Review of Soul by Soul essays

Review of Soul by Soul essays Using evidence and information obtained through slave narratives and slave- holders' letters, Walter Johnson, in the book Soul by Soul depicts life inside the Antebellum slave market. Digging deep into the roots, the meaning, and impact of the slave market, one is brought to realize exactly how the system of slavery effected the history of America. Walter Johnson portrays the slave market through different power relationships existing within the slave market. Slave buyers, slave traders, and slaves, through a need and want to control their own future for the better of themselves, shaped the Antebellum Slave Trade. As a result through mental and physical influence they were able to manipulate one another. As these points are shown throughout the book, Walter Johnson makes it evident that this "event" had a great impact on the shaping of America in this time period (aprox. Between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War). These three main influences (slaves, traders, and buyers) were carefully intertwined amongst each other in a complicated chain, which could be clearly stated as irrational minded. As buyers and traders constantly were setting traps for other unknowingly: "Traders found themselves caught in the trap they had set for buyers: unable to trust the slaves but uncertain about dismissing their answers" (Soul by Soul 180). Walter Johnson opens the book explaining the Chattel Principle, which describes the treatment of slaves as property: "slave's identity might be disrupted as easily as a price could be set and a piece of paper passed from one hand to another" (Soul by Soul 19). This Chattel Principle plummets deep within the relationship between slaves and the non-slaves as a relationship between a powerful race and a race who is treated as a piece of property. Although this relationship is quite broad at this point in the book, one is introduced to a bigger underlying idea that lay in the back of the people's mi...