A Troublesome Property By Kenneth Stampp

During the Civil War of the 1860s, the states were divided over the issue of slavery, and justly so—slaves were becoming more and more of an issue over the years. According to slave-owners, part of the issue was slave resistance. In A Troublesome Property, Kenneth Stampp analyzes the relationship between slaves and their masters, and the slaves’ responses to their servitude. He begins by noting that pro-slavery individuals argued that slaves were “content with servitude” and were “cheerful…because they were treated with kindness” (53). However, slaves regularly displayed their discontent with instances of day-to-day resistance. If this wasn’t enough, slaves would resist in more threatening and dangerous ways. The most desperate would conduct

more violence acts and participate in insurrections—which transformed the issue into a social problem. Ultimately, Stampp argues that by being “troublesome” slaves highlighted their discontent— their longing for freedom—and its abundance thrust slavery into the limelight and forced the nation to respond.
Noncooperation and day-to-day resistance was commonplace within plantations as slaves yearned for freedom and illustrated their distaste for their situations.

This happened because slaves understood that “bondage as a labor system had its limitations” (56). Slaves could feel satisfaction in not doing their work properly. In order to do this, slaves often outwitted their masters, and relied on slaveholders to “underrate their intelligence.” (57). One example of this is how big and muscular slaves wouldn’t work their hardest in front of overseers because that would be expected everyday (58). Additionally, slaves would do careless work and damage property. Slaves, with a disease coined rascality, would “destroy or waste everything they touched, abuse livestock, and injure crops” (58). Slave-owners would often be tricked by “ingenious subterfuge,” as slaves often feigned being sick or disabled (59). Women, for example, would often fake pregnancies, and other slaves would fake health problems such as rheumatisms, paralysis, and even blindness in cunning ways (59). Thus, the majority of slaves conducted this day-to-day resistance in order to express their contempt and desire for freedom, while not risking their lives in more dangerous forms of resistance

(60).
The more desperate slaves resorted to more serious forms of resistance, which highlighted their discontent and increased concerns surrounding the issue.

Running away was a popular form of resistance because slaves understood their situation, and knew that freedom could provide them with a better life. Because run-away slaves hurt production and profits, many slaveholders took precautions to prevent it. In fact, many slaveholders submitted advertisements for fugitives on newspapers (60). This behavior caused social ripples as it was labeled as a disease named Drapetomania (60). Oftentimes, those who didn’t run away formulated “legal and moral codes of their own” that reflected the sentiments of slaves. Because the pursuit for freedom was respected, many slaves, for example, would never betray one another (61). Even these rules and codes revolved around acts of resistance. Theft became extremely popular within plantations, as slaves “would take anything that was not under lock and key” (61). Politically, this caused immense legal trouble for courts as they were responsible for prosecutions involving theft (62). The prevalence of theft was a clear sign that slaves were unhappy with their standard of living (62). Slaves also committed crimes like arson and self-harm to “even the score with their master” (62). These more risky acts of resistance highlighted the discontent of slaves, and began shifting the issue into more of a social problem that could affect towns, not only

plantations.
In some cases, these acts of resistance transformed into utter acts of violence and insurrection—which caused societal panics, and set the stage for the future. Many run-away slaves resisted capture at any cost, and many committed suicide to prevent this (63). It’s clear that slaves understood the consequences of getting caught, and didn’t want to return to their life on plantations. To many, the life on plantations only equated to work, punishment, and death. In fact, slaves felt most provoked when masters threatened to work or punish them severely. One group of slaves killed their overseer because he was “was too hard on them” (64). Thus, Ante-bellum records documented numerous acts of violence upon masters, overseers, and other whites (63). Because any competition between a master and a slave was often “fought out to a final settlement,” this violence often escalated into full-scale insurrections (64). Numerous insurrections took place at the advent of the 19th century, including the Gabriel Conspiracy, which involved at least a thousand slaves (66). In 1831, however, an insurrection led by Nat Turner shocked the south, as more than 60 whites were killed. This created an insurrection panic that “swept through the entire South” (65). In 1856 and 1860, the “most acute and widespread” panics took place due to the Turner rebellion. A multitude of states began panicking, spreading rumors, and cracking down on rebellion (67). This rise of violence and rebellion caused widespread panic and funneled the conflict towards the national stage.
Through day-to-day rebellion and more intense violence, slaves demonstrated their discontent with servitude and caused widespread panic—causing eventual social change. A big problem with slavery was the rationale of masters: most masters believed that slaves “accepted bondage as their natural condition” (54). However, most slaves participated in day-to-day resistance in order to illustrate their discontent with their situation. Additionally, many slaves were actively violent and participated in insurrections—which transformed slavery into a social and political issue. Through all of this resistance, it’s clear that slaves weren’t “content with their situation,” and thus, virtually every slave yearned for more (53). Soon, however, slaves realized that they couldn’t win freedom by themselves; they would face a “united white community” even if they rebelled. Thus, Stampp hints that slaves would need “the aid of free men inside or outside the South”—something that would happen during the Civil War (68).