M&D: book review re antebellum slavery

[pynchonoid]

Susan M. Ryan. The Grammar of Good Intentions: Race
and the Antebellum Culture of Benevolence. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2003. xii + 235 pp.
Illustrations, notes, index. $42.50 (cloth), ISBN
0-8014-3955-8.

Reviewed by A. James Fuller, Department of History,
University of Indianapolis.
Published by H-CivWar (April, 2004

[...] Her last chapter and epilogue are the most
interesting parts of Ryan's
book.  The final chapter, "Save Us From Our Friends,"
is dedicated to free
African Americans' views on benevolence.  Here we find
more analysis of a
theme that is a touchstone throughout the volume:  the
impact of
benevolence on those who receive it.  Ryan argues that
free blacks were
also conflicted over "the theory and practice of
benevolence" and engaged
in a heated conversation about it (p. 164).  Some were
grateful for white
help, but argued that justice would serve African
Americans better than
charity.  Others pushed for intraracial aid that would
allow blacks to
help blacks.  Most free African Americans supported
some sort of
benevolence as an ideal, but "rejected its
infantilizing or coercive
elements" (p. 164).  From this debate within the free
black community came
arguments over how to proceed--should African
Americans work for good in
the United States or should they try to establish
separate communities
elsewhere?  This issue brought forward ideas that had
been proposed in
regard to colonization and foreshadowed later "Back to
Africa" movements,
but most writers in the free black community wanted
African Americans to
remain in the United States and work for change as
citizens.  In her
epilogue, Ryan links her reading of antebellum
benevolence to contemporary
debates over welfare, compassionate conservatism, and
going to war in the
name of doing good.  This serves as a timely reminder
that studying the
past informs the present and that the complexity of
our national identity
is not a new problem. [...] 

http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=284101086613013


	
		
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