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Honor and Slavery talks about the relationship between men of honor and slaves in the antebellum south. In the antebellum south honor was extremely important to men. A man that was not considered honorable was a disgrace. Honor had a lot to do with masculinity. Men proved their masculinity by showing they were honorable gentlemen. There was a number of ways men showed they were honorable. Whether it was through duels, gifts, or how they faced death. There were also ways men could be shown to not be honorable. These included being shown to be a liar, getting your nose pulled, or dressing as a woman. Slaves didnt have the choice. The white men in the south automatically considered them not to be honorable. In the antebellum south honor was an important thing to have among white men and something that slaves could not earn. Honor was one of those most important things in the south. No man would ever want his honored questioned. Honor defined a man as trustworthy and as a true gentlemen. There were numerous occasions in the south when a mans honor came was questioned. One incident when honor was more of a problem than science itself was the case of the feeje mermaid. When the feeje mermaid was discovered there was a dispute of whether or not it was real. The dispute occurred between Bachman and Richard Yeadon. Bachman concluded that the mermaid was a fake but his report was refused to be published by the Courier which was run by Yeadon. Yeadon said that he saw no seam to conclude that the two animals were sewn together. In the end the feeje mermaid hardly ended up being argued about. Instead the main argument was if Bachman had been treated with respect by the courier and if Yeadons observation of seeing no seam was treated with respect by scientist. The concern for these men was having their names and words treated with respect. Their honor was in Jeopardy. This is an example of how important honor

1. The Alabama Slave Code of 1852: Slave Patrols,James A. Henretta,Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self, Alabama 1852, Page 285-287. 2. Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor & Slavery (Princeton, 1996)

was in the antebellum south. On page 25 there is another example of how honor was conceived. Greenburg writes, The difference between having and not having honor was the difference between having and not having power. The man of honor was the man who had the power to prevent his being unmasked. Anyone could unmask the dishonored. For those who aspired to honor, what you wore mattered less than whether or not you could and would risk your life to repel any man who tried to remove what you wore.(Greenburg,25) Honor in the antebellum south could be defined as one word, Power. In the antebellum south no slave could be honorable. The white man was the only one that could be considered a man of honor. There are plenty examples of this in Greenbergs book. On page 11 Greenburg writes Masters and potential masters distinguished themselves from slaves in many ways but one of the most important distinctions involved the issue of lying. The words of the master had to be accorded respect and accepted as true simply because they were the words of a man of honor. The words of the slave could never become the objects of honor. Whites assumed that slaves lied all the time and that their lies were intimately connected to their position as slaves. This is a perfect example of how the honorable men in the south viewed slaves. At masmasquerade balls the powerful masters were the only ones who felt strong enough to unmask the slaves. If a slave were to attempt to unmask one of their masters there would be immediate retaliation. One of the common occurrences with men of honor was a duel. Duels occurred when men of honor needed to settle an argument. The feeje mermaid dispute represented a duel very well. The conflict started with insulting words or actions. Next both sides of the duels would tell the other how they had been socially offended. Next in the case of the feeje mermaid another

1. The Alabama Slave Code of 1852: Slave Patrols,James A. Henretta,Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self, Alabama 1852, Page 285-287. 2. Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor & Slavery (Princeton, 1996)

party intervened to bring a reconciliation where each party explained his language and acknowledged the equality with the other. The next step was for both sides to express what they considered an insult. In almost every ordeal like this, at least one of the parties would be accused of lying. Being accused of lying was considered the greatest insult to honorable gentlemen. When cases of dueling got violent, the two men would shoot at each other to settle the dispute. A perfect example of this, described by Greenberg, is the duel between Clay and Randolph. The tension between the two men started in 1812 when they were both part of the House of Representatives. Clay had humiliated Randolph in the House of Representatives during a regular procedure. Clay was being ridiculed for his support of John Quincy Adams. He issued a challenge to fight a duel with any House of Representative member who would acknowledge authorship of an article written about him. One man stepped forward but this man was of low status so Clay knew dueling him wouldnt fix his reputation When Adams sent a response to a topic in the Senate, Randolph found it insulting. This caused him to have and outburst delivering vicious attacks on the president including the secretary of state, Clay. Although Clay was not present at the meeting he was soon told that Randolph had called him a blackleg and accused him of forgery. Clay asked General Thomas Sidney Jesup to deliver a challenge note to Randolph. Randolph had the privilege not to be held accountable for his words in a debate since he was a senator. He did not see this as honorable and refused the right. Since Randolph saw Clay as an equal and knew he had a wife and young children he stated that at the duel he would not return fire at Clay. After debates and other events they finally met at the dueling ground.

1. The Alabama Slave Code of 1852: Slave Patrols,James A. Henretta,Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self, Alabama 1852, Page 285-287. 2. Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor & Slavery (Princeton, 1996)

Before the duel there was an incident in which both men showed they were honorable gentlemen and had equal respect for each other. Randolphs gun had been secretly changed to a hair trigger. This caused him to fire his weapon accidentally before the duel started. He immediately stated that he had refused the hair trigger. Clay then said that it was clearly and accident. Randolph saw this as Clay giving him a gift and this was one of the reasons he changed his mind about not firing at Clay. When the duel started both men missed their first shots. After this Randolph changed his mind about firing at Clay. When Clays second shot missed Randolph fired his gun in the air and said, I will not fire at you Mr. Clay. Both men then walked forward and shook hands. After this social relations were restored. The duel had healed their wounds. This example shows how southern men of honor acted and solved their disputes. Although southern men of honor were able to participate in duels, slaves were not. Since slaves werent seen as equals they could never officially partake in a duel In the Henretta documents examples of slaves not having what white gentlemen called honor are displayed. In the document 12-10, A Slave Named Ben, there is an example of how slaves werent treated like equal, or with honor. In this document a slave with the name Ben refused to be whipped. So when his master was about to whip him when he didnt do anything wrong he rebelled. He beat his master almost to death. Weeks later after returning from running away a group of five men entered and took him to a place of torture. He was whipped continuously. For five weeks afterward he could barely move. Another document in the Henretta book that displays how slaves and men of honor were separate is 12-1. In this document slaves patrols are explained. This document says The patrol has power to enter in a peaceable manner upon any plantation; to enter by force if necessary, all

1. The Alabama Slave Code of 1852: Slave Patrols,James A. Henretta,Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self, Alabama 1852, Page 285-287. 2. Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor & Slavery (Princeton, 1996)

negro cabins, or quarters and to apprehend all slaves who may there be found not belonging to the plantation without a pass from their owner. The patrol has the power to punish slaves found under circumstances recited in the preceding section by lashes, not exceeding thirtynine.(Henretta, 285) In the antebellum south slaves could not be honorable. Even though they could act honorable which was displayed in Greenbergs book, they could never be considered honorable. Men of Honor in the antebellum south acted in certain ways that they believed slaves never could. Whether it was through duels, lying, or death white men displayed their honor in different ways.

1. The Alabama Slave Code of 1852: Slave Patrols,James A. Henretta,Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self, Alabama 1852, Page 285-287. 2. Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor & Slavery (Princeton, 1996)