The Peculiar Institution is a euphemism for slavery in the United States. It is also the title of a renowned book about slavery published in 1956 by academic Kenneth M. Stampp of the University of California, Berkeley and other universities.
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South describes and analyzes all facets of slavery in the south, from the 1600s through the mid-19th century, including demographics, lives of slaves and s...
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The Peculiar Institution is a euphemism for slavery in the United States. It is also the title of a renowned book about slavery published in 1956 by academic Kenneth M. Stampp of the University of California, Berkeley and other universities.
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South describes and analyzes all facets of slavery in the south, from the 1600s through the mid-19th century, including demographics, lives of slaves and slaveholders, the southern economy and labor systems, the northern and abolitionist response, slave trading, and political issues of the time. An interesting element of the book is how Stampp analyzes the standard view of historians such as Ulrich Phillips that many southern slave owners were very kind to their slaves, and provided well for them. It was not wholly unknown for some slaves to have lives as good as or better than poor northern workers. However, Stampp examines this issue mostly to show how in fact slaveowners used this behavior as...
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