Historian Eugene Genovese, 1930-2012

It was reported this weekend that Eugene D. Genovese, Bancroft Prize-winning historian of slavery and the American South, has died at the age of 82.

Genovese was especially well known for his views on slavery in the antebellum South. In books such as Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1975), he redefined master-slave relations, arguing that southern slavery was fundamentally paternalistic.

This system of paternalism allowed masters to profit from slave labor, while slaves, Genovese argued, were able to pursue their humanity through a series of practical compromises with masters, mutual support, and inner strength.

While Edward Ayers praised Roll, Jordan, Roll as “the best book ever written about American slavery,” other historians believe Genovese minimized the horrors and brutality of slavery. Eric Foner, for instance, has argued that “paternalism” hardly seems an appropriate term to apply to chattel slavery, since parents generally do not buy and sell their children.

Genovese always claimed that he was not looking to justify slavery. His work also offered a strong defense of the American South, praising its values and culture as in many ways superior to the North’s.