidnapping of the Robin Johns, and gave an account of the trade culture; Hall's Testimony, gave details about the slave trade, as well as details and confirmation of the 1767 Massacre; Barbot's narrative gave

23 24

Ibid., 59. Sparks, The Two Princes of Calabar, 58-59, 65-67.

Loutsky 8 insight into voyage conditions, and West African society and trade.25 This list can be augmented. Indeed, . . . [t]he glory of microhistory . . . lies in its power to recover and reconstruct past events by . . . connecting . . . data sources . . . to produce a contextual, three-dimensional, analytic narrative in which actual people and abstract forces shape events.26 We have demonstrated that history has changed over time, and the direction appears to be toward greater accuracy and truthfulness. We have seen how the post-modern challenge to the legitimacy of historians truth claims, actually is a catalyst for change, it acts as the corrective Brown spoke of, and microhistory is an approach which makes this correction evident.27 Sparks microhistory is an example of what can be achieved by this approach. His work is significant and engaging in that he was able to present a very rare firsthand account of enslavement which was multi-dimensional. The Two princes of Calabar, sheds light on the slave trade as a business, predominantly, from the African point of view; also, it demonstrates the conflicts among Africans and African slavery; it makes the creolized Atlantic World more visible and knowable; and, lastly, it shows the different views on slavery in the Atlantic World, particularly, the irony of the Robin Johns returning to the slave trade after their harrowing and life altering ordeal as slaves.28 This is important because we want a truthful history. History gives us a perspective, that how we exist and the decisions which we would undertake, are not the only possibilities. That, indeed, the writing and the understanding of history has changed, and will most probably continue to change, and, this is good, as Brown mentioned, because, history " . . . is an argument and arguments present the opportunity for change." 29

25

26

Sassi, "The Two Princes of Calabar" (Lecture May 5,2010). Brown, "Microhistory and the Post-Modern Challenge," 18. 27 Ibid., 9-10. 28 Sassi, Significances in Two Princes of Calabar (Lecture April 28, 2010). 29 Arnold, History A Very Short Introduction, 122.