Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion (Norton Library) | 
 enlarge | Author: Peter H. Wood
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 42303
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 346
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0393314820
Dewey Decimal Number: 975.702
EAN: 9780393314823
ASIN: 0393314820
Publication Date: April 1996
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 Excellent History of Africans in South Carolina February 13, 2008
If you have an interest in the history of Africans in America, specially in South Carolina, this is book will be right up your alley. I did not not detect any bias or underhandedness. It is an educational and enlightening read.
If you are a history buff, please pick up this book.
African-American History done well November 1, 2006
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Peter H. Wood did a thoroughly researched well written history of African-Americans in South Carolina from 1670 to the Stono Rebellion. I am African-American and read this book for the first time in college; it was assigned to me by a terrific professor, (Thomas R. Hietala). I came to that class with my own concept of what slavery was and what it meant; this book totally challenged me to question my perceptions of slavery. I believed the stereotypic view that Africans were brought here and taught skills here and picked cotton and it was all misery and this book and others he assigned showed me how our modern vision of slavery is very shallow.
This book focuses on the rice growing region of South Carolina and it shows how slavers concentrated on capturing Africans from the rice coast because of their agricultural knowledge and skills; he shed a light on who these African people were before slavery. It explores how the cash crop in South Carolina came to be rice. How South Carolina was established as a colony of Barbados and the slave owners in South Carolina were formerly working class overseers who worked for the royal owners of Sugar Plantations in Barbados and later became land and slave owners in South Carolina; in both places (Barbados and South Carolina) the populations became Black majorities.
It also shows how slavery system in South Carolina evolved for the enslaved from something that was oppressive and informal into something brutal, permanent and hopeless. The evolution of slavery also changed the owners as they became a numerical minority the also became increasingly paranoid, determined to establish brutal absolute authority over the slaves and blinded by their own propaganda.
It seems even more astonishing they began to believe that Africans were better off and happy under a system that enslaved them. The most powerful thing Professor Hietala ever said in our class was "Never forget that slaves always wanted ownership of their own bodies and the power to direct their own lives and destinies; nothing was more important."
At times I think historians forget this when writing about African-American slaves. Wood understands this and he also shows respect for how enslaved Africans not only yearned for their freedom but how they planned and took risks for their freedom. He explores in depth the complexity and challenges of their struggle in choosing to look at the Stono Rebellion and the events that lead up to this big risk.
The story Wood tells begins with the history of these two communities (Barbados overseers who become South Carolina planters and enslaved Africans) continues with the development of the system of slavery in South Carolina and climaxes at the Stono Rebellion. The most fascinating thing about this act of Resistance is how close they came to success. When reading it for the first time I found myself saddened that they did not succeed because their success could have rewritten African-American History by altering the issues that sparked the Civil War and subsequent events; Reconstruction, Jim-Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. In essence their success could have changed my history and had far reaching implications with respect to who I am.
I think it is worth reading because of the history it explores and because Wood is an excellent researcher and writer. He not only uncovers the history but he exposes readers to the lives of enslaved Africans in a new way by portraying them as whole human beings who had a life before slavery. He treats with respect their existence and culture in Africa and acknowledges how it (African culture) influenced the economy and agriculture of South Carolina and by inference the South. It is a brilliant well researched and written work, as a student I came to appreciate that brilliant scholars were not always brilliant writers, Wood excels at both. I recommend it highly to any one interested in learning more about African-American history.
 Well written....kind of slow February 21, 2005
4 out of 12 found this review helpful
Black mojority is a momagram written to examinne the life of an african american in carolina during the colonial era. While it is very thourough in ts analysis of the slaves role and growth durning this time, it moves very slowly. I was assigned to read this book for a history course i was taking in college, so this wasn't a book i would noramlly pick up and read. I did find that i learned may things i did not know about this time and slaves. I found it all very facinating. this is a great book to read if you plan to major in history. It is thorough and well put together, all in all a great book to learn and grow from.
 Good Study of Africans in 18th Century South Carolina March 11, 2003
9 out of 18 found this review helpful
Peter Wood presents a very thorough account of Africans in South Carolina in the 1700s. From the first Africans to arrive on a Spanish expedition in 1526 and the African migrants arriving from Barbados in 1670 to the social tensions of the 1700s, Wood covers such topics as cattle raising, rice cultivation, disease, family life, religion, Black English, growing anxieties between whites and blacks, and the Stono Rebellion in 1739. Blacks became the majority population in South Carolina by the early 1700s. They were brought in as laborers and were immune to many lowland diseases that led to the higher mortality and morbidity rate among European settlers. Interestingly, the sickle cell trait heightened Africans' resistance to malaria. What I gathered from this work is that, while Africans were enslaved by the whites, Africans shaped South Carolina more than any other group through such things as their knowledge of cattle grazing, rice planting and cleaning, etc. Interesting book but, due to the narrowness of the study, I would only recommend it to those interested in black history or South Carolina.
Excellent Overview November 16, 2001
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
This study of slavery in early SC is well researched and well written, a social history told in narrative style with a clearly defined chronological structure. Makes a great companion to Philip Morgan's Slave Counterpoint.
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