Summary Of Roll Jordan Roll The Slaves Made

The nonfiction book Roll Jordan, Roll the World the Slaves Made by Eugene Genovese is a well written book about the interactions between slaves and their masters. Early in the book the readers can see his love for Marxism. This is because throughout the book he never writes about race conflicts but rather class conflicts. I felt that talking about class helps the readers understand the reading better. I say this because in modern day majority of people think slavery existed because slaveholders were racist and hated black people. However, that wasn’t the full story on why slavery existed and I think this book explains in detail what slavery really wast. I really liked his main idea of the slaves trying to find themselves as human beings. “And …show more content…
I say this because the slaves don’t have a religion. The only religion they know is the ones their masters installed in their heads. Genovese says that “religion above all else allowed the slaves to develop a sense of worth in life”. When the slaves created their religion, it was unique to them because it went against the religion they were taught. Their new religion was like the African religion. In African religion, there isn’t any self-hatred or pessimism. African American religion embodied joy and rejected guilt. It was something to be proud of because it was unique to them and uplifted the slaves and gave them hope. Reading about religion in the book made me happy because the religion they created is the same religion I follow today. This could also be a life lesson. The lesson is even though you are in a system of hate do not retaliate the same but rather with joy and happiness because one day you will be free. So, without the slaves creating this unique religion who knows what African American cultural would look like …show more content…
This is because it shows up multiple times in the book. Genovese describes that paternalism meant different things to the masters and slaves. For the master’s paternalism “represented an attempt to overcome the fundamental contradiction in slavery” (5). The masters tried to use paternalism to justify slavery. For slaves’ paternalism allowed them to have a role in shaping southern cultural. However, it also had a consequence regarding black solidarity. “Paternalism created a tendency for the slaves to identify with a particular community through identification with its master… racism undermined the slaves sense of worth as black people and reinforced their dependence on white masters” (6). By far the most important sentence in the book. This is because by accepting paternalism, blacks legitimized their social order but also gained cultural strength to resist the cruel mix of racial and class oppression. The slaves used paternalism to get ahead in society because when they were looked at they were judged accordingly to their master rather than as individuals. So, this helped them feel accepted in