The Backside of Slavery

A famous image used to portray the brutality of slavery in textbooks, documentaries, and other media is of a runaway slave commonly referred to as “Peter” or “Gordon.” This image, of a former slave with a lacerated back, is then depicted as giving the standard treatment of slaves, who, we are told, often faced a gruesome whipping for misbehavior. However, there is more to the story.



The University of Edinburgh published an article in Edinburgh Research Explorer titled “‘A Typical Negro’: Gordon, Peter, Vincent Colyer, and the Story Behind Slavery’s Most Famous Photograph” by David Silkenat. The author writes that the story behind the image “was largely fabricated and much of what we think we know about ‘Gordon’ may be inaccurate.”


The familiar context of the image leaves one to imagine that the plight this slave was in, and endured, was normal, typical of the South. The truth of the matter is that laws were in place to prevent harsh punishment and to protect slaves equally to free whites. And whipping was far less common than generally believed.[1] For example, in their attempts to make slavery seem far worse and harsher than what really existed, Silkenat asks, why are there not far more images of such treatment? The abolitionists loved this image and did everything they could to reprint it, copy it, and proclaim it to the world. Why would they need to if this were the typical slave treatment? They should have hundreds, thousands of such images to spread. Why only a few? Instead of proving the harsh treatment of the millions of enslaved Southern blacks, they depict only the mistreatment of one. Their argument somewhat proves the opposite of what they desired, that the mistreated slaves were rare. The absence of evidence in this case is, if not itself evidence, at least indicative.


This image and accompanying article in Harper’s Weekly appeared at a low point for the Union, after Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. Many believed the North could not defeat Lee and the war would drag for many more years. Most did not desire such a thing. Further, Silkenat wrote, “The Emancipation Proclamation, only months old, remained deeply unpopular among major segments of the Northern populace. So too was conscription, with the first Federal draft of soldiers into the Union army scheduled for July 1863.” It appears, then, that the image was published as a tool to drive Union support against the South. Later in the article, he says “Although the image may have played a powerful role in persuading the Northern public about the merits of emancipation and the enlistment of black soldiers, it did so at the expense of the individual experiences of the real Gordon and Peter.” In other words, it was intentionally misleading the public to garner support for continuing the war.


It is not, as is often portrayed, an example of White supremacy and the cruelty of a master to his slave. In fact, when the whipping of Peter occurred, the master was not even on the plantation! Like many drivers on the plantations that used the whip, (and many did not) those who used the whip on the plantation were more often other slaves, not White masters.


Often left out is that “Peter” was, by his own account, whipped severely as a punishment for attempting to kill other slaves, including his own wife (he said that he had no recollection of doing any of this, but had been told by others that it happened). He was possibly guilty, then, of multiple accounts of attempted murder.[2] And when the master returned to the plantation, he immediately dismissed the overseer from his position upon seeing the excessive nature of the whipping, implemented as a punishment for his crimes. So it was the result of one slave implementing punishment on another for a crime done, or attempted, against other slaves. The slave used excessive punishment on the other. The only time a White individual interfered was the master, who removed the driver for excessive abuse.


In modern times, we would place a man accused in the same way as Peter/Gordon in prison, or perhaps a mental institution, where he could face even harsher treatment than a whip, and would have still less freedom than a typical Southern slave enjoyed. One can look up endless images of brutality in prison, police brutality, in the military, in schools, and much more. Why do we not condemn all such institutions like we do slave owners and slavery? Why do we not carry our all-encompassing prejudice against Southerners due to one example and apply it to the above groups and situations? It's because we know you cannot take one example and apply it to a whole group of people or an institution. Yet it seems we forget this principle when it can be applied to Southern Whites.


Further, many in the Northern press pointed out that worse had been done to pro-South or anti-war “copperheads” in the North, including women. The Boston Courier asked to have the images of this mistreated slave published side by side with those of a woman who was brutalized for having Southern sympathies, to see who received the worse treatment. Of course, this never occurred, as it would have been inconvenient for the desired narrative.


Bad things happen in all societies, and the pre-Civil War South was certainly no exception. But we should not use one iconic image of somewhat uncertain provenance to demonize an entire society and everyone in it. It happened then, as the result of a directed propaganda effort, but there is no reason to let it continue today.

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NOTES

[1] See Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974), a quantitative study of slavery by the economists Robert Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman.
[2] Though it should be added that according to him his wife denied the truth of the story.