Jacobs, John Swanson. The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography by John Swanson Jacobs published by University of Chicago Press (2024).
This is a previously published account of slavery from an escaped enslaved American, that, after 1870, was largely forgotten. It was rediscovered in the 21st Century by Jonathan Schroeder. When the book was republished several months ago, it attracted a lot of attention because its author, John Jacobs, was the brother of the author of one of the most famous slaver narrative writers Harriet Jacobs. I recently read this new release and found it fascinating.
The book itself starts with a long introduction by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder who reflects on why this book is different from other slave narrative. Books of this nature coming out in the 1840s and 1850s focused on the torture of Blacks. In John Jacobs book he focuses less on his pain, or the pain of other slaves, and more on the white men who inflicted the torture on African Americans. These could be Carolina slave owners who had their slaves beaten or who broke up families, but it could also include both Northern and Southern politicians who fostered compromises that prolonged slavery like John Calhoun, Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, and Daniel Webster. According to Schroeder:
“[Jacobs] challenges readers to form not a sentimental relationship that focuses on the pain of the enslaved but a revolutionary one that traces bodily and psychic pain to its sources: the master and the state.”
The evolution of the book is treated next with a note by Jacobs’s Australian publisher. Jacobs was a sailor after he escaped from slavery and he sailed around the world before the Civil War. The tale told by the publisher is presented here:
“About a month ago, a respectably dressed man came into the Editor’s room in The Empire Office, and, after a modestly expressed apology, begged to be informed where he could obtain the loan of Hildreth’s History of the United States, and a correct copy of the American Constitution, stating that he had endeavoured to purchase them at the booksellers, but had not succeeded in his enquiries.fn2 The novelty of the application at once awakened some curiosity; and the person before us had sufficient in his manner and appearance to deepen that feeling into one of abiding interest. He was a “man of colour,” whose complexion would be hardly noticeable among the average specimens of the English face, about thirty-five or forty years of age, with bright intelligent eyes, a gentle firm voice, and a style of speech decidedly American. In answer to some interrogatories which the occasion suggested, he said briefly, that he was engaged in writing out his experiences of American slavery, and wanted the books in question for reference, and was prepared to deposit a sum of money in excess of their value with any one who would lend them to him. Hildreth’s History, and the last edition of the United States’ Constitution authorised by Congress, happened to be among our own office books, and they were supplied to our new acquaintance, he, on his own proposition, depositing in the hands of our office porter a bank note for £10 as security for their due return.fn3 A fortnight afterwards, the Fugitive Slave—for such he had acknowledged himself to be—again presented himself at our office to return the books; and at the same time he produced, and left in our hands the following written narrative.”
The “written narrative” was published in the Australian newspapers with minimal edits. Unlike other slave narratives, it was not remade by white American Abolitionists, but was Jacobs’s own words with his own conclusions.
In his account of his life, Jacobs looks at his and his father’s life as a man and says “To be a man and not to be—a father without authority—a husband and no protector—” and reflects on its impact on Black men under slavery. This powerlessness has a profound effect on enslaved men. Jacobs writes that “he owns nothing—he can claim nothing. His wife is not his—his children are not his; they can be taken from him, and sold at any minute, as far as the fleshmonger may see fit to carry them. Slaves are recognised as property by the law and can own nothing except at the consent of their masters.” A Black man can be compelled to torture his family and to refuse to do that is met with death, Jacobs says.
As a boy, Jacobs would first answer his master’s call rather than his father’s. While the Bible teaches us to “honor your father and your mother,” the slave laws tell Black children to honor their masters and the masters’ wives before all others. Jacobs contradicts those slave masters who credit themselves for “Christianizing” the African races, saying:
“It is unlawful for any one to teach…[the slave]…the alphabet, to give, sell, or lend him a Bible; yet they profess to be Christians they have churches, Bible and Tract Societies. They steal infants from their mothers to buy Bibles to send to heathens, and flog women to unpaid toil, to support their churches. This is what they do for the glory of God and the good of souls.”
Jacobs wonders about the “Christianity” of white slave owners who see their own children into slavery. Nowhere in the Bible is there permission for a father to sell his own children into slavery, yet in the United States “thousands” of Christian white men had done exactly that.
In the North, while Blacks are not held as slaves, Jacobs says that he was taxed to support the “public” school, yet he could not vote in the school board elections, serve on the school board, nor could even send his children to the “public” school. While the Northern Black is entitled to the fruits of his labor, in many other aspects of life he is made feel apart from the white society and purposely excluded.
Jacobs next writes about the abuse heaped on his family as punishment for his sister Harriet running away to escape sexual abuse. After this, he recounts his experiences under a “good master” named Sawyer. Jacobs says that “I am willing to acknowledge kindness even in a slaveholder wherever I have seen it.” However, even with a slave master restrained by ethical considerations, the demands of a slave system led Sawyer to exploit those he owned.
In the last section of Jacobs’s book, the author takes apart the slave laws and the politicians who ensured the spread of slavery. These were not just a product of the politicians coming from the South. Jacobs writes: “Henry Clay…At least, he has said as much against slavery and done as little for liberty as any man.” It was not just the partisans of the South that kept Blacks in bondage. Border State and Northern men cooperated with the slaveholders to render Blacks non-persons. Slaveholders, by themselves, could not have enacted the laws that kept slavery alive. As Jacobs says: “There are the laws of the United States, forbidding the nation to do a single act of humanity toward the most helpless and most needy known to man…”
At the end of the book is a detailed biography of Jacobs written by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder. This explores his origins in the South, his relations with his family, and his life after escaping from slavery. Schroeder gives well-founded suggestions about why the book was written and why it is important for students of the period to read.
I was really taken in by Jacobs’s writing not just on his own experiences, but also on the developing racism in America during the 19th Century and of white Americans’ support for their racial supremacy. For someone denied basic education who was either a slave or on the run up until the Civil War, the book shows a lot of consideration of American politics and law that very few white Americans of that time would have been aware of.
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