United States History - African American History, African American History, United States History - Southern Region, Social Sciences - General & Miscellaneous, Ethnic & Race Relations, United States Studies

Bond of Iron

Name: Bond of Iron
Author: C Dew
ISBN: 9780393036169

by C Dew

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Overview

The records dealing with the Buffalo Forge slaves are unique in their completeness; never before have details of this life in the American South been so rich, so exacting, and so accessible to historian and general reader alike. Historian Charles Dew's exhaustive study of the Buffalo Forge asks - to use Charles Joyner's wonderful phrase - "large questions in small places"; he describes what working and living conditions were like for the slave artisans and their families, traces patterns of accommodation and resistance, and elucidates the complex interaction between white and black that constituted the inner core of the master-slave relationship. Buffalo Forge was an extensive ironmaking and farming enterprise located approximately nine miles southeast of Lexington in the Valley of Virginia. This property was developed in the antebellum period by two men: William Weaver, a Pennsylvania entrepreneur who made his initial investment at Buffalo Forge during the War of 1812, and Daniel C. E. Brady, another Pennsylvanian and a relative of Weaver's whom Weaver brought down to the valley during the 1850s to assist him in managing the Buffalo Forge operations. By the time of the Civil War, Weaver had amassed an extraordinary estate which included a force of seventy owned slaves plus an additional force of as many as one hundred slaves hired annually, whom he employed in both iron-manufacturing and agricultural tasks. During the antebellum years, he operated two charcoal-fired blast furnaces and two well-equipped forges for the production of bar iron, and held over 20,000 acres of land scattered across three counties in the Valley. Almost every job on the Buffalo Forge property, from the most highly skilled to the most ordinary, was performed by slave labor. The story of William Weaver's slaves is told through slave birth, illness, and death records kept assiduously by Weaver and later by Brady. The fortuitous survival of these documents is an invaluable addition to the

About the Author, C Dew

Charles B. Dew is Class of 1956 Professor of American Studies at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This is an original, unusually detailed contribution to the study of slavery. Dew, who teaches American Studies at Williams College, draws on extensive records to portray the slave system at an ironworks near Lexington, Va., in the decades preceding the Civil War. He begins with owner William Weaver, who purchased Buffalo Forge in 1814; born in 1781 to a German Baptist family opposing slavery, Weaver nevertheless found slaves far more productive than white laborers. Recognizing that slaves could sabotage his business, he controlled them not through threats but through rewards, paying for their ``overwork'' at a rate artisans earned. Another example Dew provides of this ``complex give-and-take'' between slaves and master is how Weaver gave a valuable slave he proposed to buy the right to veto his own sale. Dew closely reconstructs the texture of slave life at Buffalo Forge, which provided, after the Civil War, some of the few work opportunities for freedmen. Certain details may interest historians more than general readers, but Dew makes accessible to all the essential dignity of the slaves he studies here. Photos not seen by PW. (May)

Library Journal

Dew (history, Williams Coll.) reveals fascinating details of an unusual master-slave relationship. Buffalo Forge, near Lexington, Virginia, was a thriving enterprise from 1812 to the Civil War. Owners William Weaver and his nephew-in-law Daniel Brady kept meticulous personal records that illuminate the lives of Sam Williams, Tooler, Henry Towles, Harry Hunt, and Garland Thompson and their families, skilled artisans and slaves. Weaver cannily permitted his slaves to ``overwork'' to earn money and credit to purchase luxuries like white flour, sugar, store-bought furniture, and clothing, thus motivating his workers while helping them transcend their status as slaves. Fortuitously, Dew was able to locate both written records of Buffalo Forge and oral narratives of descendants of Brady and Thompson. He skillfully weaves historical minutiae into a lucid and seamless narrative. Recommended for regional history collections, informed lay readers, and scholars in the field.-- Jamie S. Hansen, Univ. of South Carolina, Columbia

Booknews

Dew (history, Williams College) describes working and living conditions for slave families at the Buffalo Forge, an ironmaking and farming enterprise in Virginia. He traces patterns of accommodation and resistance, and elucidates the interaction between white and black that constituted the master-slave relationship. Dew draws on detailed records kept by the forge's owners describing epidemics, industrial accidents, slave genealogies and slave-naming practices; records from the Freedman's Bureau Marriage Register; and a three-volume journal kept by one of the Forge's owners. Includes a few b&w photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Los Angeles Times

Brings to touching, disturbing light aspects of the complex economic and emotional relationships that existed between slave and master.— Michael Dorris